The Meaning of Yaz Options

[The Allented Mr ...]

Hiding behind the double-knits, cored-out earflap and lazy wrist twirl was the harsh reality that man is mortal and everything is going to end.

Carl Yastrzemski’s immediate predecessor, Ted Williams, lived some kind of charmed life where he could accomplish whatever he wanted to through the sheer force of being Ted. He was a 6’ 3” live wire, a bulldog Picasso or Hemingway with a bat. Yaz? He was you or me, some guy who wouldn’t get two glances on the street, but was somehow able to push himself to the very limits of what he could do and live out there in that ether for 23 years. If Ted Williams was Superman, some freakish alien life form given powers by the yellow sun, then Carl Yastrzemski was Batman, a human residing on the edge of his own capabilities because that is what he was driven to do. Williams left us by hitting a home run in his last at-bat, still lifting that car as effortlessly as he did on the cover of Action Comics #1. Yaz, on the other hand, bore the visible scars of battle, ones dealt not only by foes on the diamond but by time itself. And because of this we identified with him all the more.

I was 12 when Yaz’s Batman avatar began to pixelate and break down, revealing its ugly underneath, like some fruit rotting in the sun. It was a symbol not indicative of Yaz’s play, but merely a marker of the passage of time. Here he was during the summer and early autumn of 1983, playing out his last season and leaving me to wonder what rooting for the Red Sox would be like without him. At that age, my fanhood was based solely on the identification with the players. The laundry hadn’t really come into focus yet because the turnover rate in my short window of rooting for the Sox was minimal; I was too young and disconnected to feel the pain of Tiant and Lee leaving, and merely impotently aware of Lynn’s and Fisk’s departures. At the same time, I was a virgin to the delicious thrill of a pennant race (I was only 7 in 1978 and couldn’t appreciate the story being spun out of that season at the time). What else was there but to root for this man who had embodied not only being a Red Sox, but also represented the honor was bestowed in the act of fighting, as opposed to the outcome? The funny thing is that for all my anxiety over Yaz’s impending retirement, it wasn’t like I was seeing anything remotely resembling his prime, as if I knew what I’d be missing. It’s just that he had Always Been There. Not just for me, but for my father. Particularly for my father. This worrying about my father’s feelings about any outside developments whatsoever was a shaky new concept. He was a sophomore in high school the spring that Yastrzemski made his debut, for Chrissakes, surely some bell must be tolling in his consciousness. And if #8 was getting too old to hack it, then maybe so was my Dad, and then so would I at some point down the road. These aren’t things you want to think about when you’re twelve.

Yaz occupies a curious spot in the Red Sox pantheon. A first ballot Hall of Famer who may have been an accumulator more than anything else. Owner of a Triple Crown and a multiple Gold Glove winner, but a reclusive and somewhat aloof person who did little off the field to endear himself to the fandom. Very few kids my age even liked him during his playing days, as they thought he was some old fart whose presence was somewhat comical in contrast to that of Lynn and Rice, and later on, Evans. You look at some of his years and it’s not surprising, these sentiments: .254 with 15 home runs in 1970? .264 with 12 home runs in 1971? His renaissance perhaps coincided with the position change to first base, or with the rising fortunes of the team after its post ’67 doldrums, but as the 70s progressed he became cagey veteran. Mortal or not, no man was more fearless and determined once he put on that uniform. He was the original Dirty Canine.

The Yaz story that most defines him for me is one from the last-gasp winning streak at the end of the ’78 season which ultimately forced a one game playoff with the Yankees. On Sunday, September 24th, one game into said winning streak, the Sox had forced the Blue Jays into extra innings at Exhibition Stadium. Balor Moore had been pitching for 2+ innings, and in the top of the 12th Moore struck out Rice to bring Yastrzemski to the plate. Moore got a little cute and sailed a fastball up and in on Yaz, who sprawled to the ground to avoid being hit. He got up, slowly collecting himself, and stood in the batter’s box awaiting the next pitch, which he promptly launched for a triple. Blue Jays manager Roy Hartsfield yanked Moore from the game, and once they got to the dugout he dressed him down: “Pitching to Yaz is like being in a gunfight, only if you miss with yours, he never misses with his.”

Yet for all of that, he never won a ring, and to add insult to injury, he made the last outs of the ’75 and ’78 seasons, both with the Sox behind by a mere run.

