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Looking back at a team with great history
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Ask him about perhaps the greatest day in Boston Red Sox history, and one of the best pitchers the Red Sox ever had will take you to a cemetery.
It’s the one Luis Tiant used to visit often, because his late parents rested there. Every time he made that somber trip, he’d look around and he’d notice other peoples’ gravestones. There were Red Sox balloons flying on many. He’ d look at the tombstones, and he’d see Red Sox flags.
For a guy who won two games in the 1975 World Series, 20 games in four different seasons and 229 in his colorful 19-year career as a big leaguer, that’s the place where the passion of Boston fans hit closest to home. So when he watched the Red Sox finally break the Curse of the Bambino and win their first World Series championship in 86 long, brutal years in 2004, that’s why he thought of gravestones.
“For us, it was something really special after all those years,” the flamboyant right-hander known as El Tiante said. “You know how many people died waiting for the Red Sox to win a pennant? A lot of people.
“Those people were waiting for that moment, and they never had that chance. It’s crazy.”
None of the people who flocked to PNC Field on Saturday afternoon will know that fate, obviously. Although, the majority of the fans who were sporting Yankees pinstripes probably wish they themselves could.
Tiant and eight other former Red Sox lost to a team of nine former Yankees greats, 3-2, in a sun-splashed five-inning event called the Legends Reunion. But the last thing important about all of this was the game. To find the importance, all anyone had to do was look around. See what you’d expect to see. See what you wouldn’t.
Of course, this is a Yankees town, the home of a Yankees farm team and a time when thousands of people born as Yankees supporters during the team’s historic late-1990s dynasty are maturing into full-fledged baseball fans. But sit in that sea of people, and notice that there were a lot of people wearing red, and plenty of them were among the closest to the fences that lined the field, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tiant, Fred Lynn and Jim Rice.
A signature on an old baseball wouldn’t have been bad, either. Kind of gets you to thinking, doesn’t it — all this talk about the great Yankees teams of yesteryear?
Thirty years ago in October, a light-hitting shortstop named Bucky Dent blooped a home run off a slick Red Sox right-hander named Mike Torrez in an American League East playoff game for all the marbles. A hard-throwing reliever named Goose Gossage getting Carl Yastrzemski to pop out to end the game with the go-ahead run on second.
What happened in 2004 didn’t make that less immortal of a moment, or lessen the role those teams have in the game’s history. What it did was change the Red Sox fans.
Nobody talked about “The Curse” on Saturday. Nobody brought up Game 7 in 1975, or Bill Buckner in ‘86. When Torrez jokingly called Dent “Lucky Bucky” in the bottom of the first inning, nobody booed.
“You have to realize that for Red Sox fans, going through all those years and all those disappointments— we know as players, we were involved in some of them, and we weren’t very happy ourselves,” former Red Sox Rico Petrocelli said. “We felt bad for the fans. Now, it finally happened, and the people who witnessed it — kids and the older people too — were just thrilled.
“You know, it changed the whole attitude of Boston fans. I mean now, you hear radio programs and sports programs, and if someone says something negative, people get on them. It used to be everything was negative.”
Sorry, as tough as it was for Yankees fans to give up that feeling of total domination, the Red Sox are a franchise that deserved to not be known for failure.
Rice and Lynn, Tiant and Torrez, Petrocelli and Dick Tidrow, these are players that should be honored, and fans should have more opportunities like this to show them their appreciation.
What’s sad is, it’s happening only now, after Boston won a couple of World Series titles. The Red Sox had great teams and great players long before David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and Curt Schilling came to town. That’s why they were always the perfect foe for the great Yankees teams.
The Yankees wouldn’t have the great tradition they have if the Red Sox didn’t have one, too.
“Fans go with who’s a winner,” Rice said. “You win a couple of division, you may see fans go with the Red Sox. You see things going the way they are with the Yankees, you’ll see fans do some different things. Now, you may see more fans going with the Rays. It goes by who’s winning at the time.”
With all do respect to a guy who should be in the Hall of Fame, this isn’t about the fans who jumped on the bandwagon in 2004. It is, as Tiant pointed o.ut, about the ones who never saw it. And the ones who now can be proud of a great history, unashamed by a few moments.
