100 Things Red Sox Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die

Monster

Foreword by Dave Roberts

Officially I spent 143 days with the Red Sox in 2004, from July 31 to December 20. Doesn’t seem like a long time, but in that short period I came away with the greatest memories of my major league career.

The impact of stealing second base against Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning of Game 4 against the Yankees didn’t sink in until we came back from that 3–0 deficit and beat the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS and then went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals for the World Series title. Those victories broke an 86-year curse. I now understand the magnitude of what happened, and I am constantly reminded of the steal and its place in Red Sox history.

I am so proud to have been a part of it. Listen, I understand this was a huge team effort. I got myself into scoring position, but Bill Mueller drove me in to tie the game and gave us a chance. We took it from there. We had to win Game 4 in the bottom of the 12th on a two-run walk-off home run by David Ortiz off Tom Gordon in an incredible moment—it was an incredible clutch hit by Big Papi. I’ll never forget the electricity in Fenway Park that night. Who could ever forget that?

Our attitude was: take it one by one. I still remember Kevin Millar in the clubhouse just going up to everybody and saying, It’s one game. One game. We never thought of it as being down three games. We took every game and tried to win that night.

We had the right combination of players—a great chemistry on that team to pull it off. It was a group of professionals who never succumbed to pressure. We had players who didn’t know what pressure was. We had guys like Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, Derek Lowe, Keith Foulke, and Mike Timlin on our pitching staff. We had Johnny Damon and Millar, Jason Varitek, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Billy Mueller, Mark Bellhorn, Orlando Cabrera, Trot Nixon. On and on. We had players with grit and determination. It was the greatest story of perseverance I’d ever been a part of. It was the greatest story of never say never. It was the greatest story of a team with its back against the wall and everyone thought there was no hope except for the 25 guys in the clubhouse who each and every day would pat each other on the back and just remind one another that we can do this.

I come back to Boston every year for signings, and I’m constantly reminded of how special that steal was and what it meant for thousands of Red Sox fans in Red Sox Nation. I’ve played in a lot of places—big-time baseball cities. I played in Cleveland when they were perennial playoff contenders. I’ve played in Los Angeles with the Dodgers. I played in San Francisco, where baseball is very important. But nothing will ever compare to the intensity, the passion people have for baseball in Boston.

I felt it the moment I stepped foot in Fenway Park after I’d been traded from Los Angeles. I had been a starter for a first-place team, but I was coming to Boston to be a role player. That’s usually not the greatest situation for a ballplayer. You don’t want to go from starting to sitting on the bench, but I knew when I came over that it was the chance of a lifetime.

We had guys who all knew their roles. We had guys who made sacrifices for the greater good of the team. We had brought Doug Mientkievicz over from Minnesota. Dougie had been a starting player, too, and his role was going to be to serve as a defensive replacement for Kevin Millar at first base. Dougie was in the same boat I was, but we accepted it from day one. Then there was Gabe Kapler, who really served an important role both on the field and in the clubhouse.

Dave Roberts hoists the trophy in celebration after the Red Sox defeated the

St. Louis Cardinals 3–0 in Game 4 of the World Series on October 27, 2004, at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

Terry Francona explained what he expected from us in order for this to work. And we made it work. We created an excitement around Fenway and around the country with our style of play. We gained momentum that got us into the playoffs, and I got to witness firsthand how intense it was being a player for the Red Sox and how intense that Red Sox–Yankees rivalry is. Until you experience it firsthand, you don’t really know.

I loved every minute of it. I played 45 regular-season games for Boston, but it’s funny—I probably remember all of them because it was so unique. I only appeared in three games in all the playoffs in ’04 and never set foot on the field for the World Series. Yet so much happened. So many memories. It’s really hard to put it into words, but over time, with the continued attention I get everywhere I go, I realize that what happened that October 17 night at Fenway made an impact not only in Boston but all across America. It’s really surreal. It was such a humbling experience to receive so much notoriety and attention for one play. When I look at the footage of it, I still get goose bumps.

