I'm Greg Weissert years old. My dad made me watch every inning of the '04 playoffs, but the first year I really followed the team myself was 2013.
How old are you?
- Thread starter jose melendez
- Start date
First Fenway game was in 1962. I don't remember who was pitching but I remember the opponent. The Kansas City Athletics.
Yaz in left, Gary Geiger in center, Lou Clinton in right.
Runnels at first, Chuck Schilling at 2b, Eddie Bressoud at SS, and my favorite, Frank Malzone at third.
First Celtics game I think was 1965 or 66, Oscar Robertson!
First Pats game, 1968 (I think) at Fenway. San Diego Chargers.
First Bruins game, the year they won the Cup, 1971
I envy kids today. When they get old like me, they can look at pictures taken at these events.
I would pay any amount of money to have a picture of my Dad with me and my brother at Fenway.
Camera and film were for first communion or maybe birthdays.
Yaz in left, Gary Geiger in center, Lou Clinton in right.
Runnels at first, Chuck Schilling at 2b, Eddie Bressoud at SS, and my favorite, Frank Malzone at third.
First Celtics game I think was 1965 or 66, Oscar Robertson!
First Pats game, 1968 (I think) at Fenway. San Diego Chargers.
First Bruins game, the year they won the Cup, 1971
I envy kids today. When they get old like me, they can look at pictures taken at these events.
I would pay any amount of money to have a picture of my Dad with me and my brother at Fenway.
Camera and film were for first communion or maybe birthdays.
Started being a self-aware fan of the Red Sox in 1986, absolutely smashing timing. My first game at Fenway was when they clinched the pennant that year, cementing my fandom of Oil Can but yet came away a bit disappointed that Jim Rice did little that game (similar to @CKDexterHaven I also imitated Rice's batting stance, but I would do everyone's stance in front lawn tossing a tennis ball up in the air and hitting it with my wiffle ball bat, recreating inning upon inning. I found out later that one of neighbors would watch and "scored" an inning, bringing over the score sheet. He had accurately identified each player and outcome. I also had friends.). I also seem to remember someone climbing up the foul pole that game -- did that happen?
To commemorate the despair of the post-season, whenever I would visit my half sister and her husband (a Mets fan), I would watch the VHS he got about the 1986 Mets season. Mostly because going to their house was fun when it wasn't raining because they had a pool and a tennis court, but also a modern-art infused house full of things that a 7 (then) year-old was very capable of damaging, so indoor activities were minimal. Believe it or not, each time I watched that video, the Mets won. The shot of them setting up champagne in the Sox locker room. I didn't really even know champagne was something you drank.
Oh well, it's been worth it.
To commemorate the despair of the post-season, whenever I would visit my half sister and her husband (a Mets fan), I would watch the VHS he got about the 1986 Mets season. Mostly because going to their house was fun when it wasn't raining because they had a pool and a tennis court, but also a modern-art infused house full of things that a 7 (then) year-old was very capable of damaging, so indoor activities were minimal. Believe it or not, each time I watched that video, the Mets won. The shot of them setting up champagne in the Sox locker room. I didn't really even know champagne was something you drank.
Oh well, it's been worth it.
Look to Kaleb Cowart—a name not, nor ever was, a Red Sox, yet whose age mirrors my own exactly, from year, to month, to day, as I write this on a lonely Thursday morning, at age 32. Something in his alignment to the stars of my own birth fascinated me. The precise and peculiar symmetry of it: a player of Major League Baseball, as though we shared not just a day but some other intangible thread of meaning. And if we speak of football, then it is Lucky Whitehead who shares my measure in time.
