Funny Fenway Park Proposal Leaves Thousands of Fans in Suspense

Popping the question is a nerve-wracking experience, no matter how ready you think you are. Try doing it in front of thousands of baseball fans and you've unlocked a whole new level of anxiety. Likewise, it's not always easy for the person on the other end of the proposal.

Just ask the couple who appeared on the jumbotron at Fenway Park on Saturday, April 13.

The sun was shining over Boston the weekend before Patriots Day as the Sox knocked out their first home win of the season. Fans were in a good mood, dancing and clowning around for the cameras between innings and enjoying the thrill of seeing themselves, larger than life, on the screen above the bleachers. The screen showed it all: caffeinated kids, tipsy adults, people busting moves like no one was watching.

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Fine Day for a Fenway Park Proposal

Then, a smiling gentleman appeared with some other business. He got down on one knee and presented a ring to the woman beside him. The screen flashed, "Rachel G, will you marry me?" The crowd went nuts.

The man seemed to relish the moment, pointing at the screen and then back to his beloved over and over again, as if to say, "Hey, that's us up there and this is really happening."

Rachel reacted by mouthing, "Oh, my God," and putting her head in her hands. She was smiling and didn't seem upset, but she also wasn't giving a clear "Yes." Yet.

Rachel pointed to some folks seated behind her, perhaps friends, and flashed them playful daggers, indicating others had been in on this surprise and how dare they not tell her.

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The Fenway faithful scooted forward in their seats.

The cheers grew louder.

The screen cut back to the game.

The collective gasp in America's oldest ballpark might have registered a small blip on the Richter scale.

Search for the Fenway Park Mystery Couple

People get engaged at Fenway all the time. While sweet, those proposals aren't always worthy of media attention. But this? This was different. This was a proposal without an answer, a movie without an ending. Were it not for the Red Sox 7-2 win over the Los Angeles Angels that day, thousands of invested people might have shuffled out onto Lansdowne Street devastated by the lack of closure.

After a sleepless night, we reached out to Red Sox Director of Baseball Communications and Media Relations Abby Murphy for help tracking down the couple. She kindly forwarded our request to the department that handles proposals. In the meantime, we took to social media to see if either Rachel or her mystery suitor posted anything. We had no luck there, either, although photos of a subsequent Fenway proposal are making the rounds.

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Maybe the reason we haven't heard back from the Sox or seen anything online is that the proposal didn't have a fairytale ending after all. Maybe Rachel G said no and would rather forget the moment ever happened. Maybe, as some have suggested, this wasn't a real proposal but a joke between friends, hence Rachel's disbelief.

No.

We believe in love here and we have hope.

After the screen switched back to the game, after the gasps subsided, raucous cheers erupted from one pocket of Fenway. Only the people seated down there know for sure, but others took that sound to mean Rachel had simply needed a minute to compose herself and then said yes.

The mystery couple didn't appear on screen again during the mandatory eighth-inning playing of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline," but it was easy to picture them somewhere in the crowd, arms over each other's shoulders, swaying back and forth, infusing the old song with new meaning:

"I look at the night / and it don't seem so lonely. / We fill it up with only two..."