Author: Mike Barnicle

Originally published May 7, 1984, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

Today’s question: Are the Red Sox really as bad as they have looked so far? Today’s answer: certainly not.

They are much, much worse. All we have to do is give them the chance to prove it. “You really believe that?” Peter Itrato asked.

“Absolutely,” I told him.

“But they’ve got a couple of good players,” he said.

“Sure they do,” he was told. “But a couple isn’t enough. They’re going to wallow in mediocrity through the end of June and then drop out of sight. And I couldn’t be happier.”

“I thought you were a big Sox fan?”

“I used to be; now I’m just a big baseball fan.” “How come you’re happy they’re doing bad?”

“Because I won’t be wasting my time this summer. Having a root canal is more enjoyable than watching the Red Sox.”

“C’mon. Another three, four weeks and you’ll be right back out there,” he said. “Rice, Hurst, Boggs . . .”

“Stop right there,” he was told. “Where?”

“With Boggs.” “How come?”

“He’s just Billy Goodman with a mustache,” I told Itrato. “He plays the corner as if his glove were made by the McNamara Cement Co. He never hits behind a runner; he can’t move a guy from first to third. Trade him.”

“Trade a guy who can hit like that?”

“That’s right. Get a good frontline pitcher for him. They need pitching.”

“They got all these kids, though . . .”

“The kids,” I interrupted. “You sound like that old sap of a manager, “Mary Sunshine” Houk. “He obviously has lost his marbles. Look at the poor guy; he still thinks Eckersley can pitch. All winter they were saying Eckersley would be a great pitcher in a bigger ball park. How about sending him to Yosemite? That’s a pretty big park.”

“What about Hurst?” Itrato asked.

“He might be all right, but before the season is over, he’s going to sue that infield for non­support.” “The infield does leave something to be desired . . .”

“That’s not all they leave,” he was told. “Don Buddin and Dick Stuart looked like Hall of Famers next to these guys. There’s no first baseman; they should just go with a STOP sign. The third baseman has no range at all. The shortstop reminds me of Terry Sawchuck; and the second baseman comes in on a ball as if he were tripping over a threshold. Add that to the fact that there’s nothing behind the plate except an umpire and the screen, put it all together and you have baseball’s equivalent of the Callahan Tunnel.”

“The Callahan Tunnel?”

“Right; everything goes through.”

“Yeah, but we’ve always got Jim Rice,” Itrato pointed out.

“Correct. And by the time August rolls around, poor Rice is going to look like the poster child for the World Hunger Crusade. He’ll be down to about 95 pounds. Besides, he can’t carry that club by himself.”

“He doesn’t have to. There’s Armas, Evans . . .”

“Hold it,” I said. “Armas is like an ad for Medicaid. His middle name is Johnson & Johnson. The poor guy’s always hurt. And Evans is the only middle­ aged ballplayer I know of whom people are always saying, “Wait until he reaches his potential.” When’s he gonna get there? When he’s 53, and playing in a Slo­Pitch league?”

“Boy, you’re really bummed out.”

“No, I’m not. I’m glad. I hope those turkeys keep right on rolling downhill so the fans will realize what stiffs they are and stay away in droves this summer.”

“Think that will happen?”

“I pray for it every morning. We have a club that can’t afford to go out and get legitimate ballplayers; won’t spend anything and is afraid to trade anybody. It’s baseball by MasterCard. Why aggravate yourself over a pack of cheapskates?”

“Yeh, but once they get the front office thing straightend out, things’ll be better,” Peter Itrato said. “Sure. They’ll probably make a deal for a lawyer instead of a pitcher,” I told him. “If they can’t figure out who owns the club, how do you expect them to figure out how to win the American League East?”

“I never thought of that.” “Neither have they.”

“Don’t you see anything good about them?” he asked.

“Sure I do; they have great uniforms. They just don’t have much to put in them.”

###

 

Originally published April 13, 1986, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

Baseball is a game of memory, and it returns tomorrow to a place where grass has not yet given way to a carpet. It comes home to a green haven filled with reminders of both heartbreak and happiness, a ballyard called Fenway Park where the cargo of past athletic time refuses to yield to sports’ current themes of greed and arrogance.

Baseball is a mood, a suggestion of sunshine and subway stops that all seemed to lead to Section 16.  Once, it was truly the city game, truly America’s pastime and certainly the one sport that bound generations together.