Sports, for me, began in 2004—a year when the game itself crept into my world and found fertile ground in a mind more given to books, to thought, to academia. Before then, it seemed but a din, a tapestry woven for others to admire. My uncle, earnest and insistent, sought to convert me to Cleveland, planting the seeds of allegiance in soil distant from his Ohio home, with a flat-billed Chief Wahoo cap somewhere along the way I grew up donning. But the pull of my late father’s New York, of pinstripes and Bronx echoes, proved unyielding. Strange, how it seemed to me even then—a boy of Queens, steeped in Mets blue and orange, abandoning that patchwork for the cool steel of Yankee pride.
His influence courses through me now, a quiet echo in my numbers and logic. He was a statistician who loved the game not just for its heart but for its patterns, the rhythm of its truths. His lens is mine—a precision not unlike poetry in its meticulousness.
I remember my mother’s gift to him, twenty years ago—a pilgrimage to the Bronx. A Red Sox-Yankees game, Derek Lowe and Jon Lieber carving their names into the chilled, nipping air, and a strange chaos that ended 14-4 for the Yankees. My Sprite spilled, a hot dog consumed, and New York victorious. I, a stranger then to the language of baseball—its arcane alphabet of players, teams, parks, history—stood at the threshold. What I did not know whispered to me, and my curiosity, ever ravenous, devoured it.
I am often the youngest here at Sons of Sam Horn. There are exceptions, yes, but they are rare. SoSH, where rain falls outside and minds gather like stormclouds over the game’s minutiae. My work in social media is a thread I weave daily—delicate, prone to fray, requiring vigilance to maintain the balance of quality and scope. With a contrasting of consistence, people I meet here hold treasures of knowledge, life spilling into baseball like rivers finding the sea.
Yet it is more than the game. It is the way baseball folds itself into memory, into fathers and radios and September rain. The way it reaches backward into those afternoons when I sat, quiet, and learned the shape of my father’s mind through the stories the game told him. And now, in a world vast and restless, it scratches some ineffable itch—one I cannot quite name, yet know to be mine.
Sports, for me, began in 2004—a year when the game itself crept into my world and found fertile ground in a mind more given to books, to thought, to academia. Before then, it seemed but a din, a tapestry woven for others to admire. My uncle, earnest and insistent, sought to convert me to Cleveland, planting the seeds of allegiance in soil distant from his Ohio home, with a flat-billed Chief Wahoo cap somewhere along the way I grew up donning. But the pull of my late father’s New York, of pinstripes and Bronx echoes, proved unyielding. Strange, how it seemed to me even then—a boy of Queens, steeped in Mets blue and orange, abandoning that patchwork for the cool steel of Yankee pride.
His influence courses through me now, a quiet echo in my numbers and logic. He was a statistician who loved the game not just for its heart but for its patterns, the rhythm of its truths. His lens is mine—a precision not unlike poetry in its meticulousness.
I remember my mother’s gift to him, twenty years ago—a pilgrimage to the Bronx. A Red Sox-Yankees game, Derek Lowe and Jon Lieber carving their names into the chilled, nipping air, and a strange chaos that ended 14-4 for the Yankees. My Sprite spilled, a hot dog consumed, and New York victorious. I, a stranger then to the language of baseball—its arcane alphabet of players, teams, parks, history—stood at the threshold. What I did not know whispered to me, and my curiosity, ever ravenous, devoured it.
I am often the youngest here at Sons of Sam Horn. There are exceptions, yes, but they are rare. SoSH, where rain falls outside and minds gather like stormclouds over the game’s minutiae. My work in social media is a thread I weave daily—delicate, prone to fray, requiring vigilance to maintain the balance of quality and scope. With a contrasting of consistence, people I meet here hold treasures of knowledge, life spilling into baseball like rivers finding the sea.
Yet it is more than the game. It is the way baseball folds itself into memory, into fathers and radios and September rain. The way it reaches backward into those afternoons when I sat, quiet, and learned the shape of my father’s mind through the stories the game told him. And now, in a world vast and restless, it scratches some ineffable itch—one I cannot quite name, yet know to be mine.