I did so much studying of video leading up to it. I watched Mariano Rivera’s delivery and really broke it down with our first-base coach, Lynn Jones. By the time I got out there on the base path, I was ready. I knew what I had to do, and based on the video I had studied, I knew when I had to do it. So many things have to go right in stealing a base, especially in that situation. You have to be safe. You just have to be.

Maury Wills once told me there will come a point in my career when everyone in the ballpark will know that I have to steal a base, and I will steal that base. When I got out there, I knew that was what Maury Wills had been talking about.

People often ask me if I would have enjoyed playing in Boston longer. Of course I would have. But at that point in my career I believed I was still an everyday player, and I wanted the chance to return to being an everyday player. I thank Theo Epstein for giving me the chance to do that again. He traded me to San Diego that winter. I grew up on the West Coast. My family is out here, and my kids go to school here. Anyway, I’m not sure anything I would have done in Boston after that stolen base would ever compare, and I’m perfectly content leaving that as my long-lasting memory.

I cheered for the Red Sox in ’07 when they won it all again. Some people have said to me that maybe winning in ’07 took away from what we accomplished in ’04. But I don’t think so. That was the first championship in 86 years. It will never be forgotten. As I go on with my life and look back on my career, when people ask me what the highlight was, it will be pretty easy to answer that question. Nothing could ever compare to being a Red Sox. Nothing.

Yours in Red Sox Nation,

Dave Roberts

Introduction

When I first received this assignment I thought it would be easy enough; after all, 100 things Red Sox fans should know and do before they die is a fun, all-encompassing topic open to my interpretation. That’s exactly what this book is—my interpretation of events and facts that I’ve either covered as a baseball reporter in parts of the past four decades or watched as a fan growing up in the Boston area.

What I have found is that fans and journalists look at the game in very different ways. As a fan the game is your passion, your hobby, that thing you do after school or work as a family; as a journalist it becomes not only your passion but also your livelihood. I was taught about objectivity in journalism school; I learned that there should certainly be no cheering in the press box. Once my career was under way, once I started a job as a reporter and sat down at the keyboard to write about the team I covered day in and day out, the fan in me had to be banished forever. It was the sacrifice I had to make to get into the profession, to cover the sport (baseball) and the team (the Red Sox) that I loved as a child.

When I was a kid, I loved Tony Conigliaro. I’ve often asked myself if I would have loved covering him as a reporter. What was he like to deal with from a reporter’s point of view? I once asked longtime Boston Globe baseball writer Clif Keane to tell me about Tony C. Keane was never shy about telling the media everything. When he was about to give me an earful, I stopped him, saying, You know, Clif, never mind. I don’t really want to know. He was my boyhood hero, and my memories are my memories. I don’t want them tainted. I was always Tony C. playing baseball in my backyard. Feet spread wide apart, bat back, hands high. Long drive deep to left…. It’s over the Green Monster...for a home run!

Even though you probably never met them or knew them personally, as a child there was something about certain players that you just loved, whether it was the way they played, the personality they displayed on the field, or some other intangible. Journalists can’t have that same kind of affection for individual athletes as I did for Tony C. when I was a kid. As a journalist, I see them differently. I experience them immediately after a win or right after a tough loss. I see them at their best and their worst. But what I also see up close and personal, and what I respect, is their God-given ability, their talent, their dedication, and their hard work. Those are things I get to see behind the scenes with professional baseball players, things that amaze me.

Because even we writers are human, there are those players we like more than others. Some are sources for news and stories. Some are just good guys that we happen to hit it off with. There are others that we have adversarial relationships with, even those we wish that we’d never met at all.

Which brings me to Roger Clemens. I thoroughly enjoyed covering his Red Sox career from 1984 to 1996. His 192 wins tie him with Cy Young for the all-time Red Sox lead. He struck out 20 batters in a game twice over a 10-year span. Sadly, his career in Boston ended prematurely due to a contract dispute. In 2007 allegations of steroid use by Clemens came to light in the Mitchell Report, claims which Clemens vehemently denies.