 

Fathers sat with sons and daughters and shared the mellow remembrances of other Opening Days played in earlier, easier afternoons before night stole the game. Then, the shadows of history and reality could be shuffled effortlessly around like so many boxes filled with relics of youth on moving day.

 

And the stories never had to be anchored in fact. As the calendar moved forward, hits, runs and errors became less important. Mood and memory prevailed.

 

There, right over there behind the dugout, is where Teddy Ballgame’s bat landed after he threw it in disgust and it hit Joe Cronin’s housekeeper. And do you see the first­base coach’s box? That’s where Dick Stuart bent down to pick up a hot dog wrapper and got a standing ovation because it was the only thing he ever picked out of the dirt with his glove.

 

The park still rumbles with the aftershock of visions long since gone: Shut your eyes and Joe DiMaggio is still making his last appearance in Fenway. Jimmy Piersall is still squirting home plate with a water pistol. Tony C. is down in the dust, and the crowd’s deathly silence still makes a noise in your mind.

 

Don Buddin can reappear at any moment. Within your own personal game, Rudy Minarcin, Matt Batts, Jim Mahoney, George Kell, Billy Klaus, Jerry Adair, Clyde “The Clutch” Vollmer, Rip Repulski, Mickey McDermott and Gene Stephens can be the components of your bench.

 

Baseball is part of history’s menu. It is filled with small slices of youth, adolescence and adulthood, and anybody can order a la carte.

 

Baseball is not the present ugliness, where rich men called players argue with richer men who are owners over decimal points and deferrred payments. Baseball is not agents or options or no­trade clauses.

It is not whining athletes who play only for themselves and their bank accounts. It is not the corporate set interested in owning franchises merelybecause of the benefits accrued under the tax code.

 

Baseball is a passport to the country of the young. It is Willie Mays chasing down Vic Wertz’s

long fly ball in the Polo Grounds. It is Lou Gehrig considering himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. It is the Brothers DiMaggio. It is Jackie Robinson and Number 9. It is the magic of Koufax, the consistency of Seaver, the toughness of Catfish Hunter and the grace of Jim Palmer.

 

It is a double play turned over in a cloud of dust and metal spikes. It is Captain Carl fouling off the last pitch of a play­off game that started on a splendid October afternoon and ended in a long, cold winter as soon as the ball was firmly nestled in Graig Nettles’ glove.

 

And Opening Day is a time for all those trophies of the mind to be taken out and dusted off. Opening Day, especially the home opener, means the newspapers once again provide box scores, and life contains one sure sanctuaryfrom the grimness and terror of daily headlines.

 

It does not matter that this present collection of 24 men in a Red Sox uniform are not truly a team. It does not matter that they lack chemistry, consistency, speed and a fundamental ability to hit the cut­off man or get a runner in from second base without depending on the thunder of a 34­ounce Louisville Slugger.

 

The moaning of crybabies and players who perform with salary arbitration first in their minds can not drown out the collective noise of generations of fans who love the sport while despising its present state. After all, it is still the best game ever played by men anywhere.

 

What other sport has planted itself so firmly in the nation’s psyche? What other sport draws people to the radio ­­ one more relic of yesterday ­­ to sit and listen to the long innings of slow summer nights? What other sport plays itself out in front of a fan as clearly as baseball?

 

You can see who made the error. You can see who got the hit. You can marvel at the clothesline throw the right fielder makes to the catcher, and watch the runner dueling with the pitcher for a slight lead off first.

 

Football is as predictable as roller derby and as anonymous as a gang fight. Basketball is a spectacle of tall men on a court in a contest where only the last five minutes seem to count. Hockey is brawling on skates. And all of them are played at the absolute mercy of the clock.

 

But baseball is timeless, and so, too, are its memories. Like the players themselves, scattered about the diamond in position, the memories of baseball can be isolated and called up on a mental Instant­Replay whenever the mood or moment summons: Do it today. Do it tomorrow. Do it 10 years from now, and all the detail, drama, symmetry and scores will tumble out.

 

Each new start to baseball’s timeless seasons, each Opening Day, provide a fresh chapter in life. The first pitch, the first hit, the first double play or home run become another page in a volume kept by the generations.