I was a senior in high school when I watched, from 50-75 feet away behind home plate, Gibby and Lonnie warming up for Game 7 and, to this day, I remain struck by the absolute awareness I had that Gibson was throwing aspirins. My elation/excitement turned to uh oh...and then, when the game began, he even homered. Still, I was @ Fenway for Game 7 and, living in Lynnfield, I was at ground zero all year for Yaz (has a player ever had a greater year, all things considered than he authored in '67?), Jerry Adair, Jose Tartabull throwing out Ken Berry, Billy Rohr, Rico catching the pop-up and all the rest. All was made even sweeter by the years of my life that had preceded it when wins were hard to come by and, Sox-mad, I learned math/arithmetic by calculating batting averages, fielding percentages and whatever else I could find in the minutiae of the Globe's (and Sporting News') box scores. The denouement of TSWms, Jackie Jensen, Frank Malzone, Pete Runnels, Ike Delock and Pumpsie Green...
Thanks for sending me down memory lane.
Thanks for sending me down memory lane.
My earliest memory is lying on the couch with my father watching the Red Sox on one of those gigantic TV sets with a tiny B&W screen. There is a picture of me at 5 years old with a whiffle bat swinging at a whiffle ball my father hung from a tree with a piece of string in the back yard. I was probably pretending to be Frank Malzone.
I think there is a different feel for the Red Sox for those of us who got on the bus before 1967. When I was in elementary school, the Sox hadn't broken .500 since 1960, hadn't won a pennant since my dad was in high school and hadn't won a World Series since my grandfather got his first job working on the T. There was a brief period of the heartbreak stuff in the late 1940's (my father's era) but basically, since 1919, the Red Sox ranged from terrible to mediocre and a third place finish was something to celebrate.
For me, it's all great and nothing beat the feeling of 2004, but 1967 came pretty damn close. For a little kid cheering for the likes of Lou Clinton, Arnold Earley, and Ike Delock everything became better after 1967,
I think there is a different feel for the Red Sox for those of us who got on the bus before 1967. When I was in elementary school, the Sox hadn't broken .500 since 1960, hadn't won a pennant since my dad was in high school and hadn't won a World Series since my grandfather got his first job working on the T. There was a brief period of the heartbreak stuff in the late 1940's (my father's era) but basically, since 1919, the Red Sox ranged from terrible to mediocre and a third place finish was something to celebrate.
For me, it's all great and nothing beat the feeling of 2004, but 1967 came pretty damn close. For a little kid cheering for the likes of Lou Clinton, Arnold Earley, and Ike Delock everything became better after 1967,
Coming home from school in the 2nd grade in '67 and watching the World Series with my mom was my first real introduction to baseball. Being 7 years old, if mommy was rooting for the Sox so was I. The next spring my parents bought me my first Red Sox hat. The rest is history.
I'm about a month and a half younger than Ellis Burks, which means I just crept into the 60-69 slot in this poll. I was in the centerfield bleachers with my dad a week before my 11th birthday for Game 7 of the '75 World Series. That sucked.
On the other hand, 15 minutes before I turned 40 in 2004 the Sox ended all the pain. Best birthday celebration of my life.
On the other hand, 15 minutes before I turned 40 in 2004 the Sox ended all the pain. Best birthday celebration of my life.
I watched my first Red Sox game in person, at Fenway in July 2000. It was a vintage Pedro performance. I was 27.
So you can say I'm 24 in Red Sox years, and not much younger in SOSH years.
So you can say I'm 24 in Red Sox years, and not much younger in SOSH years.
I think my parents took me to Fenway at some point during the 1975 season, but I have no recollection of it. I'd have been 4 or just turned 5. I was 16 for the joy and then heartbreak of 1986. Favorite Sox players are still Rice and Evans.
I’m Chris Sale years old. First game at Fenway was in the summer of 1991 amid a race for the division title. They were playing the Yankees.
This is what I remember: Kevin Morton started for the Sox, Melido Perez (hard-throwing younger brother of Pascual and older brother of Carlos) for NYY.
