BOSTON (AP) — Tens of thousands of Red Sox fans lined the streets from Fenway Park to City Hall on Tuesday to cheer Boston's second World Series title in four years, and celebrate how a team once known for losing was again baseball's best.

''People lived and died before they saw a world championship and we've seen two in the last four years,'' said Providence College student Mike Foley.

Red Sox players and their families boarded amphibious, World War II-era duck boats outside the stadium for a three-mile journey through the city. Screaming fans greeted them as they climbed into the 20 brightly colored boats normally used for tourists. Each boat was labeled with the names of the players on board.

The parade followed a similar route to the rolling celebration staged after the Red Sox broke an 86-year World Series drought in 2004 by sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals. The Red Sox completed a sweep of the Colorado Rockies on Sunday with a 4-3 win in Denver.

Mark Rinaldi, a student at Harvard, said he attended the 2004 parade and ''I never thought I'd be able to do it again in my lifetime. To do it twice is pretty incredible.''

The parade was set to slow down at Copley Square, Boston Common and City Hall Plaza, where closer Jonathan Papelbon has promised to do his infamous Irish jig to ''I'm Shipping Up to Boston.'' He was being accompanied by the Dropkick Murphys, a Boston-based punk rock band with heavy Irish folk music influence. The band presented Papelbon with his own kilt before the parade — plus one for ace Josh Beckett and general manager Theo Epstein, who promised to dance with him. They also made a kilt for slugger David Ortiz, whom they hoped to coax into the jig.

Reliever Mike Timlin tied their bullpen mascot, a parrot, onto one of the speakers on the Dropkick Murphys' flatbed.