If these California/Florida guys are rich enough to pluck the Red Sox for the tidy sum of $700 million, then you know they can afford to pay a few speechwriters and other lackeys to assure that they say all the right things. And so they did. They spoke of their love for the game of baseball and their recognition of the special legacy they were inheriting–that Boston, the Red Sox and Fenway Park represents hallowed ground in the baseball pantheon. “We will become active and visible members of this great community and always remember that this team belongs not to us, but to all of you.” (I’ll remember that next time I pay $50 for an obstructed-view seat behind a pole down the rightfield line.)
Oh yeah, they also mentioned something about winning–“we clearly have the resources to compete with anyone”–but after 83 years of futility nobody takes that part of the speech all too seriously. What Bostonians do take seriously, though, is that while these men–most notably the two principals, John Henry, current owner of the Florida Marlins, and Tom Werner, former owner of the San Diego Padres–may have all the right words, they have no discernible ties to the city other than those they purchased. That is unless you count Henry’s student days at Harvard, which makes him as much of a Bostonian as I am Chinese because I saw “Crouching Tiger” a couple of times. Werner actually has closer ties by dint of his romantic relationship with Katie Couric, which at least makes him the envy of most Boston men. We fantasize about seeing Katie in the first row alongside the dugout leading the Fenway faithful’s chant of “Yankees suck!”, much as Jane Fonda tomahawk-chopped for her then-sweetie in Atlanta.
Nevertheless the Henry-Werner team knocked off the local as well as the even bigger corporate mucky-mucks, despite the fact that the former have deeper community roots and the latter appear to have offered deeper pockets. I say “appear” because this process, controlled by John Harrington, the head of the Yawkey Trust which has controlled the team since 1994, was about as open to scrutiny as a Pentagon military operation. But Boston sensed a double loss. It didn’t get one of its own, nor did it at least get its own Steinbrenner to compete with the real George and the Yankees. As far as anyone could discern, the bottom line in this drawn-out episode was that two guys, who had undistinguished runs at the helm of low-profile teams, won the grand prize simply because they were pals of and loyalists to baseball commissioner Bud Selig.
In other words, it was a bag job. And as is typical with the sport that, off the field, can do no right, within hours of the big announcement the losers were making noise about suing over what they deemed a shoddy and dishonest process and the Massachusetts attorney general was talking about investigating. And Bud Selig was, of course, smiling because he had secured a critical vote for his baseball agenda. Lock out the players. “You betcha, Bud.” Make the Minnesota Twins disappear. “You betcha, Bud.” Get Steinbrenner to share some of those revenues with poor me in Milwaukee. “You betcha, Bud.” (Doesn’t anyone in baseball worry about the conflict of interest inherent in having the Twins, the sole team on the northern flank of the market for Selig’s own Milwaukee Brewers, extinguished?)
Of course, Selig isn’t smiling in public. He prefers to frown, just as he did a few weeks ago when he sat there and detailed the horrors of baseball ownership–under oath, mind you–to Congress. And, in the world according to Bud, the Red Sox are one of those teams hemorrhaging money. So how does Selig explain how, given the dire circumstances he described, both a current and former owner desperately want to buy in again at this mind-boggling price, more than double the previous record for a baseball franchise paid a few years back for the Cleveland Indians. And the owner of the Montreal Expos, assumedly chastened by his experience at the helm of the sorriest franchise in all of sports, can’t wait to buy the Florida Marlins off John Henry so that Henry can start the transformation from Miamian to genuine Bostonian. If we are to believe Bud, some really smart guys who built giant personal fortunes are just dumb enough to dip twice into the financial nightmare that is baseball.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Yet something tells me that none of these guys are destined to feel any shame. Or any pain. And until you feel the pain, you’ll never be a real Bostonian or Red Sox fan. So here’s a helpful offering to the new owners. This quiz (answers below) can serve as a starter course:
What Broadway play got financed as a result of selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees?
What beloved Red Sox star held the ball an extra beat while Enos Slaughter dashed home with the winning run in the seventh game of the 1946 World Series?
Why will the name Denny Galehouse always be anathema to Sox fans?
The Red Sox reached the World Series once each in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. And each time they played–and took to seven games–the National League team with the best season record of that decade. Name the teams.