The Kid had the same "didn't win it all" collar around his neck (and had lesser numbers in what would be considered the “clutch” times during his career), but he is not cast in the same light. To me, Ted was Zeus, hurling lightning bolts from on high. Yaz? He was Sisyphus. I learned about the myth of Sisyphus in 11th grade English and I immediately thought of Yaz. Then I extrapolated it out to simply being a Red Sox fan. But then again, none of us were actually rolling that rock up the hill. Yaz was.

In John Updike’s famous essay “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu,” he sums up Ted quite nicely as he observed that Ted didn’t tip his cap after his career-ending clout, despite the impassioned pleas of the few thousand who were in the stands that day: “Gods do not answer letters.”

On the other hand, Yaz took a lap around Fenway Park the day before his last game, exchanging high-fives and handshakes with anyone lucky enough to be sitting in the first few rows. A far more stoic man than Ted ever was, he nonetheless placed himself into the open palms of Boston and said, “This is what I can offer you as thanks.” On his last day, as he walked off the field for one last time after being pulled during the top of the 9th, he unbuttoned his jersey and gave it to a boy in the front row behind the dugout before he descended down the steps for good. Carl Yastrzemski was not Superman or Zeus. But he showed us that a man battling against that which limits him, whether it was his own physical attributes or the unyielding opponent of time itself, is as compelling and honorable as any feat recorded.

I want you to talk about what #8 meant to you.

This post has been edited by The Allented Mr Ripley: Feb 25 2007, 10:34 AM

[paulftodd]

I was 10 yo in 1967 when I started following the Red Sox. Tony C was my favourite player but after he got beaned Yaz took his place and did not let me down, the last 2 months of the season were amazing. Unfortunately the world series week day games were played during the day while I was in school so I had to listen to some games for an inning or 2 on the bus and the only the last couple of innings on TV. I still remember the Yaz song and Yaz bread that my mother would never buy since it was more expensive than the Stop and Shop brand. I could never get over him being booed so much after what he did in 1967, this was mainly in the early 70's and after he dared to sign a contract that paid him more than the President (3 years, 500 K). In fact I see what Manny gets away with and wonder what fans would have done to Yaz if he dared to be Yaz being Yaz, probably would have lynched him. He was not a great base runner and sometimes dogged it to 1B (Stanky called him an All Star from the neck down) but made up with it with his fielding. Some people seem to think RF is the most important corner OF defensive position and I disagree, at least at Fenway. Yaz simply gunned down runners at home and 2B and played the wall as well as anyone, especially then when they had those tin panels and the ball would take crazy bounces. Too bad he never won a championship. If he had played someplace like Detroit he may have hit over 600 HR. He might have done it at Fenway if he did not pull the ball so much after 1970 (it was 1971 he went 254 w/ 15 HR). In his best HR years in 67, 69 and 70 he had a bunch of HR to LF (about 30% from BR), After that it dropped off quite a bit and so did his HR rate.

[jacklamabe65]

A most luminous remembrance, my friend. Thanks for starting this thread.

Pre 1967, it was all about "the promise" of Carl Yastrzemski. I remember well Yaz winning the 1963 batting title, but I also recall him dogging after balls in left field, gesturing to fans, and being accused of lacking passion (sound familiar?) especially by my Boston Braves-loving father who called him a stool pigeon for "Uncle Tom" and "a typical American League player". That reputation would even carry into the 1967 season when White Sox skipper Eddie Stanky would label Yaz, "An all-star from the neck down." In the eyes of most Boston fans, especially after the emergence of local hero Anthony Richard Conigliaro, Yaz seemed like an afterthought.

The Summer of Love, 1967, changed all of that in a hurry. Carl's relentless off-season work with trainer Gene Berde chiseled him into a Greek God. His impossible catch of Tom Tresh's line drive in the ninth inning of the legendary Billy Rohr game at Yankee Stadium showed us all that he now cared. He emerged as the best, most relentless player in the big leagues as the season unfolded. While many remember his prowess as a hitter that year, his earlier indifference as a fielder was forever a thing of the past. In the end, Yaz's masterful play in left field was forever cemented as a result his exemplary performance in the outfield in 1967. After Conig was tragically struck in the face by Jack Hamilton, Yaz seemed to pick up his game to Everest-like heights; his comprehensive play over the last six weeks of the improbable season was nothing less than the best sustained stretch of any player that I have witnessed in forty-five years of watching professional baseball. I probably saw Yaz play in person over three hundred times in total, including his astonishing performance in the last game of the 1967 season, and his two-homer game against the Cardinals in Game 3 of the '67 Series. While I would follow him on a game-by-game basis over the course of the next sixteen years his singular performance during the Impossible Dream season would define him for me as a Red Sox fan.

