Really good Henderson story from when he was with the Sox. Someone who was with the Sox, and I can’t recall who, used to lose his hat on his pitching delivery or lost his helmet as he swung, Ricky said “I used to play with someone else who did that.” He looked at Rickey and said, Rickey, that was me.” Henderson did not recall playing with the guy.
This was the John Olerud story.
All I remember is that there were reports of the Sunday game from Yankee Stadium during the Braves broadcast. I am almost certain there was no actual broadcast or telecast of the fateful game in Boston. In those days the Braves and the Red Sox broadcast only their home games with Jim Britt as the announcer. It was 1951 when the teams decided to do road games as well. Britt had to choose and he picked the Braves. The Sox then brought over Curt Gowdy from the Yankees as their play by play man.
Another:
I'd mentioned Wertz (thread post #284), but I'd never heard of his getting polio. That was a scary disease, no doubt.
He also did something similar in Oakland when he was issued a million dollar check at the beginning of the year and never cashed it. At the end of
Well I had to look it up to find out/recall whether Allen Craig actually ever played for the Red Sox.
Right, Wertz put up some big numbers with the Tigers and Indians, but he also had one pretty good and one fairly decent year with the Red Sox. The Sox gave up Jimmy Piersall to get him along with Gary Geiger. The trade was made by Tom Yawkey himself during the interregnum after Joe Cronin moved up to become president of the American League. I didn't like the trade at the time because I thought that Piersall was the most exciting player on a lifeless team.
1st baseball game I saw live was at Yankee Stadium and VW and Ted both went yard in I think a come from behind 11-4/5/6 win Someone hit a slam and I think it was Wertz. Back to back maybe? I'm tryin to use my brain to remember. I have an autographed Gary Geiger glossy in a box someplace.
I always thought that Loney was a good pick up in the infamous..."Nick Punto Trade". A decent first Baseman. But we got Napoli and won it all so no complaints.
Was Milt Cuyler a defensive wizard? Trying to wrap my head around how he had a 4 WAR season in 1991 while posting a .672 OPS.
He was 8th in defensive WAR that year (1.9), and had very good running stats, 41 steals on 51 attempts.
Rickey stories are the best. When he was asked what car he wanted, he said John Henry's Mercedes. When they said it would be hard to get that model in time, he told them that no, he wanted Henry's actual car.
Pretty good reliever for a period of time when the Sox weren't very good, BUT We used to call him the human rain delay because he pitched so slowly.
The opposite would be a JD Drew catch (or non catch). I don't recall ever seeing a grass stain on his uniform.
The guy who ended the 2004 WS with the ball in his hand? I don’t think anyone forgot him.
Stuart is memorable as a hitter (powerful) and a fielder (you wish you could forget). I never saw him, but I know his nickname, "Dr. Strangeglove."
Sorry, I was responding to someone who commented that Epstein used to like to get back-up 1st basemen as defensive replacements for the likes of Millar etc. and listed five while not mentioning Mientkiewicz, but maybe he left him out on purpose because of his notoriety. I have discovered that you can do a "multi quote" entry, but I was reading through the entire thread and responding individually to comments on pages separated by a lot. I also noticed that often other people would have already responded in the same manner to posts from earlier pages.
Your post made me think of Dick McCauliffe who I thought only played one season for the Sox after a long stint with the Tigers, but I see he played one season plus 7 more games for the Sox. I remember him (at 3B, IIRC) butchering an infield pop-up at Fenway that led the entire crowd to conclude he was cooked as a professional ballplayer.
Clark OPS+ from age 25-33
Nabholz came in that trade along with the veteran reliever Steve Farr, who wasn't much better (6.23 ERA in 13 IP).
i distinctively recall watching that game. Was it against Texas, maybe? It had a strange vibe to it because no one knew for sure if the players were going to strike but it was also pretty likely that if so, it was Hobson’s last game as manager.
That was against Baltimore, right?
There was also something going on where the Sox called up everyone they could from Pawtucket that had a major league contract; in order to avoid having to pay them during the strike. Some of the above were part of that and the last couple of weeks of the 1994 season were an utter embarrassment.