 

So, years from now, long after the disappointment of having no strikeout pitcher in 1986’s bullpen has faded, when all the home runs and dents in The Wall have been rendered meaningless by a lack of base­running ability and an incredibly poor defense, the sad failures of this year’s edition of our Red Sox will not matter. They will all be just another part of our baseball memory, where every day and each game means another season; a season that resumes again tomorrow when the man’s voice brushes the dust off history and winter, and people cheer as they again hear the phrase, loudly hollered: “Play Ball!”

###

 

Originally published June 30, 1986, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

Now that the Olde Towne Team and Tom Seaver are both on a roll, fans are coming out of the woodwork. It’s the end of June with the boys in Crimson Hose out in front and the ballpark is packed to capacity for each home game.

And whenever Roger Clemens is on the mound, they line Yawkey Way for the chance to watch “The Phenom” throw bee­bees at batters who better not blink. Already, a lot of partisans have figured out the rest of the summer’s pitching rotation in order to grab up tickets for Clemens’ future appearances.

It doesn’t really matter that a big reason for the Red Sox surge to the top is the fact that the American League East is no longer as strong as it used to be. Nor does it matter that Baltimore, the Yankees, Tigers and Blue Jays are struggling along with poor pitching. There are no asterisks placed next to a lucky win or a mediocre opponent.

And nothing in sport compares to the feelings aroused when the Sox are going good. Take the euphoria surrounding the Celtics championships, the Patriots Super Bowl appearance, the Bruins Stanley Cup, add them all up and, together, they cannot equal the crowd adrenalin during one inning of a Red Sox game that means something in October. The other local clubs are merely professional sports franchises. The Red Sox are us.

However, there is one bummer about the surprising play of the townies. This is the sudden appearance of a considerable number of yuppies now masquerading as legitimate baseball fans.

It’s a disgrace. This large element of Back Bay yuppie trash has no business being at the ball park. They go because, like all true front­runners, they want desperately to be identified with a winner. To them, the Red Sox are now the baseball equivalent of scrubbed pine benches from Vermont, aerobics, California wine, tofu sandwiches and a Saab Turbo.

These yuppie fruitcakes are not fans. They are faddists. They are here just for the ride. To them, it’s not important who wins or loses as long as they are seen at the park in their wrinkled khakis, pink shirts, boat shoes and picnic lunches in a Bildner’s bag.

It’s important to weed these people out. So, in order to separate real fansfrom fryuppies, we offer the following Red Sox quiz. Any true fan will be able to score at least 7 out of 10 correct answers.

Questions:

1. Who uses the most consistently foul and abusive language heard on the field at Fenway Park?
2. What was Mickey McDermott’s most famous hit?
3. What man got a paycheck from the Boston Red Sox, Boston Braves, Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins in the same year?
4. What former Red Sox player has the greatest baseball name of all time?
5. Who was the hottest hitter in the club’s history?
6. Any team can come up with starting pitchers. Who was the best closer the Red Sox ever came up with?
7. Speaking of pitchers, which one had the most imaginative arm injury ever seen at Fenway Park?
8. What Red Sox pitcher had the best head for the game?
9. Who is buried in the Red Sox bullpen?
10. Name the most popular manager in team history and why.
11. What would Ted Williams hit if he played today?

Answers:

1. No contest: Joe Mooney, the groundskeeper. Can he ever swear.
2. It was when he punched Bob Holbrook, a Globe sportswriter.
3. The late Tommy McCarthy, who ran the press room for all four franchises at one time during a life that was a blessing to anyone who knew him.
4. Matt Batts, a Sox catcher in the early 50s.
5. Rudy York, who on April 26, 1947, nearly burned down the old Myles Standish hotel smoking in bed.
6. Ellis Kinder, who closed more joints around Kenmore Square than a sailor on shore leave and once fell off the mound, drunk. Runner­up is Jimmy Foxx..
7. A toss­up between Dizzy Trout, who burned his elbow frying chicken, and Bob Porterfield, who once burned his fingers playing with matches before a game.
8. An easy one: John Wyatt. He got whacked on the back of the head when Sox catcher Bob Tillman hit him in the squash trying to throw a runner out at second. Wyatt stayed in the game.
9. Leo Kiely’s pet cat.
10. Walter Underhill. He manages the bar in the Red Sox hospitality room and has never, ever, shut anyone off.
11. He’d have trouble hitting .300 but you have to remember that he’s 68 years old.

