Whose Departure From the Sox Devastated You Most?

The Talented Allen Ripley

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aka girding ourselves for a potential Mookie exit

At the time, it was Clemens. I was a little too young for Lynn/Burleson/Fisk, and while Evans's last year in Baltimore was sad, it didn't alter my view of reality. I never thought Clemens would leave, and was so despondent when he did that I went through the five stages of grief.

When Mo Vaughn left a couple of years later, I was so toughened up by the Clemens experience, it hardly affected me at all, even though I wished he had stayed.

Nomar's situation seemed untenable, and I wanted no part of a Pedro extension even though I loved him (and still do), so I was OK as I could be about those departures.

Lester being traded and then spurning the Sox the following offseason might be my second biggest hurt, because there was no reason for any of that to happen in the first place. He would have been an easy candidate for an extension if the Sox (Lucchino in particular) hadn't bungled it so badly.
 
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The Talented Allen Ripley

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For the record, I'll be sad if Mookie is traded or doesn't re-sign, but I want no part of some ridiculous $350m - $425m mega-contract that's an incredibly disproportionate allocation of resources, especially considering he'll be pushing 40 at the end of it. So if he leaves, I'll be happy for him and wish him well, while simultaneously breathing a sigh of relief. Similar to how I felt when Pedro signed with the Mets (more due to Pedro's health questions than the money involved).
 

Brohamer of the Gods

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Fred Lynn. I was young enough that it mattered to me personally. Another kid who lived a few blocks away actually became an Angels fan because of that trade.
 

tims4wins

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I was pissed that Damon went to the MFY. I liked Damon well enough as a player, but for him to go to the MFY really stung. I didn't mind that they let him walk, just moreso who he ended up with, so maybe that doesn't count.

I also hated that they let O-Cab walk after 2004.
 

donutogre

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Johnny Damon is probably the most memorable to me. Not because he was my favorite player, but he was so huge in the 2004 championship run that seeing him go to the fucking Yankees was incredibly shitty, even though I wasn't necessarily convinced he should stay on the Sox, either. It was just the latest in that roller-coaster of emotion that was the Sox / Yankees rivalry last decade.

Lester was also extremely disappointing to me. He was easily one of my favorite home-grown players and, as someone mentioned, it just should not have gone down like that. I know that it might not have been smart to keep him at the money he wanted / ended up getting, but still. If we hadn't fucked that situation up so badly it might have worked without getting into "should we really spend that much?" territory. Even if he was just a solid, reliable #2 for most of his contract, that's nothing to sneeze at. He's like the pitcher version of Pedroia to me and I really wish he stuck around.
 

NYCSox

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Fisk because of how it played out. Lynn is a close second. Sure let's trade our star CF in his prime for a league average pitcher with arm issues and a washed up OF. That'll work.
 

E5 Yaz

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The Boomer, both times

He was my favorite player, bar none. I was 14 when the megadeal (Scott-Lonborg-Lahoud-BConigliaro-Brett-Pavletich for Harper-Pattin-Krausee-Skrable/minor leaguer who retired rather than be traded) went down with the Brewers, and remember buying 6 newspapers the next day to read everything I could about it. It made no sense to me. I had written him with an 11-year-old's advice during the horrid 1968 season. I had stood outside the church during his marriage. The Boomer was my hero.

Then, as the second g-round was ending and it was clear that his weight and age were getting the best of him ... to see him dumped for Mike Fiore was just another gut-punch -- this time, knowing that it was over.

I've had players that I liked following since, but never had another favorite player.
 

bosoxsue

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Carlton Fisk.
In the first angry letter of my life, I wrote a long one to Haywood Sullivan and received a one-sentence reply.
 

The Talented Allen Ripley

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Fred Lynn. I was young enough that it mattered to me personally. Another kid who lived a few blocks away actually became an Angels fan because of that trade.
Fisk. By a wide, wide margin.
In early April of 1981 I was in the 4th grade, and I remember joyfully pointing out to my dad that it was Opening Day. My dad, as big a baseball fan as I've ever met, looked at me and said, "Who cares?"

He came back, of course, they always do. But I'll never forget that it brought him to that dark point.
 