That is not to mean that I don't remember the negative, inlcuding his somewhat bizarre follow-up in 1968 when he literally swung for the fences with a gale-force that reminded me of Earl Wilson at the plate. This invairably caused him to be booed mightily by a Fenway crowd who had previously appreciated him going to left field or up the middle whenever necessary during the magical '67 season. I actually remember seeing Yaz hit two homeruns sandwiched by three strikeouts in a game that year in which he wore cotton in his ears in order to block out all of the booing.

Still, we clung to him anyway; after all, the colors that he lit for us in '67 had created a new universe called Red Sox Nation - and he was its patriarch. As the years advanced, I relished his brilliant rob of a sure Johnny Bench homerun in the 1969 All Star Game in Washington, his last great stab at a batting title when the mercurial Alex Johnson beat him out by less than a point when the gutless Angels slugger took himself out a game in the third inning while Yaz played on, and Carl's back problems that began to beset him the following year, causing him to achieve his lowest batting average of his career.

The same kind of heroism that we had all witnessed in '67 peaked through the storm clouds again in the last month of 1972 when Yaz attempted to lead the Boston Nine past the mighty Detroit Tigers for the American League Eastern crown. In the key game of that season, an absolutely heartbreaking loss to the Tigers at the Stadium, Luis Aparicio stumbled over third base after Carl's laser went over Mickey Stanley's head, costing Boston either a tie or a win. The headline in The Globe the next morning said it all: "Yaz Weeps as Sox Fall".

Carl Yastrzemski eventually left the Olympic heights of his prime and entered the domain of the chiseled veteran; he repeatedly represented Boston in a series of All-Star Game losses while adjusting to playing first base. I was there at the Fens in the summer of 1974 when Jim Rice made his major league debut; Yaz wore a first baseman's glove that day for one of the very first times. A year later, the glow from the Red Sox fire came from the combined forces of "The Gold Dust Twins", Pudge Fisk, Rooster Burleson, Luis Tiant, and Rick Wise. Nevertheless, Yaz was "Captain Carl" (thanks to Jim Woods continually calling him that on the air) and all was finally right with the world. Number Eight even experienced a mini '67 Renaissance during the 1975 ALCS - his seamless play both at the plate and in the field, especially in Game 3 at Oakland - will never be forgotten by Sox fans who lived through those unforgettable times. Even today, I can still hear Possum Wood's memorable call on a bullet hit by Reggie Jackson in which he barked out the summary of the play after it happened: "Captain Carl Yastrzemski as in days of yore - leading the troops again as he dived and stopped the ball and threw a strike to Rick Burleson who tagged out the surprised Jackson!"

The years began to whirl by like shuffling cards but Yaz continued to show up and play, season after season. When he won his first batting title, I had been a second grader; in '67, I was a seventh grade student at Wellesley Junior High; in 1975, I watched the World Series amidst fall practice at Jacksonville University where I was pitching for one of Carl's old teammates, Jack Lamabe. In 1978, I found myself in North Florida working as a printing broker as the season began. By the end of July, I had quit work down there and had returned home jobless because I had wanted to be in Boston when the Red Sox won it all. I was in the bleachers for the infamous playoff game against the Yankees where Yaz played once again like a God, striking a first inning homerun off of Ron Guidry and a clutch single in the seventh off of Goose Gossage before popping out with the winning runs on base with two out in the ninth. Thirty minutes later in the Red Sox clubhouse, Yaz, once again in tears, was visited by Reggie Jackson. The future Hall of Famer slowly approached Carl and put his arms around him. “Captain," exclaimed Jackson, "you're the best, you're the best I've ever seen." George Steinbrenner later said in the Yankees' locker room, "Yaz made me proud today to be an American." When he slowly walked to his car in the Red Sox parking lot, Cliff Keane wrote, "For the first time in his life, Carl Yastrzemski looked old."