Luis Rivera, of all people, homered for the Sox. They were leading 4-3 going into the ninth. Jeff Reardon (I am also Jeff Reardon years old) came in to close it out and blew the save, gave up a solo home run to Roberto Kelly.
Matt Young came in in the tenth - he was booed by the whole crowd - and promptly lost the game.
Looking at the box score for that game: turns out it was actually Pascual Perez, not Melido, who started for NYY. (They didn’t even acquire Melido until next year). After Matt Young got chased in the tenth, Dan Petry (whom I had no memory of ever pitching for Boston) came in. Tony Fossas, who I remembered as a classic LOOGY, pitched an inning and two thirds.
And going into that game, the Sox were 81-67 and just a half game out of first. That game was the beginning of a tailspin that saw them lose 11 of 14 and finish a mile back of the Blue Jays.
This is what I remember: Kevin Morton started for the Sox, Melido Perez (hard-throwing younger brother of Pascual and older brother of Carlos) for NYY.
Luis Rivera, of all people, homered for the Sox. They were leading 4-3 going into the ninth. Jeff Reardon (I am also Jeff Reardon years old) came in to close it out and blew the save, gave up a solo home run to Roberto Kelly.
Matt Young came in in the tenth - he was booed by the whole crowd - and promptly lost the game.
Looking at the box score for that game: turns out it was actually Pascual Perez, not Melido, who started for NYY. (They didn’t even acquire Melido until next year). After Matt Young got chased in the tenth, Dan Petry (whom I had no memory of ever pitching for Boston) came in. Tony Fossas, who I remembered as a classic LOOGY, pitched an inning and two thirds.
And going into that game, the Sox were 81-67 and just a half game out of first. That game was the beginning of a tailspin that saw them lose 11 of 14 and finish a mile back of the Blue Jays.
I’m Chris Sale years old. First game at Fenway was in the summer of 1991 amid a race for the division title. They were playing the Yankees.
This is what I remember: Kevin Morton started for the Sox, Melido Perez (hard-throwing younger brother of Pascual and older brother of Carlos) for NYY.
Luis Rivera, of all people, homered for the Sox. They were leading 4-3 going into the ninth. Jeff Reardon (I am also Jeff Reardon years old) came in to close it out and blew the save, gave up a solo home run to Roberto Kelly.
Matt Young came in in the tenth - he was booed by the whole crowd - and promptly lost the game.
Looking at the box score for that game: turns out it was actually Pascual Perez, not Melido, who started for NYY. (They didn’t even acquire Melido until next year). After Matt Young got chased in the tenth, Dan Petry (whom I had no memory of ever pitching for Boston) came in. Tony Fossas, who I remembered as a classic LOOGY, pitched an inning and two thirds.
And going into that game, the Sox were 81-67 and just a half game out of first. That game was the beginning of a tailspin that saw them lose 11 of 14 and finish a mile back of the Blue Jays.
This is what I remember: Kevin Morton started for the Sox, Melido Perez (hard-throwing younger brother of Pascual and older brother of Carlos) for NYY.
Luis Rivera, of all people, homered for the Sox. They were leading 4-3 going into the ninth. Jeff Reardon (I am also Jeff Reardon years old) came in to close it out and blew the save, gave up a solo home run to Roberto Kelly.
Matt Young came in in the tenth - he was booed by the whole crowd - and promptly lost the game.
Looking at the box score for that game: turns out it was actually Pascual Perez, not Melido, who started for NYY. (They didn’t even acquire Melido until next year). After Matt Young got chased in the tenth, Dan Petry (whom I had no memory of ever pitching for Boston) came in. Tony Fossas, who I remembered as a classic LOOGY, pitched an inning and two thirds.
And going into that game, the Sox were 81-67 and just a half game out of first. That game was the beginning of a tailspin that saw them lose 11 of 14 and finish a mile back of the Blue Jays.
