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Boston Red Sox Need No More “Consistent” Starts from Josh Beckett

There were a lot of late-arriving fans at Fenway Park Friday night, and they had the right idea: This year, with Josh Beckett pitching, the worst parts of the game for the Red Sox almost always come early.

Beckett had another dismal start to his start, and the Red Sox were down 4-0 to the Blue Jays after just two innings. A few hours before the game, Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington had told Tony Massarotti of 98.5 The Sports Hub that Beckett has “been very consistent if you look at the entire year.”

That seems like a stretch, unless you consider the early parts of games—when the Texas Chicken King has been consistently bad.

Beckett allowed two runs in the first inning Friday, raising his first-inning ERA to 10.69 for the season. He allowed two more in the second, and is now averaging 6.65 runs allowed over the first three innings of his starts.

The fact he does far better from the fourth inning on is of little consolation; Beckett consistently puts the Red Sox in an early hole, and the team has won just six of his 16 starts.

This latest lackluster start in the eventual 6-1 loss was especially frustrating coming on the heels of Boston’s exhilarating walk-off win Thursday, and left fans wondering once again if the Red Sox can ever turn this season around. It also again raises the question of how long it will take before Cherington and the Red Sox brass say enough is enough and dump Beckett.

When Massarotti asked Cherington Friday whether Beckett (now 5-8) or fellow underachieving starter Jon Lester (5-7) was on the trading block,the GM would not confirm either way but did say that the clubhouse problems that helped derail last year’s team have not been a factor in this year’s struggles.

“I haven’t seen anything from anybody in our clubhouse this year, including the pitchers, that has been anything but professionalism and trying to get the job done on the field,” Cherington said.

There may be no longer be beer and chicken to worry about, but with the team now 12-22 in games pitched by its two “aces,” more than the menu has to change if Boston expects to stay in the wild-card hunt.

Tomorrow it’s Lester’s turn in the rotation. The trade deadline is July 31. Red Sox Nation is watching.

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Boston Red Sox: What Woeful Stat Must Be Improved to Contend in the Second Half?

If the Red Sox expect to be in the running for a playoff spot in the second half of the season, they need to improve in one crucial area: their record in low-scoring games.

Including their 6-1 setback in Oakland Monday, the Sox are just 4-28 in games in which they have scored three or fewer runs. This translates out to a .125 winning percentage, placing them 26th out of 30 MLB teams in this category. It also points to a key deficiency on the year’s team—top-notch starting pitching.

Unlike past years—when the Red Sox always had at least one clear ace who could match up against top opposing starters—the inconsistency on this year’s Boston staff has made for many frustrating nights.

Adding to the angst is that the Sox still have one of baseball’s best offensive clubs overall, ranking third in the AL in average (.268), slugging (.444) and OPS (.772). They have won their share of 9-4 and 15-5 games, but have struggled along at around .500 all year because of their low-scoring losses.

June offers a perfect microcosm of the problem. While the Red Sox had a decent 15-12 record overall for the month, they were 1-9 when scoring three or less runs—including 1-0 and 3-2 losses to the lowly Mariners last week. 

During a 1-5 homestand against Baltimore and Washington earlier in June, Boston lost games of 2-1, 4-2 and 4-3. They were swept by the Nationals—who got excellent starting performances from their terrific trio of Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez and Jordan Zimmerman. The Red Sox got decent pitching as well during that series, but it wasn’t quite good enough. 

Boston fans have been spoiled for most of the past 25 years. Even when the Red Sox didn’t make the playoffs, they had a dominating pitcher who could win the 2-1 and 4-2 games. First it was Roger Clemens, then Pedro Martinez, and then Curt Schilling. To a slightly lesser degree, Josh Beckett and Jon Lester have fit this bill the last couple of seasons, but this has been an ace-less year.

Beckett (4-7), Lester (5-5) and the demoted Daniel Bard (5-6) have all been disappointments; and while Clay Buchholz (8-2) and Felix Doubront (8-4) both have winning records, their ERAs of 5.53 and 4.42 make it clear they have been the beneficiary of very strong run support.

