Sports Then and Now

The Red Sox & Angels staged a historic battle for the AL pennant 25 years ago this October.

It’s League Championship Series time right now in major league baseball, a time the people of Boston were able to get very used to in recent years, with four appearances in six years from 2003-08. The Sox also made this round in 1999 and prior to that the legendary (or infamous, depending on your point of view) team of 1986 played for the pennant. With this being the 25^th anniversary of the ’86 Sox, let’s take a look back on the epic seven-game war they waged with the then-California Angels for the American League flag.

Boston and California had each put away their division titles without drama (from 1969-93 the leagues were split into just two divisions with only the winners advancing straight into the LCS) and the Game 1 showdown of Roger Clemens and California’s Mike Witt was highly anticipated. Clemens had just completed a regular season that would win him the Cy Young and MVP award and Witt was easily the ace of the Angel staff. The series got off to a less than auspicious beginning as the Halos got four runs in the second inning. First baseman Wally Joyner, who’d already greeted Clemens with a double to right in the first, got up again in the second and doubled the other way to pick up two of the runs. Staked to a 4-0 lead, Witt never looked back and the Angels cruised to an 8-1 win. It gave California their goal of just taking one game at Fenway. The Red So were able to bounce back with a 9-2 win in Game 2. This game was closer than the score made it look, as Boston held a 3-2 lead after six and Fenway had to be a very jittery place, particularly when Bill Buckner missed a chance to put the game away early when he grounded into a bases-loaded double play. Ultimately though, three runs apiece in both the seventh and eighth opened the game up and sent the series west knotted at a game apiece.

The three games in Anaheim were all outstanding games, gradually building to the one that would ultimately give this ALCS a storied place in baseball lore. Boston’s Oil Can Boyd pitched very well in Game 3 and the Red So were holding a 1-0 lead, but this was another case where it could have been more. Second baseman Marty Barrett, dominant throughout the series with a record 14 hits (a record that still stands) missed a chance here and popped to first with the bases loaded. Thus when Joyner drew a walk and was moved to second, he was in position to score when Reggie Jackson singled him in to tie up the score for the Angels. Boyd finally lost it in the seventh and in the most maddening way—light-hitting shortstop Dick Schofield went deep, as did leadoff man Gary Pettis, generally a pure contact hitter. A three-run inning keyed California’s ultimate 4-3 win.

Read the rest of this entry →

Former Tiger Curtis Granderson will watch his former team play in the AL Championship Series.

Well, so much for the American League East being heads and shoulder above the rest of the American League in talent and baseball stature. Following the Detroit Tigers 3-2 victory in game five of the ALDS to eliminate the New York Yankees, we are now ensured that a team from one of the “lesser” divisions in the AL will represent the league in the World Series for the second straight year and fourth time in the last seven seasons.

There is no question that the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are still head and shoulders above the rest of the league in terms of spending, but they both are proving that in today’s baseball world money doesn’t buy you quite as much as it used to.

Don’t get me wrong, money has definitely helped them both become consistent contenders. The Yankees haven’t had a losing season since 1992 and have made the playoffs in all but one season since 1995 while the Red Sox last had a losing season in 1997 and have won two World Series and made the playoffs eight times since.

However, while spending lavishly on salaries to attract the top free agents and available veterans has helped both teams maintain a stranglehold on at least one playoff spot each season, it no longer seems to be enough to ensure they dominate the World Series. Read the rest of this entry →

Bobby Thomson raced around the bases and into baseball immortality with his pennant-winning home run in 1951.

Sixty years before Evan Longoria’s home run lifted the Tampa Bay Rays into the baseball playoffs and completed the greatest September rally in baseball history, there was another home run that completed another improbable comeback. It was on October 3, 1951 that Bobby Thomson blasted the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” that lifted the New York Giants into the 1951 World Series.

The 1951 National League playoff race was to its generation what the 1978 Yankees-Red Sox race was to fans 27 years later and the September Wild Card rally of the Rays and Cardinals to current fans. The Dodgers led the Giants by 13 games on August 11th, only to watch the lead disintegrate over the final seven weeks as Brooklyn went 26-22 in their final 48 regular season games.

At the same time, the New York Giants went 37-7 after August 11th to catch the Dodgers and force a three-game playoff. Read the rest of this entry →

It was 50 years ago that Roger Maris blasted a record 61 home runs in a single season.

It was 50 years ago today, October 1, 1961, that New York Yankees slugger Roger Maris broke what many thought was an unbreakable record by swatting his 61st home run of the season. Though his mark has now technically been eclipsed on six occasions by three different players, the accomplishment is still considered to be something special and now that there is testing for performance enhancing drugs might never again be topped.