Who hit the biggest Red Sox home run in game six of the 1975 World Series.
What pitch was Bill “Spaceman” Lee inspired to throw to Tony Perez with the Red Sox winning game seven of the 1975 World Series?
Why will the name Jim Burton always be anathema to Red Sox fans?
What adjective always comes between “Bucky” and “Dent” when his name is spoken in Boston?
Why should Bill Buckner never have made the error that sent the Mets on the way to the 1986 World Series title?
How do the Red Sox recall Roger Clemens? a) as the greatest pitcher in team history; b) as a quisling who never won a big postseason game for Boston, then bolted for bigger bucks.
Bonus 1: What two local lads who went on to star for the Red Sox had their careers end tragically young?
Bonus 2: What Red Sox slugger signed with the team for $160 million, then after just one season complained that he was never really comfortable in Boston’s cramped clubhouse?
There’s no reason to doubt Henry’s and Werner’s credentials as baseball guys. And no doubt, as fans of the game, they know the answers to many if not all of these questions. What they can’t possibly appreciate is the genuine pain of perpetual disappointment that these questions represent here in Boston. The new owners talked admiringly of the Red Sox legacy. Truth is that there is a legacy of extraordinary failure. The only way the new owners will be embraced as part of us is either to genuinely feel all the pain, which is pretty much impossible for outsiders, or to end the losing legacy once and for all. Odds are they’ll do neither. More likely this will be just the beginning of another painful chapter with some new characters in leading roles.
ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ
“No, No Nanette.” It was a hit on Broadway, but not quite as big a hit in New York as the Babe.
The great Red Sox shortstop Johnny Pesky, who held the relay from the outfield a split second too long.
Because manager Joe McCarthy was inspired to start Galehouse, a journeyman hurler with the fifth-best record among Red Sox starting pitchers, in the playoff against Cleveland for the 1948 pennant. Galehouse got shelled, the Red Sox lost and missed the chance for an all-Beantown World Series against the crosstown Boston Braves (“Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.”) Galehouse would pitch but two more games in the majors.
1967 St. Louis Cardinals, 101-60; 1975 Cincinnati Reds, 108-54; 1986 New York Mets, 108-54
No, not Carlton Fisk. Bigger was Bernie Carbo’s pinch-hit three-run blast in the eighth, which sent the game to extra innings and bestowed highlight-film immortality on Fisk. Which, of course, set Sox fans up for an even bigger seventh-game letdown.
His version of the eephus ball, a slow bloop curve, which Perez put in orbit and even today, 26 years later, is sometimes still confused with a small planet in a neighboring solar system.
Because with the Sox tied up with Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” in the ninth inning of the seventh game, manager Darrell Johnson was inspired to call on rookie reliever Burton. Burton, who had won all of one game in his major-league career, walked the first batter and soon gave up the series-winning hit to Joe Morgan. Burton would pitch but one more game in the majors.
Bucky F——* Dent is how the man who blooped the homer over Fenway’s legendary Green Monster to win the 1978 pennant playoff for the Yankees will forever be recalled here. (*Obscenity varies depending on Boston locale and number of women present.)
Because Red Sox manager John McNamara always replaced Buckner, with his gimpy knees, with Dave Stapleton for defensive purposes in the ninth inning and the Sox ahead. But McNamara was inspired by sentimentality to let the gritty Buckner stay on the field for the victory celebration. The celebration never came. And Buckner, as a result of his infamy, fled Boston and moved to Montana
B. And when Clemens enters the Hall of Fame in a Yankee uniform, he will assure his status as the most reviled ex-Boston star in any sport.
Bonus 1) Harry Agganis and Tony Conigliaro. Agganis was a local high school and college football star before becoming the Red Sox first baseman. In 1955, his second season, he was hitting .313 when he complained of chest pains. Less than a month later he was dead from a pulmonary embolism. Conigliaro, the youngest player ever to win a home-run title, was considered a threat to the career home-run mark now held by Hank Aaron. By age 24 Tony C. had stroked 124 home runs when he was hit in the face with a fastball. He would make two comebacks, but was forced to retire because of deteriorating eyesight. In his late 30s, he suffered a heart attack, lingered for years in a coma and died at age 45.
Bonus 2: Manny Ramirez. There are hardships even $160 million can’t disguise.