Only Boston’s surprisingly efficient relief corps and its sparking 3.10 combined ERA have kept them from falling even further into mediocrity. There is not much these guys can do, however, if they get the ball with the Sox already behind. 

After the end of this West Coast string, Boston has four big games with the AL East-leading Yankees heading into the all-star break. Somebody on the starting staff needs to step up against New York and in the weeks that follow if the Red Sox want to be playing come October.

 

Saul Wisnia lives less than seven miles from Fenway Park and works 300 yards from Yawkey Way. His latest book, Fenway Park: The Centennial, is available at amazon.com and his Red Sox reflections can be found at http://saulwisnia.blogspot.com/. You can reach him at saulwizz@gmail.com or @saulwizz.

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For Father’s Day, a (G)love Story

“You be Jason Varitek, and I’ll be Tim Wakefield,” my daughter yells, grabbing her mitt and heading to the backyard for some post-dinner pitching.

At seven years old, Rachel is already on her second hand-me-down glove from big brother Jason, but she’s never asked me for a new one. Looking at the ancient model I put on my own left hand, she knows better.

My glove is older than Rachel, older than 11-year-old Jason, older in fact than my marriage to their mother—which is moving into its 14th summer.

The Wilson A2000 I’ve used to teach both of them the game has been with me through more than two decades of life-changing events. It’s worn, scuffed, and recently popped its first leak in the form of a broken string, but it’s never disappointed me.

That’s tough to find in a human or horsehide.

It was once one of a pair—his-and-her mitts bought in 1991 with my fiancee Sharon for our first season as coed softball teammates. They were pricey for the time, I think about $70 each, but friends assured me the A2000 was the Cadillac of gloves.

Oiling them down and wrapping them in bungee cords, we put them under the bed for a couple days to break them in and then practiced with them diligently.

We got to the point where we felt sure we’d be the terror of the Boston JCC League. But, the day before our first game, I broke my ankle playing basketball and spent the summer in a cast covered with the “Ws” and “Ls” of a dismal Red Sox season.

Sharon was a trooper and played the season without me. My only memory of the campaign is almost getting into a fistfight with a cocky jerk who yelled at her for dropping a ball at second base.

The gloves made the drive with us to Washington D.C. when Sharon got a job with the government out of grad school. They didn’t get out of the closet much for the next three years.

We both worked crazy hours, her in the office and me in the press boxes of college and minor league ballparks across Maryland and Virginia. I saw plenty of action covering games for The Washington Post, but my glove didn’t.

When I had time for a workout, it was usually at 10 a.m. Swimming or running were the logical choices when everybody else was at work.

Try using a mitt before it’s well broken-in and you wouldn’t have much success. So it is with relationships.

Sharon and I had started dating while we were both in school, and I was only 21 years old. I wasn’t nearly broken in, and even though we had met on a diamond—during a 1988 pick-up game with some high school buddies in the midst of Morgan Magic—our mutual love for baseball wasn’t enough to get us through a dismal slump that started not long after our May 1993 wedding.

By the time Kevin Kennedy took over for Butch Hobson two years later, we decided to call it quits.

She stayed in D.C. with her A2000, while my glove headed back to Boston in the trunk of my old Accord. I found a basement apartment in Coolidge Corner and started carving out a writing career at the Herald, Globe, and anywhere else I could get published.

Once again, there was little time for games.

That fall, I met Michelle—who couldn’t care less about baseball but was very well broken-in as a person. At this point I was too, and we fit like a hard grounder to Pedroia in the hole. Sometimes tough to handle, but smooth in the end.

We married three years later, just before Mo Vaughn defected for Anaheim.

The glove story didn’t end there, however. Jason was born on the first day of spring training in 2001, and two years later made his first pilgrimage to Yawkey Way for a Father’s Day game with the Astros.

He brought along a tiny plastic red and blue Red Sox mitt, and I took my A2000 out of the closet and shook off the dust. It was the glove’s first trip to Fenway too, and we all saw a great contest—a 3-2 Red Sox victory capped by a Manny Ramirez single in the 14th inning.