Mooch

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At least the Lynn and Burleson departures were trades where you got something back. But losing Fisk for nothing based on a paperwork screw-up? How do you explain that to a 7 year old me at the time? I was devastated that such a thing was even possible in the first place, let alone to Pudge. Still bothers me today.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
For me, it was definitely Pedro. I knew he was probably done being the Jedi master who had been such transcendent fun to watch on the mound. So I didn't blame the Sox for not bidding more aggressively for him. But it just hurt to see him go.
 

Jim Ed Rice in HOF

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Fred Lynn.
This
and this.

I was a 11/12 when both of these happened and the "business of baseball" hadn't hardened me yet. For a few years my mother and my friend's mother used to take us to opening day and as luck would have it one of those years the scheduling gods were nice enough to have a Sox/Sox matchup to welcome back Fisk who then proceeded to hit a HR as part of a White Sox win.
 

Hank Scorpio

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I didn't really follow the Red Sox much until 1995, so Clemens leaving didn't really sting, and by the time he was a MFY, he was just a villain to me.

Vaughn leaving stung, and I was mostly angry at Duquette and "cheapskate" Harrington over that.

Nomar was shocking, but I quickly got over it for whatever reason.

Pedro. I really wanted Pedro to stay, but I knew he had very little left, and he wasn't really PEDRO anymore. I always hoped he'd come back as a closer or swingman later in his career. I think it was even rumored around the 2008-2010 time period.

Lester hurt the most though. Not so much when he was traded, because my thought then was "he'll be back in a few months, guaranteed". But when he signed with the Cubs, it was crushing. Disappointed that he was gone, but just overall pissed at how it happened. I already was pretty pissed with the Cubs over the whole Theo/tampering/compensation fiasco - and now they had stolen Lester from us to play under fuckface Joe Maddon.

Betts leaving? I don't know if I'll be upset at this point. There will probably be anger and disappointment, but I think the overriding feeling will be a blanket of apathy and disinterest in the team going forward for the foreseeable future.
 

DJnVa

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Fisk. Because I was 8 years old and did not understand. It always hurts more when you're little.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Dave Henderson hurt, he was my first Sox hero.
Clemens wasn't that bad, because I had drunk the Kool-Aid and was sure that he was going to be a financial albatross for the Blue Jays.
Mo Vaughn was a real punch in the gut. But he went to California and I couldn't blame him for that.
Nomar was a tough one too. I really thought that the Sox made a big mistake with that.
Damon wasn't easy because he was going to the Yankees.

Guys who I wasn't sad about: Boggs, Lester and Ellsbury. I thought that they were all done and good luck to their new teams. Turns out I was one for three, which makes me a Hall of Famer!
 
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NYCSox

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It wasn't Fisk, Lynn or Burleson, it was Fisk, Lynn AND Burleson. That off season between the 1980 and '81 seasons was brutal.
Getting Lansford and Mark (heart attack) Clear for Hobson and Burleson was a steal for the Sox. Of course they then proceeded to piss that away by trading Lansford for Armas.

Edit: And don't get me started on trading for Armas to play the position once played by Lynn. Fuck you Haywood Sullivan.
 
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CarolinaBeerGuy

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Clemens. He was my childhood idol. My nickname, given by my Sox fan uncle, was Rocket. I wore #21 in Little League all the way up through high school after he had left. That one was tough.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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At the time probably Pedro, I guess. Boggs too.

In retrospect the guy that I view as the one who got away and it's silly because he was with the team for just a year is Beltre.
 

nolasoxfan

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It wasn't Fisk, Lynn or Burleson, it was Fisk, Lynn AND Burleson. That off season between the 1980 and '81 seasons was brutal.
This was it for me too. Soured me on the Sox for most of high school. I came back late in the summer of 1986 to ride the heartbreak train until it’s final stop at game seven of the WS.
 

Time to Mo Vaughn

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Definitely Mo Vaughn. I started picking up an interest in baseball and actually following individual players in 93 or so. He was by far my favorite player then.

