Tonight’s HOME RUN IN HARVARD SQUARE seminar, Reporting from the Dugout, featuring Amalie Benjamin, Steve Buckley, and Bill Littlefield still has seats available! Buy them online now to ensure your seat!
Our May 20th seminar - “Designing the Great Ballparks” with Janet Marie Smith - has a new date and time.
Instead of May 20th at 6:00 pm, it will now happen on April 15th at 7:30 pm (following the 6:00 pm HRIHS seminar “Scouting, Recruiting, Signing, Developing and Managing the Lads before The Show”).
We hope that you will still be able to join us!
Details:
New schedule for April 15th “double header”:
6:00 pm “Scouting, Recruiting, Signing, Developing and Managing the Lads before The Show” with Raquel Ferreira, director of minor league operations, Boston Red Sox, and Mike Hazen, director of player development, Boston Red Sox, as scheduled.
7:30 pm “Designing the Great Ballparks” with Janet Marie Smith, architect for Fenway Park renovations and Camden Yards/executive VP of planning and development, Baltimore Orioles.
View our website for more details: http://www.ccae.org/homerun
Don’t forget to tell us your favorite baseball story! Click here to find out how!
One of my most offbeat Fenway memories is a May 1969 game against the expansion Seattle Pilots( later the Milwaukee Brewers) In this game, won by Seattle 9-6, Larry Haney( 9 lifetime HR) Ray Oyler(15 lifetime HR ) and pitcher Mike Marshall( 1 lifetime HR) all homered off Red Sox hurler “Fireball” Fred Wenz, offsetting a ninth inning grand slam by Carl Yazstremski. Ten years later, I did witness Yazstremski’s 3000th hit.
My list of All-time best and worst Red Sox by position:
1B) Yaz
2B) Bobby Doerr
SS) Nomar Garciaparra
3B) Wade Boggs
OF) Ted Williams
OF) Jim Rice
OF) Manny Ramirez
C) Carlton Fisk
SP) Pedro Martinez
SP) Cy Young
SP) Tim Wakefield
SP) Mel Parnell
SP) Roger Clemens
RP) Dick Radatz
RP) Jonathan Papelbon
RP) Bob Stanley
Manager: Terry Francona
Comments: Lots of tough omissions, like Mo Vaughn, Dutch Leonard, who had an ERA UNDER 1.00 in 1914 in 224 innings! and many more. Although Rice, Manny and Williams all played left field, they are all three hall of famers and are so good it would seem silly to omit. Dom DiMaggio was an OBP machine and would be a nice fit on the current team. Dwight Evans also measures up well, but not quite on par with the Big 3. Clemens is included with the pitching despite several years of mediocrity and being out of shape and being a lame big game pitcher. Tim Wakefiled makes it because he has been good for so long and has been versatile and has had many streaks where he carried the team on his own. Bob Stanley makes it because he was versatile and was the best pitcher on good teams for many years.
1978 was the season that defined the Boston Red Sox for a generation. A very good team that sprinted out to a seemingly insurmountable lead, but choked as their hated rivals from New york sprinted past them in the dog days of summer. What is often forgotten is that the Sox mounted their own stunning comeback late in that season to climb into a tie with the Yankees at season’s end. But the futility of the Red Sox, and in some way, all of Boston, was again reinforced with the meager pop up by Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski to end the playoff game and the season.
Watching from the lonely confines of manager Don Zimmer’s doghouse was one my favorite players, the Spaceman, Bill Lee. 1978 was my first year playing little league and as a left-handed pitcher, I modeled myself on Bill Lee, also a southpaw. I modeled my wind-up after his and tried to deliver the same lollipop curve with which he teased batters. The pitch would come in at a high arc, tantalizingly slow, but hitters would be thrown off with their timing and usually end up swinging and missing and spinning themselves into embarassment. Of course it was also the kind of pitch that when hit, would be hit long and hard and provoke the ire of fans and managers (“why the hell did he throw THAT?!?!”)
Lee was a controversial figure in the conservative baseball world. Along with a few other teammates, Lee was part of a crew called the “Buffalo Heads” who clashed with Don Zimmer. Lee spoke favorably of Maoist China, Greenpeace, and marijuana, and was as beloved by teammates and fans as he was hated by management.