 

###

Originally published April 13, 1989, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

Inside the old Hotel Kenmore, to the right of the front desk, there was a coffee shop where, if you hung around during those faded baseball summers of the 50s, you could collect autographs of ballplayers in both leagues. Practically all American League teams and most National League clubs stayed there. For some reason, the Yankees were at the Statler in Park Square while a couple others used the Somerset.

Kids sat in the hotel lobby like House Dicks stalking a suspect. Nobody tossed you out because waiting for Al Rosen, Ralph Kiner, Bob Lemon, Early Wynn, Pee Wee Reese, Don Mossi, Matt Batts, Tito Francona or any guy who wore a major league uniform was an accepted ritual.

You had to use your smarts. You didn’t want to be in the middle of a mob of autograph hounds because then the ballplayer wouldn’t take the time to talk with you.

So you learned tricks of the trade. For instance, you could ride the elevator. That way you’d be right there when Mickey Vernon or Bob Porterfield got on.

Instead of loitering by the press gate at Braves Field, you’d cross Commonwealth Avenue to Warren Spahn’s diner, get a coke for five cents and sit at the counter until Don Mueller or Whitey Lockman came in for meatloaf. At the Statler, Jumbo McCarthy’s older brother had a job washing dishes. He’d get the room numbers when the Yankees came to town.

That was always a huge event. You’d unclip a pile of Records and go door to door with newspapers for the ballplayers. You’d give them a free paper for an autograph. Simple enough.

Back then, there was no player’s union, no special deals for athletes. Most doubled­up in a room; even stars like Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, so each room was a twofer.

Once, Gene Woodling, victim of self­inflicted wounds from the night before, threw up on the hallway carpet just as he was handed his morning paper. Another time, Billy Martin’s roommate had a very high­pitched voice, really long hair and resembled a woman so much so that I was shocked until my father informed me that some guys took their sisters on road trips.

The reason I mention this today is a snapshot of activity that occurred at Fenway Park on Opening Day. The gates were pushed back at 11 a.m. and the big crowd giddily spilled into the little ballpark in the Back Bay.

There were a lot of kids and almost every one of them rushed to the rail that rims the field. They yelled and screamed at the players and begged for autographs.

Marty Barrett signed for awhile. And Jody Reed, too. Sam Horn, Ritchie Gedman, Mike Greenwell and Wade Boggs indulged them but the loudest cheers were reserved for Roger Clemens.

But Clemens didn’t hear them. At least, he pretended not to because he emerged from the dugout and kept on going. He had no time and never even turned to wave.

Now, there’s nothing in the American League rule book or the Major League Player’s Agreement that stipulates a player has to sign autographs. And the club can’t force a guy to do something he doesn’t want to do.

And, face it, sometimes the demand is unreasonable or even worse; like when a guy sends a little kid to collect signatures and then tries to sell the autographs later at one of these foolish card shows.

But ­­ and I don’t mean to single out Clemens here or give you the impression that it’s only baseball players who are at fault ­­ something is truly screwed up when a ballplayer will only sign autographs when he is getting 8 bucks a pop at some shopping mall or collector’s convention. After all, the big stars in any sport are not exactly starving for dough.

Athletes get huge contracts for two reasons: 1. They are terrific at what they do. 2. Lots of people are willing to pay exorbitant prices to see them do it.

So the only compelling reason for them not to sign scorecards or autograph books being waved by their young fans has to be ignorance. And the only compelling reason for them to take a fee for a signature at a show is greed.

It is inevitable that some day the fastball will fade, the arm will tire, the legs will get a bit heavier, the bat a bit slower. Then, his gift eroding, the ballplayer, once honored for what he did rather than who he was, will be cut or retired.

Maybe if they took the time to think about how they want to be remembered by kids who will grow up to have kids of their own, we’d have more players who were actually remembered as human beings, instead of fatheads with skills that set them apart from the pack. But that’s probably asking a lot because the athlete who ignores a child is merely a spoiled kid himself who happens to wear his IQ number on his uniform. He could perform, but he could not think.

