Last Game of the Season

Well. What a month. Even before the events of this past week I had decided to have a look back at ‘happier’ days, but then we heard about Lester. So rather than just happily flip back to telling stories about baseball fun it seemed appropriate to pause for a moment first. Everyone is of course sending their best thoughts to the Lester family, yes even Yankee fans. Maybe this is also now the perfect time to make that little contribution to the Jimmy Fund, or the charity of your choice, the money is well spent. And the feeling you get, even after giving five or ten dollars, from doing something tangible, something that really does help, is more than worth the money.
As many of us now may be more than ready for the last game of this season, I wanted to look back at a couple of finales from seasons past.
On the fourth of July, 1975, I turned 12. And sometime within about a month of that event (we took the kids in my b-day party to see the new smash movie..Jaws) I discovered baseball, and the Red Sox. I had been aware of baseball, even sat down and watched some games the year before and enjoyed smashing a wiffle ball around in the back yard. But I never really caught the Fever until that perfect summer. 12 may be the perfect age to discover baseball, and 1975 may have been the perfect year to discover the Red Sox. While ’67 is the point where the Sox emerged from the doldrums and began our recent dance with Hope, Lynn and Rice brought an energy to the team that was the second point defining the line that has largely held true to this day. At the end of the season we had no idea of the drama and glamour that was in store for us in the next month, in fact we were just happy to still be in contention for the division. After that loomed the mighty A’s, the three-time defending World Champion A’s, and the galaxy of (soon to be sold off) moustache wearing stars on their roster. Our magic number was down to one on the second to last day of the season and we lost to Cleveland, but then (that evening if memory serves) Baltimore lost as well and coming into the final Sunday we were already Champs.
Our seats were well up in the bleachers, where seats still cost $2.50 (I may even still have a stub or two from that era for any who can’t imagine such a thing) and where it was rumored that one could run into Bill Lee, having snuck up out of the Bullpen, smoking something funny with the BU kids in the back rows. Only three umpires bothered to work the game, one of them was Larry Barnett, who had no idea that this would be one of the last times he would ever be greeted with indifference in Boston. The Sox were resting the starters for the trip out west, and the lineup was full of guys like Bob Heise and Steve Dillard and soon to become beloved Bernie Carbo out in center. We cheered for the starters anyway, when Heise came up we cheered for Petrocelli (Ri-Co!), Rick Miller was Fred Lynn for a day and Carbo morphed into Dewey every time he came up. He also went 2-4 with 2 RBI.
The game played on, our starter Dick Pole was left in through 5 innings, giving up 8 runs and we lost 11-4. And then the fun began. NESN recently showed some clips of what happened on one of their features and it was fun to see it for the first time since being there.
We stormed the field.
I think it was after the riotious Philly fans got so out of control in ’80 that storming the field became verboten, and shame on them for ruining it for the rest of us. I came down in the far point of the triangle in center field, climbing up and over the fence. Security just backed off and let us run around like so many hundreds of pool balls after a huge break. I remember running in huge joyous loops through the outfield grass and onto the infield where I joined a small throng gathered on the pitchers mound. My friend had beelined to the monster and tried, without success, to unscrew one of the red Strike lightbulbs from the scoreboard. The on-deck circle in those days was a big round rubbery thing that lay flat on the ground. A group was busily tearing it into small keepsakes, and somewhere I still have one, maybe an inch or two across.
Minorly destructive mischief aside, the feeling of being on that grass, of jumping up and down on the rubber of the pitchers mound, of seeing Fenway from the point of view of the players, was extraordinary. Even as a 12 year old I knew that this was a special thing, and in fact I have only once walked on that grass since then.
After we lost that Series my parents took me out of school to attend the City Hall rally that was held to honor that amazing team, and those two days will forever be treasured memories.
The next year the last game of the season held no such drama, neither the Sox nor the Orioles were in playoff contention but the game became memorable all by itself. Tiant started for the Sox and most of the starters were in as well, and stayed in until the end, many hours later. Many many hours later.
I was there with my little brother, who was 6 that year. These days if you saw a 13 and a 6 year old walking around alone in a major American city you might be moved to call the police or something. But it was a much different world then, we lived in Brookline and could walk from home to the Green Line and easily take it the three stops to Fenway and go to games. We enjoyed the popcorn (remember those old cone shaped popcorn holders? The ones you could use as a makeshift bullhorn when the popcorn was gone?…I miss those) and the soda and the last chance to watch a game and after nine innings it was 1-1. Extra innings. And then came the rain.
I don’t remember exactly when it started raining, if it was before or after the ninth inning, but I am guessing that it was after the 12th. Because that was when Tiant left the game. After the 12th. This was the last game of a moot season and our ace, our wonderful twirling Cuban maestro, was trotting on out there inning after inning. And rotations in those days were made up of four pitchers, not five. I don’t know why the pitchers then had such rubber arms, maybe the pitches they throw these days take more out of the arm, but even guys who weren’t exactly Gabe Kapler (Tiant and Reggie Cleveland were more like David Wells than they were like Jim Palmer; Tiant used to work out in the winter at my High School’s gym and he wasn’t ever gonna be on the cover of Muscle and Fitness Magazine) could throw like robots.
but the rain did come, and it poured and we waited. My brother began running up and down the aisles in frustration and boredom, and I watched the rain, fully enjoying the fact that I was in Fenway Park yet again. We were under cover, at least, on the first base side, and after a time something funny happened. Rick Dempsey, the Oriole’s catcher, came up and out of the dugout and onto the tarp. The rain was coming down as if so many fire hoses were pointed at him, and he was going to enjoy himself anyway, and try to entertain us as well. He had stuffed a large pillow (we let the visitors clubhouse have pillows! What were we thinking!) in his shirt to give himself a big pot belly and he headed for homeplate. Once there he began a routine that he later became famous for in other rain delays; he started with the Babe Ruth impersonation, pointing at center field and ‘calling his shot’ and then making his way around the bases. He would belly flop and slide into each base, leaving a wake behind him as he splashed through the water, and oversliding each time. The Great John Kiley was the organist then (Who was the only guy to play every home game for the Sox, Bruins, and Celtics every year was the trivia question asked in those days as he had the same post at the Garden) and he saw what Dempsey was doing and played along, trying out a tune or two for Dempsey to goof on, and even dance to. We all cheered him on and gave him a huge ovation when he was done and eventually the rains ended and play resumed.
After at least two hours.
Eventually we scored a run in the bottom of the 15th inning and my brother could go home, much to his relief. And I said goodbye to the Sox, and to days spent at Fenway Park, until we worked our way again through a New England Winter and back to the hope of a new Spring.
I have tickets to two more games this year, the 19th and 21st, and while they may not be the hoped for Clinch Game, they will be that last chance to see the team and be in the park again until after the snow has melted. I intend to have a blast.
Anyone want to meet at the Tiki Room before the game for proper libations?
Play Ball.