Born 70 years ago in Bangor, ME. AF brat, moved around country, First followed Red Sox in 1962, first heroes were Pete Runnels and Carroll Hardy (his first name was my new adopted last name). Didn't make it to Fenway until 1975, caught foul ball by Bill Freehan that day. Had hidden transistor radio with earplug in games 1 and 2 1967 WS during 7th grade in Wichita, KS. Posted in "Win it for" thread after Game 3 in 2004. Still love Tony C.
Closing in on 50 for me. I remember loving Yaz in my younger years but don't remember a lot of specific games. I do remember my mom being offered tickets to Yaz's last game and she said she didn't want to drive 5 hours and I couldn't miss school. (That's how I remember it, maybe his last game was on a weekend and she just didn't want to take me). I remember being mad at her for a long time. The first season I remember following closely was '86 when I was 11 years old. I remember my parents had quite a few people over to watch game 6 and I hurried to my room when it was over because I didn't want to cry in front of all their friends. My Dad came in and said, they can still win game 7, and I said "but they won't". At 11, I was already cynical about the Sox chances.
I am two months older than Alex Cora, so already passed the deathstone of having my team's manager be younger than me.
Just creeped into the 60+ category. The first game I ever attended was in 1972, with the Sox beating the California Angels 8 - 2. I still use that score as a benchmark that the game is over. My brother and I delivered newspapers that year. I think there was a subscription contest and we managed to be part of a Springfield Newspapers contingent to Fenway. The buses let us off right outside the park where we were all corralled into the Bleacher section for a day game. I think we sat about a row in front of the back wall in center field as I remember seeing the cars on the streets surrounding the park.
The first season that I was really into the Sox was '75. One of the nuns at our school was a BIG Sox fan and she got us hooked by osmosis. I would deliver newspapers while listening to the Saturday games on a little yellow transistor radio that I won with a different subscription contest. I distinctly remember Fred Lynn's 10 RBI game on a Saturday afternoon against the Tigers. It's funny the things you remember when everything is new. The Yankees were playing at Shea Stadium that year since Yankee Stadium was being rebuilt. Around that time, Dad and Mom took us camping and I listened to the entire doubleheader in my Dad's enclosed hammock when the Sox swept NY. It was funny listening to reports of fights in the stands.
My Dad wasn't a big baseball fan, but I remember really getting pissed at him when the Sox were beating Baltimore in Memorial Stadium on a Friday night (and it was televised!!!). I was psyched since the Sox were winning. My Dad said that the Sox would find a way to blow it. Next thing you know, Bobby Grich hits a walkoff over the left field fence to win it... my first crushing defeat!!!
The first season that I was really into the Sox was '75. One of the nuns at our school was a BIG Sox fan and she got us hooked by osmosis. I would deliver newspapers while listening to the Saturday games on a little yellow transistor radio that I won with a different subscription contest. I distinctly remember Fred Lynn's 10 RBI game on a Saturday afternoon against the Tigers. It's funny the things you remember when everything is new. The Yankees were playing at Shea Stadium that year since Yankee Stadium was being rebuilt. Around that time, Dad and Mom took us camping and I listened to the entire doubleheader in my Dad's enclosed hammock when the Sox swept NY. It was funny listening to reports of fights in the stands.
My Dad wasn't a big baseball fan, but I remember really getting pissed at him when the Sox were beating Baltimore in Memorial Stadium on a Friday night (and it was televised!!!). I was psyched since the Sox were winning. My Dad said that the Sox would find a way to blow it. Next thing you know, Bobby Grich hits a walkoff over the left field fence to win it... my first crushing defeat!!!
Also the only guy who pinch hit for both Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski!
I remember being hot and miserable sitting next to my sister in the backseat of my parents' car as we drove on Route 1 in Maine on an interminable yard sale-ing trip, and my parents threatening that I wouldn't be able to watch the Sox game when we got home if I kept misbehaving, and me arguing back that I needed to watch it because Randy Kutcher had been on a hot streak and I needed to know his batting average.