Nomar definitely took over as my favorite player, but 2004 was so strange. Seemed like from the beginning things were weird with his injury and that he was on the outs with the team. Some sort of denouement seemed inevitable, and while I was disappointed I wasn't devastated. The fact that the team went on to finally win certainly helped getting over the heart break.

I would actually say Manny leaving felt a bit like Nomar. I loved watching Manny hit and all of his antics. I was at the game where he went into the Monster. I didn't want him to go, but it just felt inevitable.

Pedro was different. It was clear he had nothing left. I would have preferred he retire, but certainly don't begrudge him taking the money.

I missed out on Clemens prime in Boston. By the time I started following baseball he had 4 straight mediocre years before leaving for Toronto. I remember being absolutely pissed though when he seemingly started giving a shit and became a perennial Cy Young winner. Little did I know at the time that it was not his discovery of fitness, but HGH and Testosterone that gave him the boost.
 

Cumberland Blues

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I played SS in Little League and idolized the Rooster. My older sister had a wall of her bedroom covered in Pudge Fisk posters. And the kid next door (the only other Sox fan I knew in a town full of mfy fans) was a Lynn fanatic. That was a rough off-season in our neighborhood.
 

ngruz25

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Nomar, and nobody else has come close.

Nomar began his career for the Sox when I was 10 and left when I was 17. He was my childhood. Everyone my age wanted to be him. I was devastated when he was traded and hated every rationale I read for the move.

I mean, it worked out alright, but...

(I'll go to my grave saying that the team still wins with Nomar instead of O-Cab/Mientkiewicz)
 
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Philip Jeff Frye

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Fisk/Lynn/Burleson hurt, but the real shocker for me was two years earlier when Luis Tiant left after the 1978 season to join - of all teams - the hated Yankees! The Yankees who had just crushed our hopes and dreams! The Yankees who were hoovering up every free agent in baseball! How could Luis Tiant, who seemed to be the very heart and soul of the Bosox, turn traitor and join Thurman Munson, Reggie Jackson and Bucky Fucking Dent!?

Devastated is exactly the right word to describe how I felt.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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Carlton Fisk.
In the first angry letter of my life, I wrote a long one to Haywood Sullivan and received a one-sentence reply.
Which was...?

For me, probably Cabrera (though, if rumors were true, there was no way to bring him back) or Derek Lowe. I was a big D-Lowe fan and knew he had some down seasons (thus being relegated to the bullpen) but he showed his mettle when it counted most and didn't even get a cursory offer to stick around. Part of that was probably because of his actions following the WS win (e.g. showing up with a woman who wasn't his wife at a team function/party or something along those lines), but seeing as how he went on to have a decent career in Atlanta and beyond, it sucked to see him go right after he pulled the ultimate feat of being the first pitcher in history to get the W in each series-clinching postseason series win that year.
 

RIFan

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It wasn't Fisk, Lynn or Burleson, it was Fisk, Lynn AND Burleson. That off season between the 1980 and '81 seasons was brutal.
Lynn was my idol, but it was the whole offseason that broke my heart. The highlight of Sunday's back then used to be the Frank Lanning cartoon on the front of the Projo sports page and the stats page in season. I remember Lanning did one after Fisk left. My googlefu failed me in digging it up, but maybe someone else from RI remembers it.

For you young ones, this is a good summary of how dysfunctional the Sox were back then.
 

loshjott

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Lynn was my idol, but it was the whole offseason that broke my heart. The highlight of Sunday's back then used to be the Frank Lanning cartoon on the front of the Projo sports page and the stats page in season. I remember Lanning did one after Fisk left. My googlefu failed me in digging it up, but maybe someone else from RI remembers it.

For you young ones, this is a good summary of how dysfunctional the Sox were back then.
I don't remember that one but I sure do remember Lanning's cartoons in general.

Saint, great pic! We look to be about the same age if that was you in 73.
 