The next summer our daughter was born on Aug. 16, and the Sox celebrated by beating the Blue Jays a few blocks away at Fenway and then winning 22 of their next 25. I dubbed this streak the “Rachel Effect,” and the good luck carried into October with the curse-busting victories over the Yankees and Cardinals.

When the last grounder of the World Series went from Foulke to Mientkiewicz, the four of us were all watching together—the glove just a few feet away.

Now the A2000 almost never goes more than a day or two between outings to the backyard and beyond. I’ve given up full-time sportswriting for a job that has me home at nights and weekends, where Jason and Rachel have both taken aim at the dark, cracking center of my mitt thousands of times.

Michelle remains a reluctant but supportive fan, and I’ve even gotten back into playing ball myself with a casual men’s softball league.

It was in one of these games, just a couple weeks ago, that I first noticed the broken string.

One of my teammates, a friend of nearly 30 years who had been playing with me the day I met Sharon and helped me pack up and leave Washington back in ’95, told me to borrow someone else’s glove and “not take any chances.”

But I couldn’t do it.

I figured the A2000 had come this far with me, it was good enough for a few more innings.

Jason is 11 now, and is more into hanging with his friends than playing catch with dad. I know Rachel will reach this point soon enough as well. Whenever their buddies are busy or they perhaps feel a bit sentimental and call on the old man, I’ll be waiting—and so will the A2000.

Good gloves are hard to find.

 

Saul Wisnia lives less than seven miles from Fenway Park and works 300 yards from Yawkey Way. His latest book, Fenway Park: The Centennial, is available at amazon.com and his Red Sox reflections can be found at http://saulwisnia.blogspot.com/. You can reach him at saulwizz@gmail.com or @saulwizz.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com


What Can Boston Red Sox Players Learn from Today’s Tim Wakefield Tribute?

I hope that starting pitcher Josh Beckett and everybody else on the Red Sox roster was watching closely during the “Thank you, Wake” ceremonies before today’s ballgame against the Mariners at Fenway Park.

In addition to being a classy sendoff for the knuckleballer, the event showed just where Tim Wakefield‘s priorities were during his 17-year career with Boston.

Rather than showing a bunch of highlights of Wakefield’s 200 career victories, the Jumbotron featured photos of him posing with kids from Dana-Farber’s Jimmy Fund Clinic and Franciscan Hospital for Children. Rather than trot out a bunch of celebrities to sing his praises, the Red Sox had representatives from the different charities Wakefield has supported during the years join him on the field.

And in a moment that moved the man of honor to tears, dozens of former “Wakefield Warriors” emerged from the same center field door that past Red Sox players had used to make their entrance during Fenway’s 100th anniversary celebration last month. The Wakefield Warriors are patients from the Jimmy Fund and Franciscan Hospital who Tim invited to be his guests before each Tuesday game at Fenway, and it was clear from the look on his face as he shook their hands just what their presence at the ceremony meant to him.

The only person to speak besides emcee Don Orsillo and Wakefield himself was longtime teammate David Ortiz. Like Wake, Ortiz is a former winner of the Roberto Clemente Award given annually to the MLB player who “best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement, and the individual’s contribution to his team,” as voted on by baseball fans and members of the media. “I know how much Boston means to you, and I know how much you mean to Boston,” Ortiz said, and the fans roared in agreement.

One of the few baseball moments that was referred to during the half-hour ceremony was Wakefield’s selfless gesture to give up his Game 4 start in the 2004 ALCS and pitch in long relief during a 19-8 loss to the Yankees at Fenway in Game 3. This move, perhaps more than any other, showed Wake’s character and devotion to his teammates. (It was followed up, of course, by three great relief innings and a win by Wakefield in Game 5, helping Boston on the way to its improbable pennant and World Series triumph.) 