I've been a member here for 24 years, which makes me feel old.
Seeing people compare themselves to Rich Hill makes me feel even older. But I am, in fact, slightly younger than Rich Hill.
Seeing people compare themselves to Rich Hill makes me feel even older. But I am, in fact, slightly younger than Rich Hill.
Aaron Sele, Every Day Eddie Guardado, Doug Mirabelli, and Steve Avery, amongst others, share my birth year.... JFC I'm old
As one of the 1.1% , I started rooting for the Red Sox at age 10, in 1953. My favorite players were Hoot Evers, Dick Gernert, Billy Goodman, Jim Piersall, Mel Parnell, Frank Sullivan, Ike Delock, and Willard Nixon (the Yankee killer). Of course, Ted Williams quickly surpassed them all when he returned from Korea. Since we had no tv, all my knowledge was gleaned from the Game of the Day on radio and the weekly Sporting News box scores. Since we lived in Kansas and the Athletics were still in Philly, there was no local team, so I picked the Red Sox because I liked the name "Hoot" and have never regretted the many great ups and downs involved in rooting for a New England team. I have been to Fenway for three games and seen them in KC numerous times. And one of my sons was born in Waterville, Maine, so there's that.
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Your son and Bob Stanley were born in the same state. If that's not a tie to the Red Sox then I don't know what is.
Four voters under thirty. We need members to start making TikTok content. A proper toppings for cheeseburger video probably won't get the job done.
I'm 56. I grew up in California and fell in love with the Sox in the summer on 1986. I didn't really know what I was signing up for and it was hard to follow teams across the country back then, but I always checked the box scores first thing in the morning. A guy who worked at the local music store, where us band geeks hung out, was from Boston and he tried to warn me...but he also gave me his copies of the Diehard after he finished them. I think those did a lot to really pull me in. I moved to New York in 96, and fully embraced the Red Sox and developed my deep and abiding Yankee hatred.
My first conscious memory of watching the Red Sox was in 1998. The reason I know the year is because I was at my grandmothers house watching a game, and a few of my uncles were there as well. Dennis Eckersley was pitching in the game. I thought it was cool that the Red Sox had a guy that threw the ball funny, I had never seen something like that.
One of my uncles said something like, "Yea, he was one of the best. He pitched for the Red Sox twenty years ago." That really blew my mind. I couldn't believe that a guy my fathers age was pitching in the major leagues.
One of my uncles said something like, "Yea, he was one of the best. He pitched for the Red Sox twenty years ago." That really blew my mind. I couldn't believe that a guy my fathers age was pitching in the major leagues.
I nominate Rayna Vallandingham style. Who here is willing to dress and swing nunchuks like her?
85 this last June. Originally, a Brooklyn Dodgers fan in the late 1940s, even though I never lived in or near Manhattan or Brooklyn. Go figure.
I remember listening to the clinching game of the 1955 World Series while in the infirmary at Phillips Andover. But that was it for the Dodgers and me. Johnny Podres had his day in the sun. Once they moved to Chavez Ravine, I lost interest in the Dodgers.
I always had a thing for the scrappy, underdog; that was an euphemism for the Red Sox from the mid 50s to the impossible dream of 1967. Those teams featured E6, aka Don Buddin; Stonefingers Stuart; Jackie Jensen (Zo-o-o-o-eeee); Ellis Kinder;. Maury McDermott (voted by his high school class as ‘ most likely to be found dead in a motel room’); Pumpsie Green (Maury’s Gene Conley’s traveling companion on the infamous Boston-Tel Aviv dogleg)’ and Jimmy Piersall. All it took to keep Tom Yawkey happy in those days was a case of bourbon and hanging out with pinky Higgins. All it took to keep me happy was a one dollar bleacher ticket and three $.75 beers. I was much more déclassé than Tom.
