This is an escape — and it is not.
The ballpark can be sanctuary from the disturbances of the world — but sometimes the evil is just too much.
In talking to former Red Sox player Kevin Youkilis yesterday about the horror in Boston, I admitted I still don’t have the capability to understand how someone fills an explosive device with ball bearings not caring whom the shrapnel will shred when it blows.
So, yes, I was at a baseball game last night and thought it a fine touch by the Yankees to play the Fenway staple “Sweet Caroline” after the third inning of a win over the Diamondbacks. Just as I thought it big-picture-decent by stadiums all over the country to embrace the previously hated Yankees as America’s Team in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
But, again, some stuff feels too monstrous to shake. For me, father of 8-year-old twins, it feels unimaginable that an 8-year-old boy died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, when that wrong place was near the finish line to hug his father at the completion of a marathon.
It was more than even that, though. I have been in Boston several times for Marathon Monday to write columns on 11 a.m. Yankees-Red Sox games. I could only tell you how I have adored being in Boston on that specific day. Because Yankees-Red Sox at Fenway always feels special, but never more than when the whole city is alive, in holiday spirit, from morning to night.
So if you have never been in Boston on the third Monday in April, understand what these bombings came amidst — a daylong party, a kind of July 4 mixed with New Year’s Eve. This is what was shattered.
I love covering Yankees’ series in Boston. I stay in Copley Square and purposefully walk the 1 1/2 to 2 miles to Fenway. Boston is a baseball city. Even hours before a game, the tension, drama and passion are palpable, especially the closer you get to the park. The density of people increases and increases, and so does the smell, notably the waft of cooking sausage as you approach the yard.
The ambience is unique, special — a treasure. It is part of the show for me, always a great first act within The Rivalry.
This is all even better in April, when what is old is new again. Everything is tinged with the history of the past and the possibilities of the future. And the best April day for Yankees-Red Sox, if the baseball calendar works just right, is Marathon Monday in Boston.
The city is abuzz from daybreak. The streets are more alive than normal, especially if you get one of those sunny April days. There are so many colleges in the area, and kids descend into the heart of the city and mix with the residents and there is a swelling life that is an independent energy source.
And it grows all day. The first pitch is thrown at 11 a.m., and the stadium lets out about a mile from the finish line with plenty of racers still trying to complete the 26.2 miles. I have walked that end route so many times coming and going from Fenway, but there is nothing like walking it late that afternoon when I am finally done writing and the race is all but complete — save a straggler or two — and you feel like you have shown up at the tail end of the biggest party in the world.
That was what was fractured Monday — the biggest party in the world. And, of course, a further sense of safety and innocence.
I hope those damaged by this blast can heal and find solace, and those responsible are caught and feel the full of weight of our legal system crushing them.
But I have another hope, a personal one. I hope the Yankees are playing in Boston on the third Monday of April next year. And I am hoping the city — that robust city — has bounced back and, while being respectful in memory of the loss of life, is able to have that big party again and rekindle the wall-to-wall, dawn-to-dusk joy of that day.
The third Monday in April is Patriots Day to celebrate the battles of Lexington and Concord and the start of the Revolution. I hope the defiant spirit continues to thrive in Boston, demonstrating no deranged person or group can act so mercilessly as to extinguish a unified spirit.
Let’s hope the universal goodwill — don’t forget people from around the globe run the Marathon — is what wins this race against evil and on Patriots Day next year we all join in a resilient rendition of “Sweet Caroline” at Fenway as part of the biggest party in the world.
joel.sherman@nypost.com