A year later I was at the Fens when he hit both his 400th homerun and his 3000th base hit. As many of you remember, it seemed to to take a lifetime for Yaz to go from 2,999 to 3,000, but like everything else in his career, he gutted it out and somehow made it happen. In the top of the eighth inning of his 3,000th game with two outs in the inning, Bucky Dent (of all people) popped a ball high into the stands on the first base side which I caught - the only game ball I ever nabbed in all of my years attending games there. Dent got out on the subsequent pitch on a grounder. The next pitch in the game? Yaz's 3000th hit. I still have the ball - a Bucky Dent foul that could have been Yaz's 3000th hit. What I most remember that night, however, was how Reggie Jackson cradled the ball in his hands in right field, ran in with it, and then gave Yaz a hug and presented him with his 3000th hit. When George Scott, who was playing out his career with the Yankees, came over and gave Yaz an extended hug, all of us who had witnessed the Impossible Dream season firsthand had tears in our eyes.

Over the next few seasons, Yaz began to regularly receive standing ovations from the Fenway faithful. The bookends of pluck and perseverance had enabled him to continue playing into his forties, and many Sox followers like me began to realize that we had marked the time to our own lives by a player who had worn a red number eight on his back for all of these years. I had season-tickets then; I remember watching Carl peak out of the dugout on cold days, sneaking another cigarette near the runway before grabbing a bat and slowly walking towards the batting circle. There was something both fragile and poignant about his declining years. He was nearing the end, yet all of us were in denial. After one game in '81, I remember listening to Sinatra's "The September of My Years" as I pulled onto Brookline Avenue. I immediately thought of Yaz as I headed for Route 9.

Life, however, moves on, and as I began my third year as a teacher, I gave up my tickets and moved to London where I began teaching at the American School. In the middle of that school year, however, I made reservations to come back to attend the 1983 Opening Day, realizing that it would be Yaz's last in a Red Sox uniform. Twenty years before, I had seen my first Red Sox game against the Los Angeles Angels at Fenway. As I entered Gate A with my father two decades later, we would both see Carl for the last time. Because Dad was in failing health, it would also be the last major league game he would ever attend. When Yaz was introduced to a soaring ovation - even the Royals players clapped - tears began to roll down my cheeks.

I left my childhood behind me at that moment.

This post has been edited by jacklamabe65: Feb 25 2007, 02:02 PM

[jeff from burger...]

"Yaz did it all the time. We'd be on the road and he'd call, 'C'mon, we're going to the ballpark.' I'd say, 'Christ, it's only one o'clock. The game's at seven.' He lived, breathed, ate, and slept baseball. If he went 0-for-4, he couldn't live with it. He could live with himself if he went 1-for-3. He was happy if he went 2-for-4. That's the way the man suffered." - Outfielder Joe Lahoud
"I was lucky enough to have the talent to play baseball. That's how I treated my career. I didn't think I was anybody special, anybody different."
"I loved the game. I loved the competition. But I never had any fun. I never enjoyed it. All hard work all the time."
"I think about baseball when I wake up in the morning. I think about it all day and I dream about it at night. The only time I don't think about it is when I'm playing it."-Carl Yastrzemski
My grandpa used to take me to Fenway in the early seventies,Yaz would get a hit, he would tell me, he's good, but he's no Ted Williams. But realistically, who is? If not for two wars, Bonds might be chasing Williams this year. Yaz showed that smarts,determination,and hard work win, and thats's a great lesson for little league players. So you aren't the most gifted, the tallest, the fastest. Learn the game, the fine points, do the little things right.
Little league started this week in Florida, my kid was given number 8.So I got to tell him about Carl Yastrzemski.The boy's got a good swing, but he's no Yaz...

[Spacemans Bong]

I own two Red Sox jerseys: Yaz (my first one) and Pedro. I see no desire for more.

To me, Yaz is the Red Soxian embodiment of the working-class hero. He was talented but he didn't project the aura of savant like Williams did. Yaz worked really hard and slogged on in the face of adversity, probably to the detriment of his career numbers - I bet his numbers would be better if he took a day off to nurse a sore shoulder rather than hitting through it for a week and going 4-20.

[bmacfarlane]

Captain Carl always played hard. He cared about winning and it showed. He was always the one Red Sox that even my mfy friends had a hard time not liking. I was at Yaz's last game and other than it being his last game (Nipper got the 3-1 win) it meant nothing yet Red Sox nation came, cheered his every move and then stayed as though if we didn't leave neither would he. He actually came out on Yawkey Way and signed autographs after the game while my uncle and I, blissfully ignorant of the fact, drank beer across the street in the parking lot wondering what the buzz was about. He was a dinosaur, a one team player, hard nosed, hard headed, blue collar etc. etc. etc.

