I've been to many, many, places and seen many insane and cool things. I've seen court-side hottub seats for a basketball game- in the dead of an Alaskan winter. I've seen 76,000 Denver Bronco fans go insane over preseason football. I've worked on the field in Oakland right in front of "the black hole" and lived to tell about it.

None of that can compare to the sheer size and power of Red Sox Nation. In August 2004 (two months before the Curse of the Bambino was broken), I ventured to New England for the first time, and made it a point during my trip to see a Sox game at Fenway. Like football in Texas, and hockey in Canada, the true passion of New England is simply Red Sox baseball. Most people you meet are consumed by the Sox, and their pure hatred of the Yankees.

Being a West Coast guy, I can look at the East Coast rationally; not being wrapped up in traditional allegiances. With respect to Chicago, New York, St. Louis and every other baseball city, I can honestly say: forget it- these nutcases have you beat hands down. There was no group of fans who honestly deserve a championship more than these long-suffering Charlie Browns. If for no other reason, a world championship will finally make them happy and end all of this silly discussion about a curse.

Back to the Sox experience- first of all, tickets are the most impossible get. It was eBay time for the Sunday afternoon tilt when the Detroit Tigers were in town. Two extremely good seats went for $200 a pop- a little up there for my taste. So, I settled on a grandstand torture device that the Red Sox assured me was an actual seat in Fenway Park. They were perfectly fine, except when you needed the jaws of life to go to the men's room. That hurt a little, but the scars ended up healing nicely.

The feeling of my knees firmly jammed against the seat in front of me was nice. Do they not have building fire codes in Massachusetts? It was more uncomfortable than flying United Airlines in coach. With "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" as your in-flight movie. While sitting between Michael Moore and Bill O'Reilly. It was also a real bad day to test the West coast people with weather that even made the locals lament, "it's wicked humid out here".

Despite the conditions that Hannibal Lecter would find harsh, it was still one of the best pure baseball experiences. Fenway is a house that's buzzing, rocking the whole neighborhood the minute you get off of the "T" subway, pulsing with excitement. It's serious business, this Red Sox madness. The region is consumed by this team- it is a place where Gabe Kapler gets to yammer on Rock, not sports-talk, radio stations about which American League clubhouse has the best food.

When I lived in California, players in Oakland and San Francisco not named Bonds were basically in the witness protection program, but not in Boston. Everyone's a star here, a foot soldier in the war against the evil empire down in New York. 

The ceiling of the grandstand felt as if it was going to come crashing down in the fifth when trailing 1-0, and the bases jammed full of Red Sox, Manny Ramirez came to the plate to the bloodthirsty chant, "Man-ny! Man-ny!". In every other park, that chant is maybe less than half the fans, and usually only starts when the batter is in the box. Ramirez couldn't even escape the on-deck circle before the building shook with pure enthusiasm, with every last person in the park chanting along. No crazy walk-up music. No scoreboard telling the fans to cheer. Just knowledgeable, smart, dedicated, passionate fans. Nothing but pure baseball. 

Joe Gura writes for KSTW-TV in Seattle. All opinions expressed in this column are his.