By 1986, the late, great Larry Whiteside had gotten his own weekly baseball column in the Sunday Globe. On December 14, he talked about the winter meetings of the previous week. The Red Sox, he wrote, were in the process of violating baseball’s 11th Commandment. It was “Thou Shalt Not Stand Pat”.
GM Lou Gorman stated that “We can’t change the whole complexion of our ballclub. It was good enough to almost win a world championship last fall. But we can do a few things to improve it.” Lou talked about finding a lefthanded pitcher and improving the bench. But he added “a major trade is impossible right now.”
Whiteside pointed out that no AL champ had repeated since the Yankees of 77-78. He mentioned that winners Milwaukee, Baltimore, Detroit and Toronto had “leaned too heavily on their strengths without shoring up their weak spots.”
In his conversation with Whiteside, Gorman never mentioned a huge reason that the Sox had lost to the Mets-relief pitching. The bullpen had been in a shambles most of the season with Bob Stanley, Tim Lollar, Joe Sambito and Steve Crawford all trying-and failing-to do the job on a consistent basis. Calvin Schiraldi had been a godsend when he was brought up, with 9 saves and a 4-2 record. He had, however, only 25 games of major league experience and, as every Sox fan knows, had failed miserably in games 6 and 7 against New York. Bullpen help should have been a high Sox priority, but it was not even mentioned in the article.
The Sox would not only fail to repeat as AL champs, but they would fall to fifth place in 87 with a 78-84 record. The bullpen was one of the reasons. Schiraldi had an 8-5 mark, but only 6 saves and 4 blown ones, with a bloated 4.41 ERA. Apparently not recovered from his World Series experience, he was shipped to the Cubs at season’s end and would never regain his September 86 form. Other relievers continued down-Wes Gardner was 3-6 and 5.42, Crawford 5-4 and 5.53, and Tom Bolton 1-0 and 4.38. The team would have only 16 saves, smallest number in the league. Stanley went back to starting for a while, but had a horrible 4-15 season with an ERA over 5 and, of course, continued to be booed. The Bosox fall from glory would continue until John McNamara was fired at the 88 all-star break and replaced by Joe Morgan, who quickly put them back on their feet.
Just because the Sox had been one strike away from a World Series win did not mean there was “almost nothing” wrong with them. It all goes back to Peter Gammons description of the traditional Boston attitude towards pitching: “We should have enough.”
Incidentally, Whiteside left the Globe in 2004 after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. He passed away in 2007 at age 70 and is a member of the writers’ chapter of the major league Hall of Fame.
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