1967 changed everything. It’s not that they won, of course; they lost despite heroics from Jim Lonborg and Yaz but they had emerged from 8 straight losing seasons to win the AL pennant, and they competed through a seven game series with a Cardinals team loaded with talent.
For those who didn’t live through it, 1967, change the expectations, from lovable (?) characters to. perennial contenders. In the interim, of course, we had Bucky.Xxx Dent, Mike Torrez and the infamous Calvin Schiraldi - did it ever occur to the baseball infrastructure that big league hitters can crush a 99 mph fastball that’s as straight as a taut string - but the mental set of fans changed radically: we expected to compete until the last moment, when Lucy pulled the ball away.
And that of course changed yet again in 2003 and 2004. Nothing I’ll ever experience as a baseball fan can remotely touch that. When I’m cashing in my last Powerball tickets, so to speak, I’ll flash memories of Pedro, a.k.a., the baseball Matador,, grounding the Gerbil, and the Red Sox rising from the grave to impale the vile MFYs.
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay. Mutual loathing makes ultimate victory that much more sweet. I would love to see Randy Levine, EKG, and blood pressure readings from game four onwards.
edit: Maury generated enough stories without blaming him for the Bar Mitzvah trip.
I remember listening to the clinching game of the 1955 World Series while in the infirmary at Phillips Andover. But that was it for the Dodgers and me. Johnny Podres had his day in the sun. Once they moved to Chavez Ravine, I lost interest in the Dodgers.
I always had a thing for the scrappy, underdog; that was an euphemism for the Red Sox from the mid 50s to the impossible dream of 1967. Those teams featured E6, aka Don Buddin; Stonefingers Stuart; Jackie Jensen (Zo-o-o-o-eeee); Ellis Kinder;. Maury McDermott (voted by his high school class as ‘ most likely to be found dead in a motel room’); Pumpsie Green (
1967 changed everything. It’s not that they won, of course; they lost despite heroics from Jim Lonborg and Yaz but they had emerged from 8 straight losing seasons to win the AL pennant, and they competed through a seven game series with a Cardinals team loaded with talent.
For those who didn’t live through it, 1967, change the expectations, from lovable (?) characters to. perennial contenders. In the interim, of course, we had Bucky.Xxx Dent, Mike Torrez and the infamous Calvin Schiraldi - did it ever occur to the baseball infrastructure that big league hitters can crush a 99 mph fastball that’s as straight as a taut string - but the mental set of fans changed radically: we expected to compete until the last moment, when Lucy pulled the ball away.
And that of course changed yet again in 2003 and 2004. Nothing I’ll ever experience as a baseball fan can remotely touch that. When I’m cashing in my last Powerball tickets, so to speak, I’ll flash memories of Pedro, a.k.a., the baseball Matador,, grounding the Gerbil, and the Red Sox rising from the grave to impale the vile MFYs.
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay. Mutual loathing makes ultimate victory that much more sweet. I would love to see Randy Levine, EKG, and blood pressure readings from game four onwards.
edit: Maury generated enough stories without blaming him for the Bar Mitzvah trip.
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I'm the same age as Chris Martin. I've been a member here since 2002, when I was only 15. I learned a lot about analytics here and was one of the original live chatters when G38 stopped by in November 2003. This site kept me informed and up to date on the Sox and gave me a place to talk baseball before Twitter was a thing. This is still by far the best Red Sox online community.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS198604170.shtml
The Royals fresh off their World Series win and Roger Clemens just 12 days away from striking out 20.
My cousin worked for Aramark at Fenway for a few years and was able to get me a DVD copy of this game, complete with pre and post game and an episode of This Week in Baseball.
Marquis Grissom was born the day before me. Rheal Cormier and Omar Vizquel are a week younger than me.
