A Day of Light and Shadows: One Die-Hard Red Sox Fan and His Game of a Lifetime: The Boston-New York Playoff, 1978

Rating:
Summary: My 21st Birthday
Review: Hard to believe but my 21st birthday was the day Bucky Dent hit the Home Run to beat the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

I was a senior at Providence College in Rhode Island that year. During my four years of college either the Red Sox or the Yankees were in the World Series every season. At Providence half the kids were from NY/CT and the other half from Boston. It was bedlam every Fall. We didn't get a lot of studying done October nights.

I grew up in the New York area a life time Yankee fan but only went to my first game in 1965 when they began a period of years being terrible. My first real baseball memory was going to Yankee Stadium with my Father for a Sunday double header. In those days they hung all the Championship banners off the roof top facade on Sundays. It was impressive. For years I rooted for the Horace Clarke Yankees, then rejoiced when Sparky Lyle was obtained from the Red Sox for Danny Cater. When the Yankees got good in the late 1970s it was my first taste of seeing them win anything.

I got into broadcasting in college and had the chance to go to several Yankee and Red Sox games to interview players like Catfish Hunter, Oscar Gamble, Cliff Johnson, and Jim Rice. Rice put me off the first time I approached him for an interview, then he came back and said, "You still got those questions?" I even interviewed Bily Martin one night before he got fired and replaced by Bob Lemon. Billy was very nice to me when I talked with him. He answered my questions and then said "Glad to have you with us". Of course I was dumb struck listening on the radio to Old Timer's Day from my summer job and hearing the announcement from Bob Shepard that Martin would come back the next year as manager.

We went to the Sunday game of the four game sweep in Boston early in September and I remember how dejected the Red Sox faithful were. We hustled back down to New York to see a game of the followup series at Yankee Stadium the next week. The Red Sox were gritty to come back and tie the Yankees on the last day of the season setting up the playoff game.

The campus was dead quite that afternoon of Oct 2nd as everyone who absolutely didn't have to be in class or at a team practice crowded around tvs to watch the game. We had a party in my Fennel Hall dorm room watching on my old black and white set. The suspense was amazing. When Bucky hit the home run it seemed important but not yet decisive. There where innings left to play. The outs counted down. At the end of the game we poped a Champagne cork out the window. (the drinking age at that time was 18).

It is fortunate to have had such a great memory for a 21st birthday. I can hardly remember the World Series that year, the rivalry with the Red Sox had been so intense. It was a great time when a baseball game still can still be one of the most important things in your life. I look forward to reading this book.

Ken Kraetzer White Plains, NY

[e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: My 21st Birthday
Review: Hard to believe but my 21st birthday was the day Bucky Dent hit the Home Run to beat the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

I was a senior at Providence College in Rhode Island that year. During my four years of college either the Red Sox or the Yankees were in the World Series every season. At Providence half the kids were from NY/CT and the other half from Boston. It was bedlam every Fall. We didn't get a lot of studying done October nights.

I grew up in the New York area a life time Yankee fan but only went to my first game in 1965 when they began a period of years being terrible. My first real baseball memory was going to Yankee Stadium with my Father for a Sunday double header. In those days they hung all the Championship banners off the roof top facade on Sundays. It was impressive. For years I rooted for the Horace Clarke Yankees, then rejoiced when Sparky Lyle was obtained from the Red Sox for Danny Cater. When the Yankees got good in the late 1970s it was my first taste of seeing them win anything.

I got into broadcasting in college and had the chance to go to several Yankee and Red Sox games to interview players like Catfish Hunter, Oscar Gamble, Cliff Johnson, and Jim Rice. Rice put me off the first time I approached him for an interview, then he came back and said, "You still got those questions?" I even interviewed Bily Martin one night before he got fired and replaced by Bob Lemon. Billy was very nice to me when I talked with him. He answered my questions and then said "Glad to have you with us". Of course I was dumb struck listening on the radio to Old Timer's Day from my summer job and hearing the announcement from Bob Shepard that Martin would come back the next year as manager.

We went to the Sunday game of the four game sweep in Boston early in September and I remember how dejected the Red Sox faithful were. We hustled back down to New York to see a game of the followup series at Yankee Stadium the next week. The Red Sox were gritty to come back and tie the Yankees on the last day of the season setting up the playoff game.

The campus was dead quite that afternoon of Oct 2nd as everyone who absolutely didn't have to be in class or at a team practice crowded around tvs to watch the game. We had a party in my Fennel Hall dorm room watching on my old black and white set. The suspense was amazing. When Bucky hit the home run it seemed important but not yet decisive. There where innings left to play. The outs counted down. At the end of the game we poped a Champagne cork out the window. (the drinking age at that time was 18).

It is fortunate to have had such a great memory for a 21st birthday. I can hardly remember the World Series that year, the rivalry with the Red Sox had been so intense. It was a great time when a baseball game still can still be one of the most important things in your life. I look forward to reading this book.