In terms of his work ethic and what made him great, the Clemens I saw and knew during his Red Sox years was unmatched until Pedro Martinez came along. Clemens is a Red Sox legend who unfortunately won his championships with the Yankees, a fact that has made him a villain in the eyes of some Red Sox fans. My guess is that five years after he’s done playing, when he’s eligible, he will go into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown wearing a Red Sox cap (if Hall of Fame voters like myself decide that he was a Hall of Famer even before the alleged steroid use, and that such abuses were so widespread in the Steroid Era that it’s impossible to exclude all the players suspected of wrongdoing).

In this book I have tried to include key Red Sox people, events, and moments. I’ll take you through the heartache of 1946, 1948, 1949, 1975, 1978, 1986, 2003, and 2009. I’ll also briefly touch on the dominant Sox teams that won in the early 20th century—in 1903, 1912, 1915, 1916, and 1918—and the ones that won in the early 21st century, the 2004, 2007, and 2013 squads. There has obviously been a lot to cover in between as well—a lot of Teddy Ballgame, a lot of heartache. I’ll write about the great players—Cy Young, Carl Yastrzemski, Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez, Wade Boggs, Bobby Doerr, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Dustin Pedroia, and Jon Lester—as well as unexpected heroes like Dave Roberts, George Whiteman, Bernie Carbo, Bill Mueller, and Koji Uehara. I’ll share weird and wonderful events like the Fog Game in 1986, the 1953 team that scored 17 runs in one inning, the squad that hit four consecutive home runs in 2007, and the improbable 2013 team. I must admit, I never enjoyed a group of 25 players on one Red Sox team more than I enjoyed the 2013 team. For me, the litmus test of whether or not it’s a team of good people is that when you enter the clubhouse, is there someone that you absolutely don’t want to talk to? Everyone in that clubhouse was not only approachable, but courteous and respectful. And I kick myself for spending most of spring training trying to figure out whether I should pick them fourth or fifth in the American League East in my Boston Globe predictions.

With so much to cover, 100 snuck up on me very quickly. And over the years I’ve updated the book, and I’ve had to make tough decisions on which chapters to toss out to make room for new ones.

I know some of my 100 will differ from those you might choose, and my view of those players and events that we agree on might also differ. I’m leaving out a ton of things. You would need to write a book the size of War and Peace to be able to fit in everything special about the Red Sox. In some cases I’m bringing my perspective to you as a fellow fan. In other instances, my perspective is that of a journalist. And, because few of us were around to see Cy Young or Smoky Joe Wood, in some places I’ve had to take the word of some of our finest baseball historians, writers like Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson, whose Red Sox Century was the best book ever compiled and written on the history of the Red Sox. I’ve also been helped out by the words of some of the great sportswriters from the Boston newspapers of the early 1900s—the great Globe writer Harold Kaese, for instance, a Spink Award winner who covered the eras of the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s like no other.

I knew Ted Williams—a player who would have to be featured prominently in any book about the best of the Red Sox—only as a spring-training hitting instructor in Winter Haven, Florida, and later in his life at the various Red Sox and Jimmy Fund appearances he made. I never personally experienced his disdain for the Knights of the Keyboard (as we writers sometimes call ourselves). Having a familiarity with the players of that age, called the Teammates by writer David Halberstam, I think I would have enjoyed covering Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio, and Johnny Pesky, whom I have known for almost 30 years.

There’s no doubt I also have a soft spot for the Impossible Dream team of 1967. Even before ’67 I loved watching Dick Radatz coming out of the bullpen, joined on the field by Yaz and Frankie Malzone. I loved watching Tommy Harper steal a base—we saw very little of the running game while I was growing up. But like most fans of my generation, the ’67 team hooked me forever. Not just Conig and Jim Lonborg and Yaz, but Mike Andrews, Reggie Smith, Jose Santiago, Rico Petrocelli, Jerry Adair, Jose Tartabull, George Boomer Scott, Joe Foy, and Elston Howard, as well.