[Vermonter At Lar...]

Nice topic for a too-cold Sunday morning morning in the north wind doldrums ...

It's interesting that all the posters here are from essentially the same age group - those few late boomers who grew their baseball consciousness in the mid 1960's. This is significant because we knew of baseball gods - having heard about the Splendid One from our fathers, but really had no idea what one looked like - if gods exist in the flesh at all. There had certainly been no baseball gods present in New England during the early 1960's - not even a hero amongst them, and it was easy for a kid to relate to the humanity of those Red Sox of the early sixties in terms of our little league experiences - bigger, but still flawed.

We had seen Adonis, however, in the form of a kid not more than ten years older than most of us - Tony C. It's hard to imagine now that in 1965 the future of the Red Sox was squarely on the shoulders of the kid from Revere and a few other kids of the same ilk, such as Tony Horton and Dave Morehead. Yaz was just another flawed human on the roster - good, but not great, more Callison than Williams.

So we were too young to have understood the concept of baseball gods and too naive to have seen our hopes for the future dashed by the hard reality of life.

In this frame, we knew that Yaz was no baseball god, and he never really became one. He was never blessed with the superhuman powers of Williams, or Mantle, or Mays. We knew that then as we know now, which is what made 1967 so special, really. The heroics of 1967 were purely human, which is what made them so sweet. He was the quiet farm kid from your home town who no one really noticed until one day, under the pressure of battle, he broke free of his existence and charged the machine-gun nest and killed 21 Japs saving the platoon from certain anihilation. No single baseball player, god or mortal, ever carried his team as fully and excellently as Yaz did in 1967.

Yaz of course never matched that 67 season again, really, but nobody could or has since, either. The farm boy returned to his hometown after his heroics, placed that Medal of Honor on his mantle, and carried on the rest of his life as the flawed mortal he always was. Yaz was a good ballplayer who was great for but an instant in his baseball life, but what more could any mortal expect of another or of themselves?

I'm not sure how this meaning translates to modern life, or if it's really possible for those of us of the certain age that experienced him in his fullest sense to properly pass this meaning on to subsequent generations. The New England that we grew into was populated by farmers and mill-workers who had grown up or through the Great Depression and one or two World Wars. It was a place where work-ethic was everything, and expectations for the "Good Life" small. Yaz personfied that backdrop almost perfectly. He was in many ways our father, or older brother who lived life as we did, worked hard all his life, and had that work pay off briefly in a blaze of glory that made everything else seem worth the effort. He was the aluminum siding that spruced up the old house after the mortgage was finally payed off after 25 years of work on the mill, or the first male child in the family in seven New England generations to go to college. He was the lunker walleye that got hauled through a hole in the ice after 1400 holes had been chiseled through three-foot thick ice on Sunday afternoons in January for two decades. He was what gave all the heartache and labor of life worthwhile.

How can we not smile thinking about that on a Sunday afternoon?

This post has been edited by Vermonter At Large: Feb 25 2007, 09:17 AM

[underhandtofirst]

Just a short memory of Yaz. I remember his pursuit of his 400th HR in 1979. He had hit a bit of a cold spell in July so some of the pressure was mounting. I was going to the game on July 24th for my 8th birthday with me Dad and was excited that I might be able to see him make history. Sure enough against Mike Morgan (who was still pitching in 2002!) he crushed it into the bullpen. Later that year on Sep 12th against NY he became the first AL player with 400 HR and 3000 hits. I remember sneaking downstairs that night and peeking around the corner to see the ball go through the right side of the infield. Yaz brings me back to my childhood everytime his name is mentioned.

[FelixMantilla]

The bread is long gone, but I've still got my card.....

[The Allented Mr ...]

From lurker snowmanny:

I became a fan in 1967. Over the next 17 years I loved him, he annoyed me; I thought he was underrated, I thought he was overrated. I did correctly predict to my skeptical brother that the Red Sox advantage in LF fielding would be a huge factor in the 1975 ALCS.

I often think of him today when discussions about jettisoning some ballplayer to get a slightly younger or cheaper replacement come up. For example, should the Red Sox dump Curt Schilling if the sabermetric analysis indicates that they might get similar performance from some other guy for 5 million less?