Ken Kraetzer White Plains, NY

[e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: One More Excrutiating Day in the Curse of the Bambino
Review: Unless you are a Red Sox fan, you may not know about the Curse of the Bambino. In the early part of the 20th century, the Boston Red Sox dominated the American League. One of their best players was a pitcher named Babe Ruth. The owner traded the Babe to the New York Yankees in exchange for the money to invest in the Broadway production of No No, Nanette and it's been no cigar for the Red Sox ever since.

Jonathan Schwartz has one of the worst cases of Red Sox addiction that I have ever heard of. He has been a radio announcer in New York for over 30 years (that's enemy territory for Red Sox fans). To stay up with his beloved Red Sox, he spent almost $15,000 in long distance charges from 1970-77 to listen in to the air check for WITS in Hartford of the games (calling in from Paris in some cases).

This is a story first published in Sports Illustrated in 1978 and covers one of the worst periods in Red Sox history: The season when they blew a late 14 game lead to the dreaded Yankees. I lived in Boston at that time, and it was painful to recall the swoon. Yet at the end of the season, they pulled a comeback and tied the Yankees. There was to be a one-game playoff in Fenway Park (determined by a coin toss) on October 2, 1978. In a prior playoff against Cleveland in Fenway in 1948 (also on October 2), the Sox had lost 8-3.

During the slide, the worst time had been when the Red Sox lost four in a row in Fenway to the Yankees with less than a month to go. Schwartz recounts his reaction. In a funk, he impulsively walked out of his apartment with $50 and a credit card, and flew to California. Only after arriving did he remember to call his live-in girlfriend and tell her what he had done.

With the big game coming up, Schwartz thinks he should take it easy and watch the game on television. At the last minute, he cannot resist and calls in some markers to get a press pass.

Most of the book recounts the game. It is interspaced with pre and post game comments from the key players.

The ironies continue to abound. You'll have to read the book to get them all. The Sox took a 2-0 early lead, but the faithful were fearful. Bucky Dent, the light-hitting shortstop, fouled a ball off his leg and play was stopped temporarily while he was treated. On the mound, the delay cost Torres (the Red Sox pitcher and former Yankee) his concentration. You guessed it. Dent hit a home run. Gossage replaced Guidry later on and stops the Red Sox from rallying back.

The final score: New York 5, Boston 4 (or as Schwartz puts it "Destiny 5, Boston 4).

Required reading and rereading for all Red Sox fans until the Curse of the Bambino is lifted!

Overcome your disbelief that anyone team could have so much bad luck with so much talent by reading this engaging story of baseball tragedy!

Rating:
Summary: One More Excrutiating Day in the Curse of the Bambino
Review: Unless you are a Red Sox fan, you may not know about the Curse of the Bambino. In the early part of the 20th century, the Boston Red Sox dominated the American League. One of their best players was a pitcher named Babe Ruth. The owner traded the Babe to the New York Yankees in exchange for the money to invest in the Broadway production of No No, Nanette and it's been no cigar for the Red Sox ever since.

Jonathan Schwartz has one of the worst cases of Red Sox addiction that I have ever heard of. He has been a radio announcer in New York for over 30 years (that's enemy territory for Red Sox fans). To stay up with his beloved Red Sox, he spent almost $15,000 in long distance charges from 1970-77 to listen in to the air check for WITS in Hartford of the games (calling in from Paris in some cases).

This is a story first published in Sports Illustrated in 1978 and covers one of the worst periods in Red Sox history: The season when they blew a late 14 game lead to the dreaded Yankees. I lived in Boston at that time, and it was painful to recall the swoon. Yet at the end of the season, they pulled a comeback and tied the Yankees. There was to be a one-game playoff in Fenway Park (determined by a coin toss) on October 2, 1978. In a prior playoff against Cleveland in Fenway in 1948 (also on October 2), the Sox had lost 8-3.

During the slide, the worst time had been when the Red Sox lost four in a row in Fenway to the Yankees with less than a month to go. Schwartz recounts his reaction. In a funk, he impulsively walked out of his apartment with $50 and a credit card, and flew to California. Only after arriving did he remember to call his live-in girlfriend and tell her what he had done.

With the big game coming up, Schwartz thinks he should take it easy and watch the game on television. At the last minute, he cannot resist and calls in some markers to get a press pass.

Most of the book recounts the game. It is interspaced with pre and post game comments from the key players.

The ironies continue to abound. You'll have to read the book to get them all. The Sox took a 2-0 early lead, but the faithful were fearful. Bucky Dent, the light-hitting shortstop, fouled a ball off his leg and play was stopped temporarily while he was treated. On the mound, the delay cost Torres (the Red Sox pitcher and former Yankee) his concentration. You guessed it. Dent hit a home run. Gossage replaced Guidry later on and stops the Red Sox from rallying back.

The final score: New York 5, Boston 4 (or as Schwartz puts it "Destiny 5, Boston 4).

Required reading and rereading for all Red Sox fans until the Curse of the Bambino is lifted!

Overcome your disbelief that anyone team could have so much bad luck with so much talent by reading this engaging story of baseball tragedy!