The celebration in the dugout when Yoshida brought in those two runs.
I’m still feeling the glow of last night, when the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees in possibly the most intense game I’ve seen in my life between these ultimate rivals (I can’t compare it to the Summer of ’49, since I wasn’t around yet).
I was glad to have recently renewed my Boston Globe subscription (having dropped it back in August as a cost-saving measure, and immediately signed back on when they reached out to me with an offer that couldn’t been refused — they’re good at that). That meant that this morning I could relive it not only through an indepth main story about the game, but a sidebar about the man (Masataka Yoshida) who hit the single that pulled the Sox ahead after six innings of the Yankees leading, and a Dan Shaughnessy column about how the Sox’s left-handed ace (Garrett Crochet) dominated the Bronx titans for almost eight full innings.
That’s not counting that one homer Anthony Volpe hit off him in the second, which is what put the Yankees ahead for most of the game. This caused me to mull dark thoughts for several innings, fantasizing about banning home runs. I hate the things, anyway. They completely sidestep the game of baseball. Defenders have no chance to deal with them in any way, once the ball has left the bat. Baseball is about carefully balanced skills between players, not about standing there watching the ball go bye-bye. From now on, I almost tweeted (but was too engrossed in the game to bother), anything that goes over the fence should be no more than a ground-rule double — and the hitter should pay for the ball. (Yeah, I know the cost of one ball is nothing to these millionaires — and no one makes more than the big home-run hitters), but there’s a principle here.
Then, I forgot it all when Yoshida hit that beautiful single in the 7th and drove in Ceddanne Rafaela (my favorite player) and Nick Sogard — putting the Sox in the lead. Where they stayed. Note that, while they sometimes hit them, the Sox don’t need taters to win ball games — because they’re real baseball players.
Note that this happened in New York — where the second game of the series will be played tonight. And if the Sox don’t put it away tonight (and I worry about them doing it without Crochet), they’ll have to win again tomorrow. And all three games are played in New York, not in beloved Fenway.
Whoever wins the series goes on to face the Toronto Blue Jays in the AL East division championship.
But let’s not look ahead yet. Let’s look back, at Shaughnessy’s column yesterday morning, before the Sox won the first game. I almost posted it yesterday, but it’s just as good now. It’s important to share because — well, you know about how I love history, and mourn the fact that ignorance of history is destroying the country I love? Well, history is key to fully appreciating baseball. Here’s the column:
Red Sox-Yankees in the playoffs. Does it get any better than this?
Of course, the Globe needs subscribers to survive (which is why they keep offering me those deals), so they might not let you read it for free.
So I will provide you with enough of an excerpt for you to get the idea of why this thing happening in New York right now (and not in Fenway, in case I haven’t mentioned that) is so important:
Red Sox-Yankees. Again.
Do we need to educate the young’uns and remind everyone what this means?
Red Sox-Yankees is an all-timer. It’s Harvard vs. Yale, Kennedy vs. Nixon, Athens vs. Sparta.
It’s Ohio State-Michigan, Army-Navy, Trump-Comey.
It is the ultimate American sports rivalry and we are getting it in the first round of baseball’s ever-expanding playoffs….
The relationship between these franchises goes back to Creation. The Boston Americans (hello, Red Sox) were part of the upstart American League in 1901 and the New York Highlanders (now the Yankees) joined them in the “Junior Circuit” two years later. Since that time, the two have walked hand-in-hand with history, usually at the painful expense of the Boston franchise.
The Red Sox won five of the first 15 World Series, then sold their soul in a Yankee swap when New York owner Jacob Ruppert swindled Boston owner Harry Frazee (a New Yorker with designs on Broadway shows), acquiring pitcher/outfielder George Herman “Babe” Ruth for $100,000 and a mortgage on Fenway Park.
The fallout from that hideous deal lasted 86 years. In that stretch, the Yankees won 26 World Series while the Red Sox won zero. Making matters worse, many of New York’s rings came at the expense of Boston. A three-time champ with the Red Sox, young Babe became the greatest player in baseball history, won four championships with the Yankees, then handed the Bronx baton to Lou Gehrig, who passed it on to Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Derek Jeter, and today’s Ruthian Aaron Judge — 53 home runs, American League batting champ in 2025….
It goes on like that. You get the idea. It’s great, and educational.
I love baseball so much…
You know what? That was a blurry screenshot above. You should watch the full inning when it all turned around last night…
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As someone who spent the first 25 years of my life living 30 miles outside of Boston and actually was a paperboy for the Boston Globe, I must tell you that Dan Shaughnessy, despite his longevity at the Globe, is easily the most hated sports columnist in New England. He is a curmudgeon who spews hate about players, teams, coaches, etc. and spends most of his time waxing unpoetically about “the good old days”. The most sour disposition and more than willing to carry a grudge including in his HOF ballots.
