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It was rather boring to read about the Sox' exploits in the second week in June. Not only was the team still in free-fall, but it was very obvious that John McNamara's days were numbered. The Townies did take the rubber game in Yankee Stadium 4-3 behind Roger Clemens and Lee Smith, but low on the Globe sports page, a piece by the great Leigh Montville explored Jim Rice's sudden collapse. As of June 9, Jim had no homers and only five extra base hits. He had hit into eight double plays. The article was entitled "Rice's Slump Is Sad, Mystifying" and expressed bewilderment at what was happening to the longtime slugger.
The next series in Toronto saw the Jays again embarrass Boston, taking two out of three to make it 6 wins in 7 tries in a pair of weekends. The Sox first fell 3-0 to ace Dave Steib, as Jeff Sellers was again victimized by lack of support. The unlucky righthander allowed only one earned run in 5 1/3 innings, but saw his mark fall to 0-6. He again got no support, as the Bosox stranded 12 and were shut out for the seventh time. It got no better the following night, as the visitors fell in 10 innings by a 4-3 count. Bruce Hurst threw 7 good innings and left ahead 3-2, but Smith surrendered the tying tally in the eighth and Dennis Lamp gave up the winner on a run-scoring single by the immortal Sil Campusano. Though the team did salvage the final game 8-2 with a strong effort from Oil Can Boyd, a fan didn't have to read through the articles to realize the plight of the Sox. Some of the headlines read "On a Clear Night, You Could See the Sox Stumble," ''Feeling a Power Shortage", and "Sox are Pigeons for Blue Jays,". Things got so bad for Rice that Mac benched him temporarily. Just when it seemed like it couldn't get any worse, it did. On Monday the 13th the Yankees buried the Sox 12-6 at Fenway. But even more crushing was the fact that it was against the Rocket himself, victimized for 15 hits and 9 runs, a career high for Roger. When McNamara came out to remove him, he was booed from every corner of the park. The loss put Boston 10 full games out of first, and it seemed only a matter of time before Mac was gone. Jean Yawkey and John Harrington were saying little, but it seemed obvious that they were looking for the right time to make the change. McNamara continued to show hope publicly, but privately the man was suffering. In his book One Pitch from Glory, Lou Gorman, who liked and admired Mac, describes the manager's condition. "I was in McNamara's office….and as he came out of the shower to dress, I noticed his entire body was covered in red blotches. I asked (Mac) whether he had the mumps or an infection…I began to realize that it was probably the effect of the stress and the constant media criticism." The man probably should have resigned at this point, but, as an old baseball guy, he was probably too stubborn. However, even the players must have known their skipper was on the way out. It seemed that John McNamara was the loneliest man in Fenway. |
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