On April Fools Day of 88, the ubiquitous Dan Shaughnessy made his prediction for the Sox season, position by position. Although I won't comment on all of them, he did make some interesting statements, some right on and some way off.
For the normally cynical Dan S, his outlook was generally positive. He ranked Roger Clemens, Bruce Hurst, and Oil Can Boyd as the top three starters in the division if healthy. He praised newly-acquired closer Lee Smith and projected setup man Wes Gardner. Assuming a recovered Rich Gedman, he picked Geddy and backup John Marzano as a top catching tandem. He called Wade Boggs "a hit machine with newfound power and a steady glove at third." He pegged Sam Horn as a possible 40-homer guy at DH. He called the prospect of Brady Anderson in center on Opening Day "thrilling" and predicted he'd be a crowd favorite. He called the Sox "a good cerebral defensive team, but lack range." He was high on Jody Reed at short. Praising the Smith trade, he stated that GM Lou Gorman "had a good winter." He called the running game "improving". He predicted ".330, 30, 120" for Mike Greenwell if he ever played a full season. With ESPN, USA Today, The Sporting News, and others picking Boston first in the East, Shaughnessy was enough of a non-believer to rate them second.
But the shadow over this optimistic talk was the situation of the man in the dugout. Unlike some skippers who would see first place picks as a challenge, John McNamara considered them a burden. "A lot of people pick you to see you get bleeping fired, to put heat on you," he remarked. Typical Johnny Mac, seeing clouds in a cloudless sky.
McNamara was known as a "players' manager" who could handle men. The 86 pennant and trip to the Series were a credit to his ability. But his other two years in Boston had been average to poor. He could be surly and combative. When a TV host asked him before the 86 World Series how he felt about the fact that the last Sox win had been during the Woodrow Wilson administration, he was deeply insulted. An anchorman once described him sarcastically as "one of the most charming men in baseball." The Fenway fans never forgot Mac's pinch hitting for Roger Clemens in the famous Game 6 or allowing a limping Bill Buckner to be on the field in the tenth inning. Most writers, including Shaughnessy, knew that if the team got off to a bad start in 88, "Sack the Mack" would become a Fenway theme song. It would be hard for any team to succeed under those circumstances.
Even Gedman, a local guy who had grown up with the Sox, admitted "if we don't win, it's always a bad year, but with talent here, it might be true." Prophetic words.
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