July 25th, 2011
Red Sox Fans
You have to like Red Sox fans. Yesterday’s game against the Mariners was Maine Day at Fenway. New England state days are a ballpark tradition. The weather cleared as the game began. You have to like Red Sox fans. Team veteran Tim Wakefield got nicked for a couple of runs in the first inning, but soon settled down. The Sox piled up five runs in the bottom of the first, and it was looking like it would be a lot of fun at the game. In the top of the sixth inning, Wakefield struck out Mike Carp to end the inning. The scoreboard flashed the news that it was Wake’s 2,000th strikeout for the Red Sox. Only Roger Clemens has more K’s in Boston history. The crowd erupted and gave Wakefield a long standing ovation, calling him out of the dugout for a bow. Six innings. 11 to 3 in favor of the Sox. I figured the manager would give his starting pitcher the rest of the afternoon off. No. Old Tim came out to the mound for the seventh and got knocked around for a bunch of hits, including a grand slam homer that seemed to leave the park in slow-motion. Now it was time to go. Terry Francona walked to the mound to make the change. With his first step to the dugout, Wake set off another standing ovation, as if all the bottled up gratitude for his year-in, year-out work for the Red Sox got uncorked in that moment. You have to like Red Sox fans. Give up a granny—get a standing O. It helps when you are still up by three runs.
I hadn’t been to a Red Sox game in a while. In recent years I’ve seen the Spinners play in the Fenway Futures game and witnessed the Paul McCartney concerts, but it’s been several years since I’ve taken in a Sox game in the 99-year-old ballpark. My son and I had excellent seats that we picked up in a benefit auction at the American Textile History Museum last fall. We were in the red boxes, Sec. 17, Box 124, Row MM, between the batter’s box and on-deck circle. Fenway is a living museum. Jim Lonborg was in the house and saluted on the jumbo-screen. Looking down at third base, I could see the ghosts of Malzone, Foy, Petro, Lansford, Hobson, Mueller, Boggs, Lowell, even Wilton Veras who came up with the Spinners. I could see that miserable pop-up of Yaz’s in the playoff game against New York. I had a straight shot view of Fisk’s foul tower in left. I enjoyed the modern-day World Series banners. But it is largely the same shape and size as the place I visited as a kid. It’s a Boston time-machine.
You have to like Red Sox fans. In one of the middle innings, David Ortiz took a rip and his bat exploded. The barrel ended up in the boxes near the on-deck circle. Ushers rushed to the scene to be sure nobody was hurt, and tried to retrieve the shattered bat. On cue, the fans nearby started chanting, “Let her/Keep it, Let her/Keep it”—and the ushers gave in. You have to like Red Sox fans.
July 11th, 2011
Farewell, Dick Williams
The former manager and player passed away last week. Here are a couple of baseball card memories of Dick Williams. The first is a Topps baseball card from 1964, and the other is his manager card from the Impossible Dream year of 1967, also a Topps card.
July 3rd, 2011
Four Sox on A.L. All Star Squad
Read the boston.com bulletin about four Red Sox teammates making the American League All Star Team: Ortiz, Gonzalez, Ellsbury, and Beckett. David Ortiz (dh) and Adrian Gonzalez (1b) made the starting line-up.
May 18th, 2011
Farewell, Harmon Killebrew
The great Minnesota Twins teams of the mid-1960′s were favorites of mine as epic opponents of the Red Sox. Tony Oliva, Jim “Mudcat” Grant, Earl Battey, Camilo Pascual, Bob Allison, Don Mincher, Zoilo Versalles, Jim Kaat, Cesar Tovar, Ted Uhlaender, Jim Perry, Rich Rollins, and the rest. Rod Carew joined this crew in 1967.
Harmon Killebrew was like a battleship in the middle of the line-up, always ready to pound the opposing pitchers. To my kid’s ear, his name reminded me of Killer Kowalski, the hulking professional wrestler. I saw him hit a lot of home runs on TV.
In the hey-day of the Twins of this era, my father took me to a Red Sox-Twins Sunday double-header at Fenway Park. I was about 12 years old. The game was sold out, so we had standing-room tickets. We stayed for both games, standing in the rear of the homeplate grandstand. Late in the second game, we finally got seats. I remember the experience as pure baseball joy.
May 16th, 2011
Carl Yastrzemski, Topps Baseball Card, 1965
This is a baseball card that I never owned. Somehow, this one never showed up in a five-cent package of cards when I was 11 years old. The 1965 Topps baseball card series is my favorite for several reasons : the Red Sox line-up of heroes of that time, the design, the Time-Machine switch that it flips in my life. After I lost or sold most of the cards from my youth, I decided in my 30′s to try to reassemble at least my favorite cards. In a moment of idiocy when I was about 20 years old, I had glued some of my best remaining cards to a sheet of poster board to display in my room.
I’ve been a casual collector of cards over time, so the most fun was locating in card shops many of the cards I had enjoyed having in the 1960′s. I never spent much money on the effort. Finding players whom I liked but who were not superstars was a kick. In the card industry there’s a name for such guys: Commons. Some cards I liked just for the picture, especially the “action” shots. I never cared for what we called “face cards”—a ballplayer’s big face filling the whole front of the card, and often not even wearing a team cap. These reminded me of mug shots on wanted posters at the post office.
In my not-so-scientific search for replacement cards, the one vintage card I haven’t picked up is the 1965 Yaz. He’s the one that got away, the one I never had in hand when it was worth a penny, and I’m too far down the road to fork over $191.85 just to close some nostalgic gap. I’d rather send a check to Yaz’s favorite charity, the Jimmy Fund, which helps kids with cancer. I’ve been thinking about the card, though, this weekend as the Red Sox swept the Yankees. I’m starting to feel better about the 2011 Red Sox.
Here’s a link to a guy who has a blog about baseball cards, specifically the 1965 Topps series. You never know what you are going to find on the web. It’s all out there.
April 8th, 2011
A Poem for the Red Sox by Carl Stevens of WBZ Radio
March 17th, 2011
Talkin’ Baseball with Yaz: Dan Shaughnessy in Globe
I enjoyed this article about Carl Yastrzemski by Dan Shaughnessy in yesterday’s Globe.
Web photo courtesy of boston.com (Boston Globe photo by Stan Grossfeld (c) 2008)
December 9th, 2010
Talkin’ Baseball: Analyst Says Bosox Look Better than Yanks
Today’s NYTimes includes an analysis of recent Red Sox player acquisitions and suggests the Bosox now have the edge in A.L. East. Read Tyler Kepner’s opinion from Yankee country here, and get the NYT if you want more.
Recent Comments