In early January of 1967, baseball in Boston was not a particularly hot topic. In world news, one headline announced: ” LBJ asks for 6% income surtax to offset war cost.” A later one says “He stakes future on moderate war”, whatever that meant.The football world was building up to the first Super Bowl (it was only called a “championshiip game” then) between the Packers and Chiefs. In boxing, Cassius Clay, not yet generally called Muhammed Ali, was trying to get his draft reclassification revoked. But also, new Sox manager Dick Williams was conducting a lengthy interview with Globe legend Will McDonough.
Williams, his wife and three children were living in an apartment building in Santa Anita, California. Things were already going his way. He recently had won $6000 in prizes on TV’s Hollywood Squares. “You’re in the wrong business,” said the writer. “I don’t think so,” Williams replied.
As a former Sox player, Dick had seen the casual, underachieving atmosphere around Boston locker rooms. “I could go through Red Sox records and point out where lack of teamwork has hurt. Our people have got to forget about individual statistics.They have to be willing to sacrifice something for the good of the team or they won’t play…..I don’t care if they all dislike me. We’ll get along great if they just do what I ask. If they don’t, I’ll rip them good.”
How many years had it been since a Sox manager talked like that? Fifty? Before the Bambino trade?
Williams then outlined his plans for the team. Joe Foy at third. Rico Petrocelli at short. Mike Andrews at second. A competition between George Scott and Tony Horton at first. An outfield of Carl Yastrzemski, Reggie Smith, and Tony C. A definite accent on youth.
His starting rotation (they had only four pitchers in those days) would be Jim Lonborg, Jose Santiago, Darrell (Bucky) Brandon and Lee Stange. John Wyatt and Don McMahon would be the “stoppers”. He also mentioned longshot prospects like Dave Morehead, Pete Charton, and Jerry Stephenson, but declared frankly that he was not counting on them. Soon-to-be-famous Billy Rohr was also mentioned.
At spring training, “every day we’ll post a timetable for the players to follow. They’ll know what we expect of them every minute they are on the field, so there won’t be any time wasted.” Williams had earlier predicted that “we’ll win more than we lose.” Now, pressed by McDonough for a standings prediction, he replied “I’m an optimist. I don’t think fifth place is out of reach.”
Given what would happen, this remark seems to be a gross-but happy-understatement. But at the time it was considered almost unbelievable. No Sox team had finished higher than fifth since 1958, and just two years before, they had lost 100 games. Dick closed by saying “we’ll have to play over our heads in comparison to what we’ve done in other years.”
At least in what would come about during 1967, Williams turned out to be an incredible prophet.
Happy New Year to all.
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