Well, what if the Red Sox had cut Yaz in 1974 and traded for some other decent player? Let's say they got Mark Hargrove, for example. He would have been a lot cheaper. His numbers indicate he would have been a bit better. But would our overall experience as Red Sox fans have been better?
And would the franchise, over the long run, have been better served?

There is a great value to me, and I think many others, in great players playing their whole career with one team, and in seeing hall-of-famers or other legends finish their career with the Red Sox even if they've passed their peak. I believe that the value of the franchise is enhanced by the fact that Yaz was a 3,000 hit player for the Sox just as I believe that the value of the franchise would be enhanced by Curt Schilling clinching HOF status while in a Sox uniform. I would love to ask John Henry if he believes that.

Thanks, lurker Snowmanny

I posted this because I think lurkers should get the chance to share their thoughts on Yaz, but please don't use it as a reason to turn this topic into a Keep (or Dump) Schilling thread. Thanks.

This post has been edited by The Allented Mr Ripley: Feb 25 2007, 11:04 AM

[Tudor Fever]

.254 with 15 home runs in 1970? .264 with 12 home runs in 1971?

I believe you mean 1971 and 1972. He actually had a great year in 1970: 329/452/592, with an OPS+ of 178 and WARP3 of 9.6. He was more than an accumulator; form 1967 through 1970, there was nobody more valuable in all of MLB. He had 143 win shares over those 4 years, and 30 or more is an MVP-calibre season.

Overall, I greatly appreciate what Yaz brought to the table, but he clearly hung around too long. He was at or below replacement level after 1978, and his presence (and that of Tony Perez) blocked Boggs in 1981 and early 1982, when Boggs clearly would have helped the team much more than these old guys did. Sorry to wax unsentimental.

As for the 3000-hit watch, I still think that Willie Randolph deliberately dogged it on that play, thus putting a merciful end to the wait. This actually struck me as a fairly classy act on Randolph's part.

[Vermonter At Lar...]

I believe you mean 1971 and 1972. He actually had a great year in 1970: 329/452/592, with an OPS+ of 178 and WARP3 of 9.6. He was more than an accumulator; form 1967 through 1970, there was nobody more valuable in all of MLB. He had 143 win shares over those 4 years, and 30 or more is an MVP-calibre season.

Overall, I greatly appreciate what Yaz brought to the table, but he clearly hung around too long. He was at or below replacement level after 1978, and his presence (and that of Tony Perez) blocked Boggs in 1981 and early 1982, when Boggs clearly would have helped the team much more than these old guys did. Sorry to wax unsentimental.

As for the 3000-hit watch, I still think that Willie Randolph deliberately dogged it on that play, thus putting a merciful end to the wait. This actually struck me as a fairly classy act on Randolph's part.

God dammit Tudor, this is a thread for us old guys to get all nostalgic and philosophical and poetic and cry in our cream of wheat, so leave the frigging WARPs in the HoF thread!!!

Goddamned young people like you screw everything up ...

This post has been edited by Vermonter At Large: Feb 25 2007, 11:13 AM

[William Robertso...]

Good thoughts. I can't add much, but I would say that the Ted as Superman and Yaz as Batman image works fairly well if you make two observations: first, you have to note that '67 was darn close to Superman territory; and second, you have to have a very high opinion of Batman. The Batman image is particularly apt when you think of what happens to be my favorite memory of Yaz, which is his ability to field balls off the Wall, which was absolutely magic.

One other thing about Yaz was that he bore the weight of the hard but inevitable fact that the hero does not always succeed. (Referring of course to that bright October afternoon Shaun referenced earlier, but also '67 and '75.) I can't imagine that anyone else could have done it better. He let it hurt, but he didn't wallow in it, and he didn't let it break him. I hope he got some happiness out of '04.

[Tudor Fever]

God dammit Tudor, this is a thread for us old guys to get all nostalgic and philosophical and poetic and cry in our cream of wheat, so leave the frigging WARPs in the HoF thread!!!

Goddamned young people like you screw everything up ...

Ha. Apparently I'm devolving into a different type of old fart than you and Jack. However, in the spirit of this thread, I bring you the following quote from Roger Angell's October 1978 article City Lights, from his excellent collection Late Innings, discussing obviously the horrible events of October 2, 1978. (By the way, note the reference to the plus ca change attitude towards the Red Sox losing, interesting because this was 8 years before 1986 and long before CHB.)