Because of my affection for that team, I always thought Dick Williams was the greatest Red Sox manager—until I started covering Terry Francona, who won two championships in his eight-year tenure. I didn’t really know Williams until he began returning to Fenway for anniversary celebrations for the ’67 team. I was in Nashville at Major League Baseball’s winter meetings in November 2007 when Williams learned he had been voted into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. And there’s John Farrell. First year (2013), one championship. Not bad.

While some Sox history has been either good or bad, sadly some has also been ugly. Let us never forget that the Boston Red Sox were a racist organization for a long time. They were the last team to integrate. They could have had Jackie Robinson, but they passed. They didn’t employ an African American player until Pumpsie Green came up in 1959. This is a sad but undeniable part of their history.

Special Red Sox things to do are also included throughout this book. Fenway is obviously the place to go if you can get tickets, which has become a tough undertaking as the popularity of the team has grown. That’s why one of the things I suggest is taking a road trip to a destination that usually doesn’t sell out, such as Tampa Bay, Baltimore, or Toronto. Yes, sometimes it’s easier to get a Red Sox ticket in Baltimore than it is in downtown Boston. You can also head for the minor league affiliates to watch the young Sox make their way up to the big leagues in places like Pawtucket, Rhode Island; Portland, Maine; Greenville, South Carolina; Lowell, Massachusetts; or Fort Myers, Florida. And please, sometime before you die, watch a Sox-Yankees game, whether it be in Boston or New York. Actually, go to one of each. The New Yankee Stadium is a magnificent palace, a perfect replica of the House That Ruth Built but with state-of-the-art amenities.

As you go through my 100 things, you’ll probably think of a thousand things I left out. But that’s okay, because we all have our own special memories. As a Red Sox fan, a journalist, and a historian, I myself have no shortage of those.

1. Forever Fenway

The unique qualities of Fenway Park have been written of often and eloquently. Many writers have lovingly described the Wall, the Triangle, the scoreboard, Pesky’s Pole, etc. For me, it’s the smell. I have no idea what the smell is—it’s impossible to explain or describe. It could be almost 100 years of built-up crud for all I know, but next time you step into Fenway, take a whiff. You won’t smell that anyplace else in America. It’s not a bad smell or a good smell. It just smells like Fenway, like a slice of Americana. It smells like history and a lifetime of experiences. It smells like Boston baseball.

The players come and go, and even the memories fade, but the one enduring constant about the Red Sox is the ballpark. Fenway was built in 1912 in the Fens area of Boston, hence the name given to it by the original owner of the team, General Charles Taylor, who also owned The Boston Globe newspaper.

Generations of baseball fans have created lifelong memories there. Just as baby boomers remember the day John F. Kennedy was shot, New Englanders remember their first game at Fenway. Taking in your first Red Sox game is a rite of passage passed down from fathers to sons and now from fathers to daughters. It’s guaranteed that neither the child nor the parent will ever forget.

The ballpark has undergone numerous changes inside and out over the years, but somehow the core of the edifice never seems to change. It’s funny how people react to seeing it for the first time. In 1984, when 21-year-old Roger Clemens was driven to Fenway for his first taste of the major leagues by farm director Ed Kenney Jr., Clemens turned to Kenney and said, This isn’t Fenway. This is a warehouse! Kenney had to convince the young flamethrower that this was indeed his new home—and it would continue to be his home for the next 13 seasons, until he departed for Toronto as a free agent following the 1996 season. Clemens certainly grew to love the ballpark: the setting, the environment, and the challenge of pitching there.

It’s easy to see why tours of Fenway are becoming very popular. They’re available year-round, and you can smell...er...see for yourself all of the unique nooks and crannies around the ballpark that often make fans wonder, How did they do that? But even those little unseen places—such as the inside of the scoreboard in left field—are rapidly changing and being updated.

A 1994 aerial view of Boston’s Fenway Park, which opened on April 20, 1912, making it one of America’s oldest ballparks. Photo courtesy of AP Images

The biggest changes to the park, other than the modern improvements made by the John Henry/Tom Werner/Larry Lucchino ownership group, came when Thomas A. Yawkey owned the team. He bought the franchise in 1933 and rebuilt parts of the ballpark that had been damaged by a