Fisk Sox Hall of Fame Induction

From SoSH

Number Retirement Ceremony

September 4, 2000

Hi! I'm going to make these remarks really brief, because after all these sonorous speeches reciting my career stats, we're really holding up the game. After all, Pedro is pitching today!

I know I'm perhaps the most popular native New England sports figure in history, and to the sometimes-provincial mindset that defines itself in terms of belonging to a particular region that is New England, this is important. Dan Duquette sure went on and on about this.

You have to admit, the Red Sox are kind of hypocritical about retiring my number. They've always been so bent on these rules about retiring numbers: the player has to be in the Hall of Fame, they have to have spent at least ten years with the Red Sox, and the kicker, they have to have retired with the Red Sox.

Since loyalty from a player is implied by this last rule, it favors the real boot-lickers, like Yaz over there, who were favorites of the owners and continued to get contracts even after the market wouldn't bear it. Hey, Yaz deserves the honor, of course, but remember, he was the original non-union scab -- some have even said he was a management informant -- back in the union-organizing days of the late 60s and early 70s. And the Club doesn't feel obliged to let this work both ways. After all, they let many a deserving guy go -- from Wade Boggs to Jimmy Foxx -- when it met their needs, preventing them from "finishing" their careers with the Red Sox and thus being denied the honor of a retired number. Even the Yankees aren't so prissy.

And, they really did bend the rules for me. Somehow, my being hired back as a special assistant to Duquette qualified me as having "ended my career" with the Red Sox, thus qualifying me to have my number retired. And as far as the fans are concerned, honor is honor: Dwight Evans, Jim Rice, Luis Tiante, and a half dozen others would've had their numbers retired had they played for any other team, not to mention Roger Clemens, the greatest player not named Ruth to have worn a Red Sox uniform. Certainly the fans think so. But, somehow, the Red Sox retired number club has to remain more exclusive than the Hall of Fame. Isn't that arrogant?

Nevertheless, let me assure you that the job they gave me, while it may have the appearance of a public relations gimmick so as not to antagonize me or the fans at a delicate time for the Red Sox, when they're trying to convince you to fund a $700 million stadium for their benefit despite being one of the three most valuable franchises in baseball, is no sinecure. You know I took the job only because I wanted to do the work, not as some scheme to get my number retired. And you know that I'd've deserved retirement up there, no matter what management's weird rules are about the matter or their obvious self-interest in having me go into the Hall of Fame as a Red Sox.

So, thanks to you, the fans, who put the real pressure on management to bring me back into the fold and get me up there on the right field roof facing.

Now, because while I'm dignified, there's a limit to one's dignity when the love of the fans is on the line, instead of posing for the photographers in front of the wall, I'm going to do what you all want me to do, which is run up to home plate and wave my arms just like I did in Game 6 in '75. After all, no man is above the game.