In the wake of last September’s collapse, the chicken and beer scandal and the bad karma that has (fairly or unfairly) carried over into this Red Sox season, the ceremony was a reminder of the type of difference ballplayers can make in the lives of others—and their teammates—by carrying themselves with class and dignity.

Tim Wakefield won more games at Fenway Park than any other pitcher, but he also won the hearts of fans for what he did when he wasn’t on the mound. That’s the sign of a true hero.

 

Saul Wisnia lives less than seven miles from Fenway Park and works 300 yards from Yawkey Way. His latest book, Fenway Park: The Centennial, is available at amazon.com and his Red Sox reflections can be found at http://saulwisnia.blogspot.com/. You can reach him at saulwizz@gmail.com or @saulwizz.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com


Where Does Jacoby Ellsbury Rate Among Leadoff Men in Boston Red Sox History?

Boston Red Sox fans are wondering what Bobby Valentine’s Opening Day lineup is going to look like, and while the skipper isn’t talking yet, there is speculation that Jacoby Ellsbury will vacate the leadoff spot. If he does, he’ll be a tough No. 1 man to top.

The Sox were a major disappointment in 2011, but Ellsbury—already a proven hitter and two-time stolen base champ—emerged as a superstar. The fleet center fielder batted .321 with 32 homers, 39 steals and 105 RBI, great numbers for anybody but outstanding for someone who spent 144 of his 158 games atop the batting order.

Throw in his Gold Glove, and it’s no wonder Ells was runner-up to Justin Verlander in the MVP voting. 

How does Ellsbury’s season rank among the best by a Red Sox hitter batting primarily leadoff? Let’s take a look.  

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Tim Wakefield: 2 Boston Red Sox Stories You Probably Have Not Heard

Since it appears that the Tim Wakefield era in Boston may be nearing its last hours, I thought it might be an appropriate time to tip my hat to one of my favorite all-time Red Sox by sharing two stories that show what kind of guy he is away from the field.

Wakefield came to the Sox in the spring of 1995, when Monica Lewinsky was a new intern at the White House and Jose Canseco was taking aim at the Coke bottles atop the Green Monster. Everybody knows what Wake did that summer—starting his Boston career with a 14-1 mark and leading the Sox into the playoffs—and even when his stats were far less gaudy in the 17 years that followed, he was a very valuable guy to have around.

He started, closed, pitched long relief—whatever the team needed. In October of 2004, in the dismal final innings of Game 3 of the ALCS, I was among those shivering from behind the home dugout as Wake took one for the team and ate up precious innings during a 19-8 Yankees blowout. Those of us left when that game ended gave him a standing ovation, and by giving up his Game 4 start so others could rest, Tim paved the way for the eight straight wins that followed.

But you know all that stuff. Here’s what you might not know. A few months later, the World Series trophy made one of its first stops on its all-New England winter/spring 2005 tour at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). The Red Sox and Dana-Farber’s Jimmy Fund charity have a relationship going back nearly 60 years, which I’ve been lucky enough to be part of since ’99 as a DFCI staff member.

This was one of my greatest memories from that long tenure, for it was Wakefield who came to the hospital bearing the trophy.

I was one of his tour guides as we strode onto a back-entrance elevator, and a few minutes later emerged in the Jimmy Fund Clinic—surprising many pediatric cancer patients who were waiting for shots, chemotherapy, and other treatment.

For a few minutes, these kids got to forget all about their cancer as Wakefield walked around the room slowly and bent down so every patient—no matter how small—could get a good look at the trophy and his face.

I’ve seen dozens of celebrities work this same room, and most of them go through quickly with a smile and a wave. Tim took time to stop and make every child and parent feel like he really cared about them. The youngest kids didn’t even know who he was, but he was a big smiling man with a shiny trophy, so they were happy.

We expected the visit to end after this, but Wakefield asked if he could stay and visit with adult patients as well. This time, there were some tears among the smiles, as people who had waited 20, 30, 50 years or more for a Red Sox championship suddenly had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to thank one of the guys who helped make it happen. It certainly wasn’t how they expected their day at the hospital to go.

