"The numbers matched. I think we checked three or four times. It's just surreal." That's Paul Innes, one of four Scotland supporters who walked out of Fenway Park on Sunday considerably richer than they walked in.
The group — two father-and-son pairs deep in Tartan Army territory — bought the winning raffle numbers at a Boston Red Sox game and claimed a $10,677 prize. Not bad for a Sunday afternoon between World Cup fixtures.
A weekend worth remembering
The timing made it sweeter. Just 24 hours earlier, Scotland had ended a 28-year World Cup absence with a 1-0 win over Haiti — the kind of result that sends a travelling support into full celebration mode. The Red Sox crowd that day was packed with kilts and scarves, which tells you everything about how many Scots made the trip.
Now they've got another reason to feel good heading into Friday's match against Morocco at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough. Tens of thousands of Tartan Army members are expected to be there, and the raffle winners will be among them with noticeably lighter wallets — or heavier, depending on how the winnings go.
Scotland at 1-0 up in a World Cup group, fans winning five-figure raffles at baseball games. The narrative is writing itself. Whether it holds against Morocco is another matter entirely — that's a sterner test than Haiti, and the group stage is still wide open.
"It's not really sunk in," Innes said. Give it until kick-off Friday. That tends to focus the mind.