 ###

 

Originally published September 17, 1989, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

It’s Sunday and I’m trying to be charitable but it’s awfully difficult because the Red Sox are still around like Uncle Harold, the cranky know­it­all who never knew when to go home. I hate to say it, but I’m sick of them. I love baseball, but I truly dislike this 1989 edition of whining malcontents who effectively stole my summer.

Actually, the larceny began in the spring when I discovered that Roger Clemens had a bolt in his head. This happened when Pea­Brain hinted he might have to settle any beefs with boo birds, sportswriters, real estate agents, carhops, carpet salesmen or anyone else around here cowboy style.

Of course, his catcher, Richie Gedman, jumped in and said the fans were ingrates. This was an odd statement coming from a guy who can’t hit his hat size, never mind his own weight.

Poor Richie. He seems like a sincere kid. He’s on a major league roster and sucks down a million bucks a year despite the fact that when he’s up ­­ bat in hand, flailing away ­­ he makes you wonder about his eyesight. You’d think he’d be smart enough to shut up.

Then we had Jim Rice’s elbow. He’s had more bone chips than Tammy Faye has had facelifts. Who do you figure performed the surgery on Rice? The guy in the ad who says, “I’m not a doctor. I just play one on TV.”? Clearly, the medical mumbo jumbo hasn’t affected Rice’s appetite because this morning he looks like the black Raymond Burr. Ironsides as DH.

Next came the sorrowful mystery of Ed Romero, followed by Joe “Turn the other cheek” Price. When the manager had the gall to question the pitcher’s inability to hold a runner on any base, the lefthander told the man to go frost himself and told the press he exploded because Morgan had popped the question at an inopportune time. Beautiful. Try that one on your boss next time you screw up an assignment.

Finally, a couple of days ago, Morgan, a nice guy who is still a minor­league manager, said the club might be only one or two guys away from being able to turn things around. I’ve thought a lot about that statement and he might be right if the two guys were Jim Jones and Joe Francis.

Jones had the Kool Aid concession at Jonestown a few years back. And Francis was an executioner at the old Charlestown State Prison.

The Reverend Jim and a stack of Dixie cups sure would clear out some of the deadwood. That plus old Joe Francis, hand right on the switch, and you’d have the ultimate waiver wire.

Unfortunately, it’s the fans who are currently getting zapped at Fenway. The ballclub has a built­in incentive not to change things too quickly, if at all.

You see, the park is actually a cash register. They can sell turkeys all year round, not just on Thanksgiving. They sell out early. They pack them in throughout the summer and don’t have to depend on the heat of a pennant race or the personality of a legitimate star, a drawing­card, to put fannies in the seats.

So the Red Sox are never forced to get tough, make trades, cut players or, when you get right down to it, compete in order to succeed. The bottom line in pro sports is financial success, not first place. This is a bank before it is a ballclub. They are winners before the first pitch or verbal assault is thrown. Management can tolerate nitwits because the faithful accept losers.

Yet, certainly, this assembly of sullen solo acts cannot be called a team. That implies unity and there is none here, only a meanness of spirit that lingers in the hazy air.

Friday night, sap that I am, I sat at the ballpark and was struck by the fact that a majority of Red Sox players had faces that looked as if they had been soaked in cement. They resembled a pack of surly, spoiled teen­agers, mad at the old man for not allowing them to have the car that evening.

My friends, the problem is not a lack of talent. It’s simply a lack of heart, desire, spine, spunk, soul, whatever. This club is not a collection of major­leaguers. It’s merely a group of selfish, disagreeable, unattractive, unappealing little boys who have jobs paying big dough and bosses who allow them to take the months of July, August and September off. Why, Hemingway once wrote a book about the pitching staff. It was called “A Farewell to Arms.”

And the clubhouse might as well be a day­care center called Fenway­R­Us because the players, not all of them but more than should be allowed, act like they have chronic diaper rash. They’re good at whining, complaining, making excuses, pointing fingers at others and picking up their paychecks.

But they’re unable to act or play at a professional level. Like I said, I love the game of baseball but I hate the games this particular crew plays.

###

 

Originally published October 7, 1990, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

In the ballpark the other night, not many wanted to move after Brunansky made his marvelous catch and the fact that so many voted with their feet ­­ standing still in a stadium rather than head toward the reality of the street beyond ­­ should not come as any big surprise because things are fairly lousy. The people who refused to leave were all smiles and living a pleasant dream.