Our photographer took dozens of photos, of course, but as is our policy I stood out of the way no matter how tempting it was to sneak into the frame. After all, I had waited 37 years myself for a World Series title. Wake must have sensed this, for after he was finally done shaking hands and doling out hugs, he was about to breeze out to a waiting Town Car when he turned around and said, “Hey, do you want a picture?” He didn’t have to ask me twice, and just like that I had my own memento from that memorable morning.

Fast forward to the summer of 2008: The teenagers from the Jimmy Fund Clinic were taking their annual baseball road trip to see the Red Sox play away from Fenway—this time in Chicago’s U.S. Cellular Field. These trips are a chance for kids to share laughs and war stories with peers who know what they are going through, because they’re going through it as well. Baseball, like cancer, is a common bond.

As is usually the custom, the teens came out to the ballpark early to meet with some Sox players before batting practice. Wakefield was always one of the guys who made the most time for kids during these sessions, and this day was no exception. He walked over to the railing separating the stands from the field and started chatting with the young fans.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bald-headed kid with crutches hopping on one leg about 10 rows back. It was clear that this boy, who had lost a leg four months back due to bone cancer, was not going to be able to traverse down the steep stairs needed to meet Wakefield and his other heroes.

Again Tim did what came naturally—he vaulted over the railing into the stands, ran up the stairs, grabbed the grinning 15-year-old, and literally carried him down on his back to the front row so he could hang with his friends and the players. Wakefield went just 10-11 that summer, but that day he was Sandy Koufax and Walter Johnson wrapped into one.

“Every time I walk out to the mound and see that Jimmy Fund emblem on the Green Monster, I am reminded of the special role the team has played in helping fight cancer since Ted Williams was visiting with patients at Dana-Farber back in the 1950s,” Wake once told me. “I’m proud to be a part of it.” It certainly always showed.

So now it might all be over—with Wake stuck on 186 Red Sox wins, apparently destined to finish runner-up to Clemens and Cy Young (tied at 192) atop Boston’s all-time victory list. It’s frustrating to think that for many fans, their last memories of the ancient knuckleballer will be the long, painful march to his 200th career win last year, and his one unfortunate quote in nearly 20 years (one I am guessing may have been taken out of context anyway).

Instead, people should remember all the good days he had while representing Boston with class and guts, and know that when it came to delivering off the mound, Wake was in a league of his own.

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Boston Red Sox Opening Day at Fenway is Friday the 13th—What Could Happen?

While trying to plan out book signings and other spring plans, I went on to redsox.com the other day and took my first look at the 2012 team schedule. Opting for the old-fashioned “printable” format with its familiar little white (away) and red (home) boxes, I learned that the Sox start the season in Detroit and Toronto and don’t play their home opener until April 13—Friday, April 13. 

I immediately laughed, wondering how often (if ever) this has happened in team history and if there could be any worse time for such a bad omen.

The collapse the 2011 Red Sox experienced in the final weeks of the season and the wings-and-beer headlines that followed were perhaps the most depressing period for Sox fans since Aaron Boone took Wakefield deep in 2003. Before that one has to go back to Bill Buckner (1986) and Bucky Dent (1978) for similar misery, and on impulse I did a quick check to see when Fenway opened in each of those four years. Maybe this was a trend I had missed.

Nope. The Sox broke out the Fenway bunting on Friday, April 14 in both ’78 and ’86, and on Saturday, Aprl 12 in 2003 (all close but no El Tiante). In 2011 they got under way at home on the seemingly safe day of Friday, April 8, but perhaps the devils were laughing anyway: the winning pitcher over the Royals that afternoon—in, lest we forget, the team’s first victory of the year after an 0-6 start—was none other than John Lackey.

The next logical question is how many times the Red Sox have opened Fenway on Friday the 13th, and what has happened. Clearly the schedule-makers have previously done their best to avoid such a situation, because in the first 111 home openers in franchise history, it has happened exactly ONCE, in 1984.

