As the fall of 67 wound into mid-November, Globe sports pages featured some tidbits of Red Sox news- some interesting, some not. Carl Yastrzemski, the odds-on MVP choice, continued his "columns" about once a week. Most of the material was bland, retelling his feelings about the season, beginning in spring training, and his busy winter of TV shows, dinners, conventions and work on his upcoming book. His review of the pennant campaign included some positive words about Dick Williams: "It was a great relationship and a great understanding we had, and I think it came about because of the great respect (the word great was a bit overused) I saw him gain from the ballplayers." Deep down, however, there were sharp differences in their personalities-the quiet, workmanlike Yaz and the brash, cocky and outspoken Williams. The differences would later erupt into open hostility as the team faded during the next two seasons.
When the MVP vote was taken, Carl was two votes short of a unanimous choice. A pair of writers- Jack Lang of the Long Island Press and Max Nichols off the Minnesota Star- picked the Twins' Cesar Tovar. Nichols' excuse was that "the MVP Award has never been clearly defined, " and that Tovar's versatility (he played 5 positions during the year) merited the choice. Given Yaz' stats, it made little sense and seemed like sour grapes coming from the Twin Cities.
On November 15, a sneak snowstorm struck at rush hour and paralyzed Boston highways-some commuters were stranded for 5 or 6 hours. Celtics player-coach Bill Russell, on the way from his North Shore home into the Garden, failed to make a game against the Golden State Warriors. The Celts won anyway by 3 points as GM Red Auerbach temporarily returned to the bench. Two days later, in a column headlined "Hub Athletes Should Learn to Ski", Harold Kaese began: "If Jim Lonborg had been in Bill Russell's position during the snowstorm, there would have been no problem at all. He would merely have left his car, fastened on his skis, and zipped into Boston Garden." Given Lonny's career-crippling ski accident just a few weeks later, I'm sure Kaese deeply regretted the column.
A small blurb in mid-November announced that GM Dick O'Connell had been named Major League Executive of the Year by the UPI. The piece was apparently considered so unimportant that no writer was credited- it was probably from Globe wire services. It always seemed to be this way for O'Connell- comparatively little credit for building two pennant-winning teams. Rest in peace, Dick. You accomplished a lot.
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