Congratulations, Sox fans! You made it through approximately three minutes of the Red Sox Rally Monday festivities at City Hall Plaza before the first chants of "Yankees Suck" filled the air. New record! Well done!

A few thousand fans descended upon the plaza early Monday afternoon to cheer on their hometown baseball team (and decry the arch rivals) for the Boston version of the shindigs going on across the country. Rally Monday was a tradition begun by Major League Baseball back in 2004 - good luck charm, perhaps? - and one that has allowed Sox fans a chance to gather and celebrate the upcoming postseason three times in four years. Not bad, not bad.

Bostonist was on the scene for the '04 (fabulous) and '05 (lame) rallies at Fenway Park and was intrigued by the chance to see what the Sox had up their sleeves with this year's venue relocation. As it turns out, the team provided the richest rally yet, one full of spunk (Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay Buchholz, Kyle Snyder, Mike Timlin, and Javier Lopez, who stole the hot-ballplayer spotlight from Young Jacoby and should really call Bostonist), sass (Papelbon!), and nods to traditions both new and old (Dropkick Murphys and Joe Castiglione!). It was a feisty gathering that succeeded in firing up folks for the kickoff to the postseason on Wednesday evening.

Sure, the acoustics weren't top-notch. Yes, it's always lame to have to pause for commercial breaks. And we were as surprised as anyone to have Peter Tork (yes, Peter from The Monkees - who knew he was a Sox fan?) there to perform "Daydream Believer" and "I'm a Believer." But the fans came out ready to party, with facepaint, signs, and gear galore - and the organization provided a great event (special note: huge kudos to the people who put together the top-notch video montages, particularly the '04 recap). As Terry Francona noted during his address, no one had to do much recruiting to get the Sox faithful to stop by City Hall.

Bostonist took a slew of photos, all of which are available by clicking here. Included? The players, the musicians, the fans and the guy every newspaper will probably have displayed in print or in the online editions (he's already featured at Boston.com).

P.S. Note to Joe Dwinell: the Quincy woman asked Javier to marry her, not Jacoby. Just sayin'.

All photos by Victoria Welch