Bruce Hurst allowed seven runs to the Tigers in the top of the first inning that day, and Detroit went on to a 13-9 victory in the first home game of the post-Yaz era. Ralph Houk’s Sox went on to a respectable 86-76 campaign, but were never in the pennant hunt after Detroit’s 35-5 start to the season. The Tigers went on to win the World Series, so perhaps the 13th was lucky for Sparky Anderson and Co.

OK, so now that we’ve established we’re in rare territory here, what to make of it? Well, I thought it would be fun to contemplate what could happen when the Red Sox host the Rays on Friday, April 13, 2012—the kickoff to Fenway’s 100th birthday season:


BOSTON, April 13—With just a week to go before Fenway Park celebrates its official 100th birthday, the Red Sox had better hope they can find a way to spread some good cheer before the big day. Today’s news couldn’t have been worse.

The 2:05 p.m. start to the game between the host Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays was delayed two hours when bricks from part of Fenway’s original foundation broke off early in the morning and fell to the ground in the concourse behind home plate. No fans were yet in the park, and no employees were injured, but the incident caused a near riot on Brookline Avenue as management kept crowds from entering Yawkey Way until the debris was cleared and the area safely sealed off.

Fans were finally settling into their seats when the next bombshells hit. Calvin Schiraldi, the 1986 World Series scapegoat welcomed back to Fenway as part of a “We Forgive You” campaign by Sox management, threw out the ceremonial first pitch and drilled catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia in his unprotected kneecap, breaking it and forcing the Sox to start backup Kelly Shoppach in his place.

Starting pitcher Jon Lester next took the mound, but didn’t last through his warm-ups before a pain in his shoulder prompted manager Bobby Valentine to pull him as well.

Not wanting to shake up his other front-line pitchers, Valentine left the game in the hands of fifth starter Alfredo Aceves. The Rays promptly broke out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning, with two of the runs scoring when Boston left fielder Carl Crawford —while in pursuit of a fly ball—tripped on a chicken bone thrown onto the field by a heckling fan.

The Red Sox seemingly tied things up in the third inning on a three-run homer by David Ortiz off James Shields, but the runs were erased when Rays manager Joe Maddon appealed correctly that the slugger had batted out of order. Baserunners Crawford and Jacoby Ellsbury were ordered back to their bases and Ortiz called out—thus ending the inning. Valentine charged from the dugout to protest, and was ejected by umpire Ed Armbrister.

Aceves pitched admirably through the middle innings, but Shields held Boston scoreless before departing after eight innings with a 4-0 lead—helped in part by four double-plays turned behind him.

The Red Sox were happy to see him gone, and rallied in the bottom of the ninth off closer Kyle Farnsworth to load the bases with two outs.

Crawford stepped to the plate, hoping to atone for his earlier “boner”, and slammed a Farnsworth offering deep into center field. The ball rolled to the triangle as three runs scored, and Crawford appeared ready to tie the game on an inside-the-park homer.

Then the inexplicable happened. A black cat, sneaked into the ballpark by Schiraldi, escaped from its carrier in the box seats behind home plate and ran onto the field. Spooked by the sight of the feline in his path, Crawford stumbled and fell halfway between third base and home. He quickly jumped up and continued running, but was easily tagged out at the plate by catcher Robinson Chirinos.

After the game, when asked why he had brought the cat to the game, Schiraldi offered a devlish grin and said, “Why, I take little Bucky Boone everywhere.”


Saul Wisnia lives less than 7 miles from Fenway Park and works 300 yards from Yawkey Way. His latest book, Fenway Park: The Centennial, is available here http://amzn.to/qWjQRS and his Red Sox reflections can be found at http://saulwisnia.blogspot.com/. You can reach him at saulwizz@gmail.com or #saulwizz.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com


Red Sox Candidate Bobby Valentine Overcame Gruesome Injury as a Player

It remains to be seen whether Bobby Valentine will be the next manager of the Boston Red Sox, but one thing is certain: If Larry Lucchino and Boston’s ownership group are looking for a guy who knows how to bounce back from a tough year, this is their man.