Later that week, many editorials and short stories in the Boston papers explained that it was the fate of the Yankees to win always, and the fate of the Red Sox always to wait another year. Emily Vermuele, a professor of classics at Harvard, wrote in the Globe, “The hero must go under at last, after prodigious deeds, to be remembered and immortal and to have poets sing his tale.” I understand that, and I will sing the tale of Yaz always, but I still don’t see why it couldn’t have been arranged for him to sigle to right center, or to double off the wall. I’d have sung that, too. I think God was shelling a peanut.

This post has been edited by Tudor Fever: Feb 25 2007, 11:36 AM

[Razor Shines]

One of my favorite Yaz/Ted exchanges was captured in Teammates. I'm paraphrasing, because I don't have the book in front of me, but it went something like this:

Yaz is meeting Ted at his boat on the dock, they are about to go fishing.

Yaz: "Good morning, Ted"
Ted: "Good morning Carl. Whats in the cooler?"
Yaz: "Just some beer"
Ted: "Sorry. There's no drinking on my boat"
Yaz (turning around): "Well, see ya later."

I thought it summed up the personality differences nicely: Yaz was more of a typical American male, while Ted was anal, to the point of perturbing those around him.

This post has been edited by Razor Shines: Feb 25 2007, 12:05 PM

[LoweTek]

I know you all hate when I tell Red Sox Fantasy Camp stories but this is a pretty good Yaz encounter story. It happened almost exactly ten years ago. True story...

In 1997, the fantasy camp operators marketed it as "The 30 Year Anniversary of the Impossible Dream." They were planning a dinner tribute to Eddie Popowski and it was hoped that Yaz would attend. That was all I knew when I signed up. It turned out that Yaz would participate in the camp for two days. He would arrive for the dinner banquet honoring Pop and would conduct a hitting clinic with Rico Petrocelli the next day. (I have a pretty good story about being somewhat randomly selected as the first hitter in that clinic, but it's probably too long for the main board).

Late afternoon the day of Pop's dinner, I was heading down a long hallway at the hotel. Maybe two hundred feet of hallway between the hotel lobby and the banquet room, I was the only person walking in it. The dinner was not scheduled for several hours. It was that "wander around" time. Too early to get dressed, too close to the time to do much of anything else. As I walked, at the far end of the hallway, some hundred feet in front of me, one of the double doors clacked suddenly and swung open and a second person entered the hallway. As I continued to walk down the otherwise empty hallway toward this other person, the two of us of course were converging.

I thought to myself, "Jesus. What the hell am I going to say?" It was Yaz.

He was mostly gray and looked his age, but he was trim and well tanned. He was not as tall as I remembered him from a 1967 autograph appearance at Pierce Ford in Tewksbury, Mass. But I was a grade school kid then and a little smaller myself. We were getting closer to each other. I started to walk a little slower. Yaz started to walk a little slower. We were nearly stopped when we were about to pass one another.

"Hey Carl," I said. "Welcome." Not bad under pressure, I thought.

"How ahhh ya?" he said with a surprisingly strong Mass. accent I had mostly lost from living in Florida 20 years.

"Good thanks. You holding up ok?"

"Ahh'm doin' good. You know wayah I can smoke around heeyah?" I think Yaz will be a chain smoker forever. A weakness I shared with him at the time.

"Pain in the ass, huh? Having to figure that out. In the bar, your room, or outside, that's it."

"They gave me a non-smokin' room fah chrissakes," he was slumping.

"I got one ok. I'm thinking they'll let you change it if you want to. Tell them you’re a famous ballplayer." He looked at me and smiled. I added, "There's a bunch of the guys in the lobby. I think they're looking forward to seeing you. The guys from the team, I mean. Rico's out there, Boomer too I think. Stinger maybe. Bell should be around somewhere."

"Good," he said. "Thanks. Guess ahh'll head that way." The uncomfortable body language of strangers was becoming evident. Yaz was never comfortable in that situation.

"Just keep going straight. Can't miss 'em." I pointed toward the lobby.

"Ahhhright, thanks." He started to walk away.

I turned toward him as he was walking away from me. "Hey. Yaz." He turned toward me. "Thanks for coming. We appreciate it. I think Pop will too."

He looked at me for several seconds like he was confused, or trying to choose words. "Yoawwa welcome." He turned away but paused again, turned back and gave me one of those acknowledging head nods. He walked toward the lobby, where a buzz was growing as he got closer. I just watched from that spot in the hallway for a minute as he was soon surrounded by his former teammates.

[Everybody Loves ...]