I mentioned my first game at Fenway earlier in this thread. What I forgot to say was it was from a box seat, third row, directly behind home plate, and I at there with my glove on my hand watching foul balls hit the netting above my head until I realized that was useless and read the scorecard booklet and learned I could keep score. Family friends from Lynn, who had a lodge (hunting/fishing) a couple of miles up the road from where I lived in NH invited me to spend a week with them. When asked what I would like to do, I said, "Go to a ball game." It turned out that he worked at GE with the brother of the Indians' catcher, Jim Hegan, and I also got a baseball autographed by the whole Cleveland club with a number of future HoF'ers on it (over the years, my disappointment that it was not a Red Sox autographed ball faded away).
I’m 42.
In Red Sox terms, I was 13 in 1995 - when the Red Sox were headlined by Mo Vaughn, Roger Clemens, John Valentin, and Jose Canseco. 1995 was the first year I really followed the Red Sox. Those guys all came and went from Boston, and most of them faded as I went off to college and started working. Tim Wakefield was another guy on that was prominent on that 1995 team. He started out 14-1 with a 1.65 ERA and six complete games, one of which saw him go 10 innings, allowing only four earned runs in 55 innings. A couple of years later, Varitek came up. I was 15.
Those two guys, Wakefield and Varitek, stuck around through 2011, when I was just shy of 30.
It was kinda weird seeing these guys, who had essentially been there since I was a kid, retire.
Now I look at Dustin Pedroia who has been out of baseball for several years, and realize I’m a year and a half older than he is.
And I’ll be 58 when Juan Soto’s contract is up.
In Red Sox terms, I was 13 in 1995 - when the Red Sox were headlined by Mo Vaughn, Roger Clemens, John Valentin, and Jose Canseco. 1995 was the first year I really followed the Red Sox. Those guys all came and went from Boston, and most of them faded as I went off to college and started working. Tim Wakefield was another guy on that was prominent on that 1995 team. He started out 14-1 with a 1.65 ERA and six complete games, one of which saw him go 10 innings, allowing only four earned runs in 55 innings. A couple of years later, Varitek came up. I was 15.
Those two guys, Wakefield and Varitek, stuck around through 2011, when I was just shy of 30.
It was kinda weird seeing these guys, who had essentially been there since I was a kid, retire.
Now I look at Dustin Pedroia who has been out of baseball for several years, and realize I’m a year and a half older than he is.
And I’ll be 58 when Juan Soto’s contract is up.
Gee tis is fun. I am old enough to have seen Ted Williams play. I could lie and say I read the Updike piece in the New Yorker about the last at bat when written or that I was at the game but alas not. That is also the longest sentence I’ve ever written.
I am 10 months younger than Pedro and I always tell myself that he and I would have been fast friends if were playing CF on the Sox during his tenure.
I started watching (became old enough) this team right after the 1978 debacle. Dewey was #1 for me.
I started watching (became old enough) this team right after the 1978 debacle. Dewey was #1 for me.
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He never mentioned anything about Sinatra, but I do recall a ton of stories prior to him going to Pawtucket. He was in Oneonata the year Ted Williams was inducted into the Hall of Fame and he was sitting at the head table of a banquet and on one side of him was Ted Williams and the other Bobby Doerr.
I was born the same year as: Midre Cummings, Greg Blosser, Izzy Alacantara, Wil Cordero, Carl Everett, Rich Garces, Mark (get back) Loretta, Lou Merloni, Biil Mueller, Kevin Millar, and some guy named.....Pedro Martinez. My earliest memories included listening on the radio to names like Butch Hobson, Rick Burelson, Carlton Fisk, Fred Lynn, Jim Rice and Dwight Evans... i was hooked @ 6-7 years old.
I was not raised in a baseball home, but as a twelve year old I watched the '99 ASG at a friend's house. Hooked ever since.
"WHY IT IS SIGMA TO LOCK THE 2025 RED SOX FOR A SMOOTH HUNDY DUBS"