Valentine was one of baseball’s top prospects in the late 1960s. The Connecticut native with sprinter’s speed headed west to USC and was the fifth pick (by the Dodgers) in the ’68 draft. Big things seemed in store when he was named Pacific Coast League MVP after batting .340 with 14 homers and 16 triples at Triple-A Spokane in 1970. A shortstop, he was the heir apparent to Maury Wills in Los Angeles.

Things didn’t go quite so smoothly. Valentine started out slow in the big leagues, partly due to torn knee cartilage sustained playing touch football, but seemed to be hitting his stride after being swapped up the freeway to the Angels.

A month into the ’73 campaign the 23-year-old had his average at .302 and was taking time off from shortstop to fill in for an injured teammate in the outfield when he ran back to the wall in pursuit of a Dick Green fly ball.

What happened next was a baseball equivalent of the Joe Theismann injury, with the vinyl fence at Anaheim Stadium playing the role of Lawrence Taylor.

As Sports Illustrated later described it: The ball missed Valentine’s glove by an inch, and his leg drove into the vinyl between the two support poles so that the tarp first yielded, then ensheathed his calf like a vise before flinging him back to the ground with a grotesque bend in the middle of the shin.

The incident fractured both of the bones in Valentine’s lower right leg, and he spent nearly six months in two different casts. When the second one was removed, doctors discovered that the bones had knit poorly—leaving an 18-degree bend between his knee and ankle.

Valentine had two choices: suck it up and learn to play in pain, or spend 13-16 more months undergoing surgery and leg reconstruction with screws and plates.

“In my mind,” he told SI, “to go with their plan meant not to be a ballplayer.” Doctors gave him a few months to decide, and by spring training he was jogging and ready to play. Valentine had a huge lump on his knee, a constant limp and his speed was gone. But he played 117 games anyway, batting .261 in his transition from superstar prospect to fringe performer.

Over the next five years he did whatever he could to stay on the roster—eventually playing every position but pitcher—and wound up getting into nearly 400 games on one good leg for four different teams. He knew adversity, but didn’t know how to quit.

In that regard he had a lot in common with his father-in-law, former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca, another guy who wore No. 13 and had been dealt a tough blow by fate (in Branca’s case, it was giving up Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard Round the World” that clinched the ’51 pennant for the Giants over the Dodgers). Imagine the late-night discussions those two had.

Nobody would have blamed Valentine for limping away from the game, but he loved it too much and wanted to help others succeed at it.

As manager of the Rangers and Mets, and in two stints skippering teams in Japan, he was not always loved by his ballplayers, but he was respected for his intelligence.

Peter Gammons, who has worked with him at ESPN during Valentine’s recent stint as an analyst, calls him, “One of the most brilliant men I’ve ever met.”

 

Cocky and at times abrasive, he rubbed many people the wrong way. He also could explode with the best of them, and wasn’t afraid to sit down under-performing players. 

Clearly this is one guy who would not let pitchers get fat and happy on beer and wings. He fought too hard to stay in the Show to let others give less than their best.

Terry Francona had a sterling reputation as a nice guy and a “player’s manager” who preferred letting others get the bulk of the attention and credit.

Valentine enjoys being in front and saying what he feels, even if players won’t want to hear it. And with a roster full of stars that could use some shaking up, Bobby V. may be just what Larry Lucchino and Red Sox ownership feel they need.

 

SAUL WISNIA is a former sports and news correspondent for The Washington Post and feature writer for The Boston Herald who is now senior publications editor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He has authored, co-authored or contributed to numerous books on Boston baseball history, including his latest — Fenway Park: The Centennialhttp://amzn.to/qWjQRS. His essays and articles have appeared in Sports Illustrated, Red Sox Magazine, and The Boston Globe, and he shares Fenway reflections in cyberspace athttp://saulwisnia.blogspot.com/. Wisnia lives 6.78 miles from MLB‘s oldest ballpark in Newton, MA, and can be reached at saulwizz@gmail.com or @saulwizz.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com


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