Past the summer green of Fenway it sometimes seems as if there is only Iraq, taxes, drugs, murder and politics. While between the white lines, where the game is played, there were a few men, especially a guy like Carlton Fisk, who somehow seem capable of delaying the arrival of their own night; so their continuing skill manages to keep us all a bit younger.

And you can feel that beautiful illusion of youth all around this morning. Baseball has a way of dominating the pulse of this region unlike anything else. Certainly, no other team comes close to maintaining a monopoly on mood the way the Red Sox do, whether winning or losing.

Given their history, rooting for this year’s edition is like cheering for September strangers. They have no speed, only limited pitching depth, and large volumes of home runs are from highlight films of memory. Yet the players actually seem to like one another and perform, incredibly, as a unit; a team instead of 24 guys bathing in jealousy and unearned hatred of sportswriters.

They are, literally, the talk of the town. Today, they set the agenda. They are the object of every verb, most thoughts and nearly every wish and prayer.

Their success, carved out of a three­week roller coaster ride, has returned sport to the sports pages. The Red Sox, thankfully, push sexism and stupidity to the back of the paper. They have given us a brief reprieve from stories of which athlete is on drugs and who is holding out for more dough. The Olde Towne Team is playing a game that, despite the effort of owners and ballplayers, is bigger than greed and beyond being tarnished by selfishness, free agency or rootless mercenaries who take directions from agents and never hear a child’s cheer.

Friday, trying to decide what to type for today (a murder, a rape, a school system incapable of finding a slot for a kid in kindergarten were my choices), I drove around, mind changing faster than a red light at Fields Corner. The sky was high, blue and without a hint of clouds. The sun was July­warm and yet nearly every streetcorner arrived like a blotch of ink.

Here, on Topliff Street, I recalled a shooting that started a gang war. And, over there, coming up Ashmont, I remembered a young boy, a teen­ager, an innocent with terrific dreams, going down dead on the sidewalk a few hundred yards from a Catholic church where nuns cried when told of the murder. He was 200 yards from his house when he was shot in the back by someone still out there, free. His family was shattered and, no doubt, remains so because nobody ever comes all the way back from tragedy like that.

Ahead of me there was a small bus, a van really, transporting youngsters with disabilities from school. Halfway down Dorchester Avenue, the bus pulled to the curb in front of a three­decker where a woman sat waiting on the stoop.

She got off the step to help a little boy get off the vehicle. He was 8 years old and greatly disabled. When he came down the ramp in his chair, he wore an enormous smile and, on his head, tilted just perfectly, a Red Sox cap. The scene was deserving of a cheer at least equal to the rush of noise that greeted the right fielder Wednesday night.

“He likes the Red Sox?” his mother was asked.

“He loves the Red Sox,” she replied. “I let him stay up late every night to watch them. He just loves them.”

The boy had difficulty speaking. His limbs were frozen. His face, however, became a simple statement of cheer as baseball was discussed. You think of everyone who regards a parking ticket or an extra six cents a gallon as the absolute end of the world, true gloom, and then you see a little boy who needs a wheelchair and perspective arrives. That, plus the knowledge that no matter how hard people try, no one can really place a foul hand on this perfect game.

So this one is for the Red Sox. For all they mean to all those anonymous dreamers who sit today worrying about Oakland and their strapping all­star strength. Remember, the true national sport used to be ­­ and ought to be again ­­ optimism.

This one is for the Olde Towne Team and everything they do to breath life and hope into those who would otherwise willingly begin the long, gloomy winter in October. And, most of all, it’s for baseball, which isn’t exactly a matter of life and death, but the Red Sox are.

 ###

 

Originally published February 27, 1990, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

It was a big weekend for obituaries. Johnnie Ray, the singer, and Malcolm Forbes, the publisher, disappeared from the stage. Vinnie Teresa, the mob stoolie, died of unnatural causes ­­ an illness. And Gen. James Gavin, along with Tony Conigliaro, also hit checkout time.

Gavin was a thoughtful, honorable, gentle man. He was one of the youngest American generals in World War II, a commander of paratroopers who went out the door with his men and walked from Normandy across Europe in the fall of 1944.