Having been born in 1969, I was a bit late to the party when it came to Yaz but he was my idol. I started to watch the Sox when I was 4 from what my father tells me and when playing wiffleball with my siblings in the backyard we always pretended to be one of the Sox. Being a lefty hitter, I chose Yaz. I don't think I started to be a huge fan of Yaz until the ALCS of 1975. I think it was hitting approach with all the different stances that interested me. When he covered home plate with dirt in 1976 during an argument with an umpire I think his fire captured my attention for good.

I remember the first inning home run on 10/2/78 (growing up in NY surrounded by Yankees fans) and being so proud that Yaz took the mighty Guidry deep. I also remember the injustice (in my mind) of Yaz making the last out. It just didn't calculate to me that Yaz, a dead fastball hitter, would not succeed vs. Gossage. My older sister, younger brother and I were all in tears that night at dinner. I remember my mother telling us we didn't have to go to school the next day if we didn't want to because the Yankees fans would be all over this us (we had to stop carpooling with the Yankees fans down the block because the Sox/Yanks debates were infuriating one of the moms who was getting schooled by a 4th grader on how Reggie Jackson was evil and that Thurman Munson was much worse than Pudge). But we went because I was proud of Yaz and I wasn't going to back down to anyone who was going to talk smack about him the next day.If I wasn't there, who would defend him and mention the first inning HR and seventh inning single and the fact the Sox wouldn't have been that close without Yaz that day.

I remember the 3000th hit and how perfect it was that it was vs. NY. I remember dreading the end of the 1983 season because I knew it would mean the end of something special for the Sox and for me. My little brother and I wore #8 from Little League through college as a tribute and in hopes that some of his work ethic would rub off.

I often wondered if I had to good fortune to run into Yaz someday what I would say to him to convey how appreciative I am for the childhood memories he gave me. Given all I've read about him, it's unlikely to happen and if it did, I think a simple thank you would likely make him the least uncomfortable.

[TheoShmeo]

Really great thread and I appreciate the prior posts very much.

Yaz meant a lot of things to me but I'll just mention one here. I was born in 1963 so Yaz was my first baseball hero. Yaz, Bobby Orr, John Havlicek and Jim Plunkett (to a lesser extent than the first three) were all firsts for me. Whatever happened after (and so much of it was memorable), Captain Carl will always hold a special place in my heart as the first "best guy on the Red Sox" I ever knew. My baseball fan history really begins with him.

[ngruz25]

Three years ago you could have made this same thread about Nomar. It's weird being a fan now. I don't know if there will ever be another guy that will be OUR guy, sticking with us for 22 years, through the good and the bad. When Nomar was in his "prime", there was no doubt that he was this generations Carl Yastrzemski. If you had told me that Nomar would be playing first base for the Los Angeles Dodgers three years ago I would not have believed you. We won the World Series and that's what really matters, but it's still a little hard to think about Nomar nowadays without getting a little nostalgic. Not trying to change the focus of this thread to Nomar, but rather I'm commenting on the state of the game then and now. Carl was the last of a kind, and that's a little sad.

[E5 Yaz]

Three years ago you could have made this same thread about Nomar.

no offense to you (or to nomar), but ... seriously ... are you joking? nomar, a fine red sox player with great moments, simply isn't in the red sox stratosphere occupied by yaz. yaz is a culture, nomar a passing trend.

i love the balor moore story, i tell it often to young kids who don't understand what being tough means.

i don't have the numbers handy, but in gammons' "beyond the sixth game" he lists yaz's stats in the most important games of his career. if someone could find that list, it might add to the appreciation of those too young to comprehend what yaz is about.

one thing more: i've gotten a few comments from time to time that my user name is meant as a slap at yaz when, actually, the intention was just the opposite. that this supposedly self-centered individual would even attempt to play third at a time of need for his team is a reminder that, no matter how important you think you are, the team comes first.

i think about yaz playing third when a valentin refuses (initially) to move to 2B, or a lowe cries about going to the pen for the playoffs (until wakefield shows him what it means to sack up), or some free agent clown cries about "lack of respect" when offered millions, or when a prima dona not only sits out a key series, but sulks on the bench instead of rooting his teammates on.

yaz played hurt (cracked ribs against the wall), yaz played smart, yaz played hard, yaz played with just one thought on his mind: how do we score more runs today than the other guys. he might have been a jerk at times; but he was our jerk ... god bless him