For some, it began late Tuesday night, after Gowdy and Garagiola, Stockton and Harrelson, had retired from the airwaves. It began on the gum-stained linoleum floors of Logan Airport's United Airlines terminal, with a sleeping bag or blanket, a six pack, and a homemade banner or an old sheet. The faithful, the hardcore faithful, were there all night.

They were photographed Wednesday morning and gawked at by the curious or uneducated who were at Logan at 6 a.m. just to catch the shuttle flight. The faithful began to stir while the sun rose over East Boston. Some were talking proudly about how many hours they had flown the friendly floors of United.

A photographer flashed away at one obliging couple who had shared a blanket for the night. Others, snoring in sleeping bags or just passed out in a phone booth or on a dead escalator, appeared oblivious to the mass that began to gather around them at 6:25 a.m.

The throng had come not to find the friendly skies or the wings of man, they had that already. They came to salute the return of the high-flying heroes that sent these Boston fans into orbit in the first place.

Three Straight

The Boston Red Sox were arriving home on a United charter flight from Oakland, after defeating the Athletics for the third straight game to win the American League pennant.

And the fans were grateful for that pennant and the World Series which begins tomorrow at Fenway Park. Some 6,000 showed up Wednesday morning, though not all kept the vigil through the night at Logan.

Most of the welcoming committee, in fact, began to organize the individual treks to greet the Sox at five that morning, while it was still dark and the thermometer read 48 October degrees. They sleep-walked into their cars or arrived in the tunnels as the first wheels of the new day were squeaking on the MBTA tracks.

A National Guardsman wearing wrinkled khakis and brandishing a holstered belt staggered onto the Government Center Blue Line train at about 5:45. Waving the holster about semi-consciously he barely mumbled something, perhaps obscene, at two uneasy women sitting across from him. He was only coherent when he proclaimed that he was going to Logan Airport where he would be the honor guard at the Red Sox arrival.

He made it to the shuttle bus that runs between the Logan subway stop and the various Logan terminals, saluting the uniform of the bewildered bus driver as he boarded.

But he never did get to be the Red Sox honor guard. That task was left to the State Troopers, who kept order quietly in the teeming crowd and even got a cheer after it was all over.

"We Love You Anyway"

The crowd was cheering everything, from Yaz and Loo-ee to Claudel Washington and even Flight 502. An occasional cry went up for Luis Alvarado and Jose Santiago (remember them?). Four fans sang the national anthem.

The banners ranged from the traditional "Go Sox," to the cliched "Ya Gotta Believe," to the more bizarre, such as "Go Drago, Dick the Red!" and the seemingly Muhammed Ali-inspired message, "The Sox have it made, Cinci Can't Make the Grade, Like the A's They Will Fade!"

In what round the Sox will deliver the knockout blow was not generally agreed upon. Barry, who runs the Kwik Shak at the Park Street subway stop, calls the Sox in five.