I told myself I wasn’t going to cry.

A couple of hours before the start of the second ring ceremony I thought I’d never see in my life, I’d heard a report on the radio that Bill Buckner would be throwing out the first pitch. I had plenty of time to prepare for what was surely going to be an emotional moment.

It was going to be easy. I had moved on.

Then Buckner made the long walk in from left field, shuffling along like Festus from “Gunsmoke,” appearing no more or less gimpy than he did in 1986.

Fenway Park stood as one and roared, took a deep breath and roared again. Buckner waved, wiped a tear from his eye, put his hands in his pockets, waved and wiped another tear.

Then my own private water works started. Luckily, my son wasn’t around to see such an unmanly display. Aw, who am I kidding? I cried when he asked to stay up late to watch the new episode of “The Office” the other night.

Besides, there was no shame in crying with Buckner. A lot of people were doing it Tuesday. It was just a question of whether those were tears of empathy, sympathy or guilt streaming down their cheeks.

Leave it to the the self-absorbed citizens of Red Sox Nation to make the most moving moment in Fenway Park since Ted Williams at the 1999 All-Star Game about us. We needed closure. We needed to put the painful past behind us. We needed to show Bill that we loved him.

But if you were paying any attention Tuesday, you knew by the time that Buckner was standing on the Fenway mound that it wasn’t about us. It was about him. It was about a man who for the last two decades has not only had to live with his error, but the consequences that it has had on his family.

Buckner thought he had already received his absolution from the standing ovations he received at Fenway during the 1987 and 1990 home openers. But he eventually had to move to Idaho to get away from the whispering behind his back and the taunts to his face. He could never completely escape, however, because the taunts followed his children in school and on the playing field.

Not surprisingly, Buckner came across as very bitter when he was interviewed after the 2004 World Series. He was particularly galled with the suggestion that, with the media-manufactured “curse” that he had become a living symbol for now broken, Red Sox fans could find it in their hearts to forgive him.

“Forgive me for what?” Buckner asked.

Those are the words I heard in my head while watching Buckner Tuesday, and that’s why I had the Kleenex handy.

Not surprisingly, the national media hadn’t listened to Buckner. They touted Tuesday’s first pitch as a moment of Fenway forgiveness, unaware or unwilling to acknowledge that the vast majority of true Red Sox fans had either already forgiven him or, more appropriately, had understood that there was nothing to forgive. The only people who still needed to forgive him were the poseurs, people whose frame of reference to the Boston Red Sox prior to 2004 consisted of the Bambino, Bucky and Buckner.

Buckner had already acknowledged that those pink hats and the louts who still taunted him were in the minority and that he held no ill will towards Sox fans. He reiterated that sentiment Tuesday, then revealed that he needed to forgive the media to really find closure.

As he sees it, and who would know better, the media has blown his error way out of proportion. Rehashing it countless times as one of the touchstones of the Red Sox tortured history was one thing, but the play took on mythic qualities that transcended rooting interests and baseball even before the Red Sox finally won it all in 2004. It became a symbol of failure in our culture.

How could it not? With all of the countdown clip shows that now infest the cable sports channels showing the play incessantly, and all doing so without providing any context whatsoever (i.e. John McNamara, Dave Stapleton, Bob Stanley and Rich Gedman), it is now burned into the conciousness of every American sports fan over the age of six as the ultimate choke.

Of course, Buckner’s statement of forgiveness made some members of the fourth estate incredulous. I saw two cable sports blowhards literally step back, stick their hands up and go into full “Hey, don’t blame the messenger” mode. No surprise that the most defensive among the media lot were seen on the stations that still to this day drop in a clip of Buckner’s gaffe for the flimsiest of reasons (“Next up on ESPN/Fox/NECN, time for the Top 10 most embarrassing moments for men with moustaches.”).

But at least some of the pundits actually acknowledged that a man who hobbled onto the Shea Stadium field for the bottom of the 10th inning October night in 1986 still somehow managed to hobble off with his dignity, despite having a ball roll through his legs. A few even proclaimed that it was time to stop invoking Buckner’s name when referring to an egregious error that has nothing to do with him. Maybe some even concluded that it’s time to give “Little roller up along first, behind the bag, it gets through Buckner…” a rest.

I’ll believe that when I see it, or don’t see it, actually. But if I do see it, I’ll take solace in the knowledge that Bill Buckner finally seems to be at peace with it.

Randy Whitehouse is a staff writer who can be reached at [email protected].