Contact the writer: dcollins@timesshamrock.com
Ask him about perhaps the greatest day in Boston Red Sox history, and one of the best pitchers the Red Sox ever had will take you to a cemetery.
It’s the one Luis Tiant used to visit often, because his late parents rested there. Every time he made that somber trip, he’d look around and he’d notice other peoples’ gravestones. There were Red Sox balloons flying on many. He’ d look at the tombstones, and he’d see Red Sox flags.
For a guy who won two games in the 1975 World Series, 20 games in four different seasons and 229 in his colorful 19-year career as a big leaguer, that’s the place where the passion of Boston fans hit closest to home. So when he watched the Red Sox finally break the Curse of the Bambino and win their first World Series championship in 86 long, brutal years in 2004, that’s why he thought of gravestones.
“For us, it was something really special after all those years,” the flamboyant right-hander known as El Tiante said. “You know how many people died waiting for the Red Sox to win a pennant? A lot of people.
“Those people were waiting for that moment, and they never had that chance. It’s crazy.”
None of the people who flocked to PNC Field on Saturday afternoon will know that fate, obviously. Although, the majority of the fans who were sporting Yankees pinstripes probably wish they themselves could.
Tiant and eight other former Red Sox lost to a team of nine former Yankees greats, 3-2, in a sun-splashed five-inning event called the Legends Reunion. But the last thing important about all of this was the game. To find the importance, all anyone had to do was look around. See what you’d expect to see. See what you wouldn’t.
Of course, this is a Yankees town, the home of a Yankees farm team and a time when thousands of people born as Yankees supporters during the team’s historic late-1990s dynasty are maturing into full-fledged baseball fans. But sit in that sea of people, and notice that there were a lot of people wearing red, and plenty of them were among the closest to the fences that lined the field, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tiant, Fred Lynn and Jim Rice.
A signature on an old baseball wouldn’t have been bad, either. Kind of gets you to thinking, doesn’t it — all this talk about the great Yankees teams of yesteryear?
Thirty years ago in October, a light-hitting shortstop named Bucky Dent blooped a home run off a slick Red Sox right-hander named Mike Torrez in an American League East playoff game for all the marbles. A hard-throwing reliever named Goose Gossage getting Carl Yastrzemski to pop out to end the game with the go-ahead run on second.
What happened in 2004 didn’t make that less immortal of a moment, or lessen the role those teams have in the game’s history. What it did was change the Red Sox fans.
Nobody talked about “The Curse” on Saturday. Nobody brought up Game 7 in 1975, or Bill Buckner in ‘86. When Torrez jokingly called Dent “Lucky Bucky” in the bottom of the first inning, nobody booed.
“You have to realize that for Red Sox fans, going through all those years and all those disappointments— we know as players, we were involved in some of them, and we weren’t very happy ourselves,” former Red Sox Rico Petrocelli said. “We felt bad for the fans. Now, it finally happened, and the people who witnessed it — kids and the older people too — were just thrilled.
“You know, it changed the whole attitude of Boston fans. I mean now, you hear radio programs and sports programs, and if someone says something negative, people get on them. It used to be everything was negative.”
Sorry, as tough as it was for Yankees fans to give up that feeling of total domination, the Red Sox are a franchise that deserved to not be known for failure.
Rice and Lynn, Tiant and Torrez, Petrocelli and Dick Tidrow, these are players that should be honored, and fans should have more opportunities like this to show them their appreciation.
What’s sad is, it’s happening only now, after Boston won a couple of World Series titles. The Red Sox had great teams and great players long before David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and Curt Schilling came to town. That’s why they were always the perfect foe for the great Yankees teams.
The Yankees wouldn’t have the great tradition they have if the Red Sox didn’t have one, too.
“Fans go with who’s a winner,” Rice said. “You win a couple of division, you may see fans go with the Red Sox. You see things going the way they are with the Yankees, you’ll see fans do some different things. Now, you may see more fans going with the Rays. It goes by who’s winning at the time.”
With all do respect to a guy who should be in the Hall of Fame, this isn’t about the fans who jumped on the bandwagon in 2004. It is, as Tiant pointed o.ut, about the ones who never saw it. And the ones who now can be proud of a great history, unashamed by a few moments.
Contact the writer: dcollins@timesshamrock.com
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