His greatest “achievement” was being forced to eat his words in 2004 when he called the Red Sox “frauds” right before they came back from a 3-0 deficit to the Yankees in what led to the eventual curse ending World Series drought.
I wrote my first letter to the editor of The Globe somewhere around 1983 when I was 18 to complain about how awful Shaughnessy was in his treatment of the Celtics head coach, Bill Fitch. Larry Bird supported Fitch and that was all I needed to know.
My bona fides:
– Owned a copy of the 1967 Red Sox record album “The Impossible Dream” recapping their run to the pennant when Carl Yastrzemski won the Triple Crown.
– On June 14, 1969, Reggie Jackson recorded 10 RBIs for the Oakland Athletics in a 21-7 victory over the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. I was there.
– Was keeping score on a homemade scoresheet on my screen porch of a game in the summer 1975 when Fred Lynn (Rookie of the Year and MVP) hit 3 HRs and barely missed a 4th in a 15-1 rout of the Tigers
– 1986. Bill Buckner. Need I say more. Had to watch it in NY with my wife’s Mets fan family.
– 1988 Oldest son born. Middle name? Wade. My favorite player of that era.
This has been a great season… next year should be better with Anthony back.
Yeah, I can tell that Shaughnessy is very much the kind of columnist that loads of fans would hate. But I generally enjoy reading him…
As I recall, he sort of got into sourpuss mode back in June, before the Sox started turning it around…
Anyway, thanks for sharing Boston memories! I love that town…
He has 40 years of being a complete jerk.. he never lived up to what was easily the greatest sports department at a newspaper of all time: Peter Gammons on baseball, Bob Ryan on basketball, and Will McDonough for football. Plus Leigh Montville writing features.. oh yeah.. Bud Collins on tennis, too.
Well, he was certainly trying to support your argument this morning, after last night’s heart-breaking one-run loss. Fans who love the Sox get sad after a night like that. Shaughnessy tends to get abusive.
I refer to his column this morning. It started out OK, with nothing to argue about:
Yeah, well, amen to that. But then he goes on, telling about Bello being yanked in the 3rd inning…
OK, that stuff doesn’t seem as bad as it did when I read it earlier this morning. But I really hate:
Why do I hate that one? Because Jarren Duran attempted suicide a couple of years back, so I’m always cheering for him and hoping he does well. And he HAS been doing well lately, aside from that one error. He’s made some great plays out there, and as Shaughnessy acknowledges, he scored one of those three precious runs last night.
I think Shaughessy might consider his next line a way of making up for criticizing a kid with a tendency toward depression:
But he could have done a lot better…
In his column yesterday, Shaughnessy expressed the wish that the Wild Card series could have been settled in that one game that the Sox so brilliantly won. Well, he’s getting his wish tonight. This one game will settle it. So he shouldn’t be sharing his bummed-out mood with the world…
That last one really rankles. Talking like that about a kid with a history like Duran’s, a kid who plays his heart out in every game, and does well, just because he failed to make one difficult catch…
And then having the nerve to say, “Snap out of it, kid.” Snap out of what? The deep funk YOU just put him in, after he stood up like a man and took full responsibility for it — as you admit he always does (“always accountable”)?
I’m just hoping none of them read that. They’re still the team that they were two nights ago, even though they won’t have Crochet pitching for them.
I hope they just listen to Bregman, whom Shaughnessy quoted twice (for which I grant him some credit):
You tell ’em, Mr. Bregman…
I’m telling you… Shaughnessy is a jerk who loves to belittle certain athletes. He’s done it for decades. Here’s a great story from the Boston Phoenix, the weekly semi-underground paper, from 18 years ago that captures the sentiments of Boston sports fans towards him.
https://thephoenix.com/Article.aspx%3Fid=42259&page=1
As for the game, it came down to a couple pitches and a couple swings. The Yankee reliever who went crazy celebrating after almost giving up a three run homer in an inning where he was lucky to survive brought back all my old Yankee hate.
And I hate Karl Ravech’s obvious Yankee fanboy announcing. Everything they do is great in his eyes.
I don’t like the Yankees, either. Or their fans… Maybe the people handling the cameras for ESPN don’t like them, either. They kept focusing on groups of fat slobs holding up obnoxious signs. At one point, when a Yankee pitcher was being taken out shortly after coming in (he had done so badly even I felt a little sorry for him), the camera showed such jerk — a Yankee fan — sarcastically waving “bye-bye” to his own team’s pitcher as he walked off…
Of course, I don’t like those camera people much, either. You know what was worse than showing the obnoxious slobs? At one anxious point for the Yankees — probably in that second game — they kept showing, over and over, pretty girls in Yankee attire looking terribly pained and worried, with their hands pressed to their lovely lips as though suppressing a gasp of horror. Like damsels in distress in the dragon’s tower, waiting for the hero to save them.
