

For Bob Lavey and the rest of the Diehards, the dream pilgrimage to Boston's Fenway Park began, curiously enough, last summer in San Francisco.



The Diehards -- Oregon's traveling troupe of devout Red Sox fans -- had caught up with the Bosox at AT&T Park last June when the Bay Area chill drove several of the oldtimers indoors.



They were watching the game on a ballpark TV when Jack Faust and Jim Larpenteur struck up a conversation with another Boston fan sitting beside them with his wife and daughters.



As Larpenteur recounted 30 years of rendezvousing with the Red Sox in the cathedrals of Cleveland, Anaheim and Baltimore, the guy asked if the Diehards ever made it back to Fenway.



Not all that often, said Larpenteur, an attorney at Schwabe Williamson: "You know how hard it is to get eight seats together?"





"Well," the guy said, "why don't you guys come back next year and sit in my box?"

"You're speaking," his wife said, "to John Henry."

, owner of the Red Sox.

"Call my secretary Monday," Henry said, "and she'll take care of you."

That she did. When Boston took the field last Wednesday night at Fenway, eight Diehards were in the owner's box, peering -- literally -- into the Red Sox dugout.

Faust and Larpenteur were there. So were Bob Ridgley, Bruce Samson, and Lavey, at 82 the senior member of the fraternity.

Lavey -- a legendary baseball coach in Raleigh Hills -- faced the

with two sacks of

.

He asked Red Sox manager Terry Francona to tell

and

that a band of Oregonians were on hand. "Yes, sir, I will," Francona replied.

And Lavey watched Boston win on a walk-off double in the bottom of the ninth.

It was a sweet moment in a seemingly endless love affair with baseball, and a memorable send-off. Two nights later, Lavey died, quickly and quietly, on the flight home from

.

The Alaska Airlines crew made an emergency landing Friday in Pasco, Wash., but it was too late for that. A cardiologist on board told Faust his long-time friend never knew what hit him.

"Knowing Bob, that's the way he would have scripted it," Faust said. "Surrounded by his friends. No pain, no suffering. It was a great party, and he never knew it ended."

For several generations of Little League and Babe Ruth players in Beaverton, Lavey was an enduring, cigar-chomping, old-school influence.

A Washington High graduate and member of the

, Lavey once played on a basketball all-star team that beat the

at the old Portland Armory. He helped his team win a district Babe Ruth baseball championship by calling the umpire's attention to a rare catcher's balk.

He signed on with the Diehards in the late '80s, several years before retiring as president of Northwest Wood Specialties. Attorney Jay Waldron organized that first Red Sox fan adventure in 1980. Over the last 25 years, Lavey often took one of his three sons -- Jeff, Greg and Dan -- along for the weekend with the Red Sox at the Kingdome, Tiger Stadium or Camden Yard.

Owing to the limits of the owners' box, only the eight Diehards with the most seniority headed for Fenway last week.

"We knew this would probably be Dad's last baseball trip," Dan Lavey said. "He's been slowing down; he turns 83 in June. But going to Fenway Park as a guest of the owner? When an opportunity like that comes along, what are you going to do?"

Make reservations for the

. Walk the

. Warm up all the old war stories.

Lavey and the Diehards were scheduled for Henry's box Tuesday, but when that game was rained out, the Red Sox owner treated them to dinner at

, then offered the group the same glorious seats for Wednesday night's game against Detroit.

Waldron had to return to Portland for closing arguments in a utilities' case, so his son, Shane, took his place in the box along with Lavey, Faust, Ridgley, Larpenteur, Samson, Don Holman and Leonard Girard.

"It was a dream come true," Samson said. "You're sitting on the field. You're looking into the dugout. You can watch the guys scratch (themselves), and all the things they do."

Samson was sitting in seat 18C on the Friday night flight, directly in front of Lavey, when someone tapped him on the shoulder and said, "I think your friend is having trouble."

"I looked at him," Samson said. "I think it might have been over immediately."

Only the road trip, not the legacy of Bob Lavey or the sense of fellowship that sets fathers and sons to chasing a baseball team across the country for 30 years.

On Saturday afternoon, Rob Lavey and his Babe Ruth team wore black armbands for their game at Sckavone Field, where his grandfather played baseball 65 years ago.

And for his Little League game, Lavey's 8-year-old grandson, Max, wore the Red Sox T-shirt his grandfather bought last week at Fenway, then carefully packed in the suitcase he never claimed in Portland.

"They both inherited his love for the game," Dan Lavey, Max's father, said. "They understand the meaning of their grandfather's final trip, and they'll never forget how he died. He died with his Red Sox cap on."