Though Maris had been the American League MVP in 1960, no one expected him to threaten Babe Ruth’s hallowed mark of 60 home runs in a single season.

In the 33 years since Ruth had hit 60 home runs in 1927 the 50 home run plateau had been reached only 10 times with Jimmie Foxx in 1932 and Hank Greenberg in 1938 coming the closest with 58 home runs each.

The way Maris started the 1961 season, no one could have predicted that he would finish the campaign by breaking Ruth’s record.

Maris hit only one home run in 15 games during April and through the first 28 games of the campaign had only three homers.

Then on May 17th he started a streak of four straight games with a home run and then added five more home runs the rest of the month to enter June with 12 home runs.

Maris wasn’t the only Yankee who entered June with double digits in home runs. Mickey Mantle blasted seven homers in each of the first two months to enter June with 14 home runs.

In June, Maris slugged 15 homers and Mantle 11 to give both players totals near the pace of Ruth as the season neared its mid-point.

When the Yankees played their 81st game on July 8th, Maris had 32 home runs and Mantle 29 to put both players in range of the record.

Maris blasted four home runs in a double header against the Chicago White Sox to give him 40 for the season and people started to discuss the possibility that Ruth’s record could be in jeopardy.

When Maris then went eight straight games without a home run and ended up having one homer in a 16 game stretch, the attention started to shift to Mantle, who was still blasting long balls. Read the rest of this entry →

Tito deserved better.

Watching Terry Francona and Theo Epstein talking on Thursday afternoon, I felt a pit forming in my stomach. No, not because the Boston Red Sox would miss the playoffs. That feeling had come and gone more than a week before. It came now for another reason.

The players had driven off the best manager in Red Sox history.

This is no longer idle speculation. Francona confirmed what we all had thought and said. The Red Sox were out of shape, they were arrogant, and they felt entitled. Because of that, Francona was forced to step down from one of the best jobs in sports.

It was because Josh Beckett gained ten pounds this season. It was because John Lackey flipped off at the media. It was because of all this, Terry Francona felt that he had let the Red Sox down.

He said at his press conference on Friday night that he felt he let everyone down; the players let him think that. Thanks to the lack of accountability, someone who did not have to stand up and face the music was forced to. Because no one stepped up on this team, it was nine players, nine cabs type of team. Francona had to leave the team he loved and cared about. He was the causality. Read the rest of this entry →

Evan Longoria and the Tampa Bay Rays came from seven runs down in the final game of the regular season to make the playoffs.

Before this season, in the history of Major League Baseball no team had ever missed the playoffs after leading by eight games or more in September. Thanks to a trio of shocking comebacks on the final night of the 2011 season, it has now happened twice.

The Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves have been two of the most successful baseball franchises of the last two decades, but they now are both going to be remembered for years to come for their epic collapses to end the 2011 season.

For a baseball fan, it is hard to imagine a night with more excitement than was seen on September 28th. On a night that perfectly epitomized the last month of the season for the Red Sox, Braves, Tampa Bay Rays and St. Louis Cardinals, there were emotion shifts nearly every minute as teams tried to stake their claim to a playoff berth.

Rays Rally While Red Sox Fade
On September 3rd the Tampa Bay Rays were nine games behind the Boston Red Sox in the AL Wild Card race. The Rays won 17 of their final 24 games and benefitted from the Red Sox dropping 20 of their final 26 to pull off a shocking comeback.

But it was the final comeback that was perhaps the most impressive. The Rays and Red Sox entered the final night of the season tied for the Wild Card lead.

Things didn’t look good for the Rays early as David Price allowed seven runs over the first four innings as the New York Yankees jumped to a huge early lead. With the Red Sox leading the Baltimore Orioles by a run, it looked like the Rays had to hope for a Baltimore comeback just to secure a one-game playoff.

Then, a funny thing happened on the way to a long offseason. The Rays rallied for six runs in the eighth inning, capped by a three-run home run by Evan Longoria, and then tied the game in the bottom of the ninth with a home run by Dan Johnson (his second of the season).

While this was happening, the Red Sox seemed headed to victory as they maintained their 3-2 lead over the Orioles into the ninth inning. When Jonathan Papelbon struck out the first two batters, it appeared that at the very least, the Red Sox would be playing the Rays in a one-game playoff on Thursday in St. Petersburg.

But suddenly, the Orioles started to rally. Back to back doubles by Chris Davis and Nolan Reimold tied the game and then Robert Andino capped the comeback with a single to rightfield that brought home Reimold with the winning run. Read the rest of this entry →