Not-so-subtle pro-Yankee propaganda is what I call that.
I admit that I don’t usually object to the cameras focusing on pretty girls in the stands, but this was a special situation…
It’s 2-2 in the second game. And, once again… the Yankees 2 came from a homer, and the Red Sox got base hots and EARNED it…
Oh, well. Wait ’til next year! (My Guardians will be waiting too …)
Did you have any trouble getting used to calling them that?
I reassure myself that the letters across their chests still end in “dians.” That way, I can see a relation between them and some of my most fondly remembered Indians of the past… like, y’know, Pedro Cerrano… 🙂
Occasionally I use the old name before correcting myself … after all, I had been using the former name for 60 years, so a lapse once in a while is understandable. I do like the new name, since it links to something that is uniquely Cleveland’s. And let’s face it, no matter what one thinks of the name good ‘ol Chief Wahoo is about as racist a caricature as you can get. Kind of opposite of the former Redskins, whose symbol was reasonably dignified but the name … ugh!
Oh, a fun little bit on names … when the team was formed in 1901 as a charter member of the American League it was called the Blues, then the Broncos, and then from 1903-1911 it was the Naps in honor of player-manager Napoleon Lajoie (like the Browns were named after coach Paul Brown … a pattern, perhaps?) From 1912-14 the team was officially named the Molly McGuires but popularly was still called the Naps. In 1915 Lajoie was traded and, based on sportswriters’ suggestions, the team became known as the Indians, a nickname used in the 1890s when the Amerindian Louis “Chief” Sockalexis played for the old National League Cleveland Spiders.
So you say the idea was to honor Sockalexis, “the Deerfoot of the Diamond?” Then they should have kept it, especially after more than a century.
But maybe you can explain it so I feel good about “Guardians” as well. To me, it makes no more sense than “Commanders.” Or for that matter Redskins, although once something has been established and generations have cheered for it, I tend to prefer sticking with it without a truly persuasive argument that it actually does harm. Attribute it to the Tory side of my nature.
But as far as Cleveland is concerned, Sockalexis is to me plenty of reason to call them the Indians. Do what you want with Chief Wahoo. But he was a natural complement to the comic nature of “Major League.”
I like Molly Maguires, although I suppose that offended the Irish.
Of course, my Red Sox started as the Americans, which was a bit too generic (as I think you were suggesting “Indians” was, and I can’t argue with that. At least Red Sox described something specific about their uniforms. At least, it DID. Personally, I think any player who doesn’t wear red stirrups and SHOW them, instead of hiding all with those uber-long pants so many of the young guys wear.
That’s one of a number of reasons that currently, Ceddanne Rafaela is my favorite guy on the team…
Well, Louis Sockalexis never played for the team that was named after him, unlike Nap Lajoie. And he played for a National League team, while the former Indians were an American League team. There is also some question whether the name “Indians” was meant to honor him specifically; it was the Spiders’ informal nickname during the three seasons he played for them. See https://case.edu/ech/articles/s/sockalexis-louis-francis (Full disclosure: I am a contributor to the *Encyclopedia of Cleveland History*, the first modern study of an American city published in encyclopedia format and the first encyclopedia of a major American city on the Internet)
As for the name “Guardians”, the team is named for the “Guardians of Traffic”, four sets of monumental statues representing progress in transportation that were carved in local sandstone by artisans in Cleveland’s Little Italy and are set at the ends of the bridge, whose eastern end is near Progressive Field. The bridge itself is named after Bob Hope’s father, a stonemason who worked on the Guardians. Hope, of course, was a Cleveland native. Can’t get much more “Cleveland” than that!
Well, thanks for explaining all that. You know, in all the coverage that reached me about the name change, that information never reached me. Not that I was reaching out for it, not really being a Cleveland fan. No, all that reached me was the stuff I couldn’t avoid, the stuff that kept getting repeated during the discussion. Of course, this being the 21st century, that was the identity politics. Because that is how news is covered today, and that’s what most people get — the conflict, not the community-affirming part such as the “Guardians of Traffic.” And that’s what’s wrong with our politics today.
Doubt me? Try looking — as I did in this case — at no more than the headline of a story.
As someone who constantly obsesses about the key technical (and also substantive) points of journalism — as I’ve been conditioned to do since my school days — it sticks out a mile. I’ll give you a tiny example. Consider the word, “historic.” Or related words or phrases such as “makes history,”
Once, that would have referred to an event or an achievement that would have been remarkable for anyone. Now, it almost always means that if you simply click and read further (remember, this is what headlines do today, when once they would have simply told you what happened), you will find that the “historic” aspect of whatever happened (which is often something otherwise humdrum) is that for the first time (to the reporter’s knowledge), a person of this race or that gender has done X, or has been named to a particular job.
And that one footnote is what sticks, because it has made the headline in a teasing sort of way.
Because that’s the way journalism is now.