So it was in the early summer of 1978 that I had the chance to meet the Spaceman in an unlikely place. On a sunny Thursday morning walking with my father into Bradlee’s at the Watertwon Mall, we saw the unmistakable sight of Bill Lee. He was very hard to miss. He was tall and was wearing a button-down shirt. The pattern of the shirt depicted the moon landing in an unmistakable way……..the whole left side of his body from the waist up was the familiar picture of Neil Armstrong on the surface of the moon and the rest of the shirt was filled out with the rest of the lunar landscape. The big 70’s collar flapped in the breeze as my father stopped him and told him what a big fan I was and how I tried to pitch just like him. Maybe he was hungover, maybe he already knew how the battles with management were going to play out, or maybe he had not enjoyed his ganja-garnished pancakes yet, but the Spaceman made it pretty clear with his abrupt mumbling that he was in no mood to entertain an 8 year old kid.
The thrill of the moment outweighed any sense of disappointment for me, but my father was pissed. It still makes me proud to remeber his fury as we walked into Bradlee’s and he growled, “why the hell is he wearing that damn shirt if he doesn’t want people to recognize him?!?!”
Without question, one of the primary reasons the Red Sox have such a deeply rooted place in the hearts of New Engalanders is Fenway Park. Built in 1912, generations of New Englanders can share the exact same moment with their forebearers. Aside from religious services and maybe family recipes, what else can make the same claim? And in that context, one can better understand the near-religious fervor that the Red Sox have garnered.
Perhaps the most dramatic moment is the ascent up the ramp toward the seats and the playing field. From the inner bowels of the stadium, the drab grays and pillars and posts conjure up the inner workings of any huge vessel, be it a factory or a ship or water works. This only serves to make the transition all the more dramatic. Ascending the ramp reveals fresh, open air, lush green grass, and the familiar Fenway Green on all the surrounding walls (fortunately my childhood visits through the 1970’s were free of the suffocating advertising that now plasters most of that green space). The low-level hum of 30,000 people mingles with the smack of the ball hitting the leather gloves and the crack of the bat all mark the distinct sensory experiences of a game at Fenway.
Reaching back to my first visit in 1975, the air was also filled with delicious cigar and cigarette smoke and the sudsy remnants of spilled beer from the Good Times of the previous day. The plumes of smoke as Italian Sausages, the hallmark of any festival in Boston, be it the Marathon, North End festivals, or St. Patricks Day parades waft through the park and the booming voices of vendors beckon thorughout the stands. Indeed, the daily schedule of baseball also puts it right in rhythm with daily life. It’s a scene that plays out in Little Leagues all across the region as well. In my own corner of Boston in Oak Square, our little league would gather at the decrepit Tar Park on the last Sunday morning of April (this conicided with the end of April vacation, which would be an otherwise sad day) and all the teams would march up Washington St. to Rogers Park on the outskirts of Brighton Center for a day of games. Kids from 6 to 18 would be in uniform and about half way to Rogers Park, the smell of food - yes, Italian Sausages - would begin to filter down the street. It was an Opening Day that provided the same tradition and excitement that Opening Day at Fenway gave to the region. It was not merely the first game, or the start of the new season, but also the transition to Spring that was being celebrated. For New Englanders who have been hunkered down for the bite of winter for 5 months, it was a joyous coming out party.
So for me, that first visit in 1976 was a rain out. It was a Saturday afternoon game against the Baltimore Orioles. I recall seeing the Orioles in their dugout waiting out the rain. Guys like Al Bumbry, Lee May, and Jim Palmer that I meticulously copied playing wiffle ball with my brother seemed larger than life, even from such a distance. And despite the persistent rain, I still hoped I would get to see legendary manager Earl Weaver throw one of his legendary tirades at an umpire, complete with the dirt-kicking, hat-throwing dramatic flourish. A soaking day and the game never even got started, but the impression was definitely made; not only the sights and scents, but the chance to ride the rickety 57 bus with my father and hold his huge hand as I raced across Comm. Ave. to make the walk up Bookline St. to the park. Looking back, it was great the game was rained out because it meant another chance to visit the park and expereince all these things again just a few weeks later when the Detroit Tigers rolled into town. I think it is this multitude of connections - family, food, fresh air, fun and games and Boston landmarks that has so woven baseball and the Red Sox into the fabric of New England.
HOME RUN IN HARVARD SQUARE is a special series of seminars produced by the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, exploring the art, science, business, and history of baseball. Please see our website for more information and how to purchase tickets to events.
We’d like to take this opportunity to invite the community to share their stories, memories, photos, and videos on this blog.
Join us on Sunday, April 4th from 4-7pm on the corner of Palmer and Brattle Streets, near Cardullo’s for the Opening Day - Open Mic Celebration. Read more about the event here.
To submit your story, please visit: http://homeruninharvardsquare.tumblr.com/submit
Please note: Each post will be moderated. Abusive or other inappropriate submissions will not be approved.