Dewey'sCannon

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In rank order:
1. Fisk
2. Lynn - Fisk and Lynn were my two favorite players when I was in HS (I played both OF and C).
3. Nomar
4. Mo Vaughn
5. Clemens
6. Boggs
7. Dewey (obviously one of my all-time favorites, and sorry that he didn't spend his entire career with the Red Sox)
8. El Tiante
9. Burleson
10. Damon
 

BringBackMo

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I've been an enthusiastic lurker on this site for twenty years. This thread encouraged me to at last make a post. Mo Vaughn is one of the truly transformational athletes in this city's history. He was proud, smart, exciting, larger than life, flawed, and fearless. He was also a spectacular baseball player, and for a short time, arguably, the face of the game--a big, dynamic, and unapologetically African-American presence who embraced Boston and earned the love of a city with a troubled racial past. He was a bridge from Old Boston to the more dynamic, cosmopolitan, and multi-cultural city that we have become. It was both ironic and infuriating, then, that Dan Duquette, who in his own way did so much to transform the Red Sox' myopic and bigoted culture, was part of the regime that drove Mo out (which is not to give a pass to Harrington, or mouthpiece Will McDonough). It is a wonderful sign of progress that a brash, swashbuckling, and huge-hearted person of color such as Mo would hardly raise an eyebrow around here anymore. (In some ways, Mo helped to pave the way for a city that could fully embrace Pedro.) There was a time, though, when Mo Vaughn was simply one of a kind. I've never really gotten over his departure from the team, and what feels like his estrangement from it ever since. Perhaps estrangement is too strong a word--he is in the Red Sox hall of fame--but it has always felt to me as though he and the club have maintained a kind of distance. So it was, is, and always will be Mo. And then Pedro.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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Francona. What a terrible Sept that was 2011.
Oof, yeah. We were all thinking players but that was a big one, especially considering the next guy was awful and the guy after him in over his head after an unspeakable tragedy galvanized the city and team to unexpected success, and then the guy after was awesome but now can't have a job here because optics. ::sigh::
 

Cesar Crespo

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None? I'm an extreme root for the laundry guy I guess.

If i had to pick one, it would probably be Yoan Moncada. That doesn't mean I regret the trade.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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I've been an enthusiastic lurker on this site for twenty years. This thread encouraged me to at last make a post. Mo Vaughn is one of the truly transformational athletes in this city's history. He was proud, smart, exciting, larger than life, flawed, and fearless. He was also a spectacular baseball player, and for a short time, arguably, the face of the game--a big, dynamic, and unapologetically African-American presence who embraced Boston and earned the love of a city with a troubled racial past. He was a bridge from Old Boston to the more dynamic, cosmopolitan, and multi-cultural city that we have become. It was both ironic and infuriating, then, that Dan Duquette, who in his own way did so much to transform the Red Sox' myopic and bigoted culture, was part of the regime that drove Mo out (which is not to give a pass to Harrington, or mouthpiece Will McDonough). It is a wonderful sign of progress that a brash, swashbuckling, and huge-hearted person of color such as Mo would hardly raise an eyebrow around here anymore. (In some ways, Mo helped to pave the way for a city that could fully embrace Pedro.) There was a time, though, when Mo Vaughn was simply one of a kind. I've never really gotten over his departure from the team, and what feels like his estrangement from it ever since. Perhaps estrangement is too strong a word--he is in the Red Sox hall of fame--but it has always felt to me as though he and the club have maintained a kind of distance. So it was, is, and always will be Mo. And then Pedro.
Please don't post again for another 20 years. You make too many of us look lame.
 

Wallball Tingle

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Having become a fan in '03, and acknowledging he shot his way out of town and was not always a great human being, I was really bummed when Manny left. Bombs and mid-double-play high fives. Looked like he was having fun most of the time.
 

pedro1918

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As a kid in the 70’s and early 80’s, the departures of Lynn and Fisk were disappointing, but they paled in comparison to a departure from a different local team. I didn’t really understand the economics of the situation, and I didn’t understand how damaged he actually was, but nothing compares to Bobby Orr leaving Boston. Everyone else was bad, but not in the same universe as Orr.

To this day, when I understand the situation much better, the sight of Orr in a different NHL uniform still makes me cringe.

Yes, the Fisk departure was horrible. I couldn’t believe the stupidity of the Red Sox. I hated Lynn going, but as pointed out, it at least made sense and we got a decent return.