He was an expert on warfare and an eyewitness to an awful lot of death. He never forgot what he saw and could thus provide compelling arguments against the ease with which so many old Washington politicians, out to earn their letter sweaters, committed so many young men to a war in Vietnam that no general knew how to win and few soldiers wanted to fight.

In 1976, he was back in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, where Joe Levine, the producer born on Billerica Street in the West End, was making a movie of Cornelius Ryan’s book “A Bridge Too Far.” Thirty­two years earlier, Gavin had been part of an Allied operation to cross the Rhine, cut into the heart of Germany and, hopefully, end the war by Christmas 1944.

The plan failed. A lot of good men died. Gavin, a quiet hero for all his days, saved a regiment from the brutal German counterattack. Then, on this one October night, after a day watching a film being made, the general went to dinner at a restaurant on a narrow street in Nijmegen. When the owner was told that Gavin was his guest, the place became a shrine.

After accepting a hundred tributes with embarrassed charm, Gavin and the rest of his party made their way to the street. It was nearly midnight, yet there were perhaps 200 local residents standing in the darkness, waiting for him. And while he made his way to a car, people he had helped liberate three decades before quietly applauded. Gen. James Gavin was history.

And Tony Conigliaro was summer. He had a special magic that exceeded even his ability to hit a thrown ball with a wood bat. He lived and played on a permanent field of dreams located in his back yard. He went quickly from St. Mary’s High of Lynn to the major leagues.

In 1960, at 15, he made the Hearst All­Stars. The ballgame was at Fenway Park and every kid on the team walked onto that grass, glanced at that wall and absolutely believed, totally believed, that he was born to play in the bigs.

“Tony didn’t start that year and he was pissed,” Chet Stone was saying yesterday. “I can remember him sitting on the bench, fuming. I think he played a couple innings that year. I started. I was 18, and I said to myself, ‘Oh . . . him. He’s only 15. He’ll start three years from now.’ Three years later, he was in the big leagues. He was great.”

Today, Chet Stone runs Harvard University with help from Billy Cleary, Derek Bok and Artie Clifford, who used to throw a baseball with tremendous authority for Archbishop Williams High. Clifford, too, played against the kid from St. Mary’s.

“The only time he ever faced me, all he got was a foul ball off me,” Artie Clifford said. “Tony hit the ball about 550 feet foul. Then I walked him on four pitches.”

Joe O’Donnell grew up in Everett, went to Malden Catholic and played three sports against Tony Conigliaro: baseball, basketball and football. “He was the best athlete I ever faced,” O’Donnell said. “An amazing athlete. He never knew what it meant to quit. That’s why I always thought he would beat this thing. I never thought he’d die.”

The first time the two tangled, O’Donnell, bigger and burlier, was assigned to guard Conigliaro in a basketball game, and he figured he would shoulder Tony into the seats all night. But Conigliaro made O’Donnell look as if his sneakers were made of cement. He scored 24 points while O’Donnell fouled out in the second period.

Later, despite the fact that he never had any luck with high, outside fastballs, O’Donnell got a scholarship to Harvard and became captain of the baseball team. One day in 1966 when the Red Sox were working out behind Harvard Stadium, the two men who began getting in each other’s face when they were 13 years old stood together on a diamond just about as far away from Lynn and Everett as you can get. One wore college crimson. The other, the red stockings of a child’s dream.

Now Tony Conigliaro is dead, but in a funny way he’ll never die because memory and all those games carve their way into permanence. So he’ll be with us as long as boys play baseball, stepping into the batter’s box with that swaggering move and big right­hand stroke, making us believe that you really can go from St. Mary’s to the bigs and that summer might never end.

###

 

Originally published April 19, 1990, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

 

Mr. Michael Greenwell of Fort Myers, Fla., and Yawkey Way is upset at the way his baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, is portrayed in the newspapers. Mr. Greenwell thinks reporters are unfair, too negative and don’t spend enough time writing about all the nice things that happen in and around Fenway Park.

Mr. Greenwell is paid millions to play a game. He seems like a nice boy, although in left field, his position, he has less range than Margaret Thatcher. Here is what he has done thus far in a miserable young season with a bat in hand: At the plate 30 times prior to last evening, he has a .200 average with 6 hits, no home runs and no runs batted in.

His problem ­­ one he shares with many athletes ­­ is that he never learned a thing from his elders, people like Greta Garbo and Steve Carlton. Garbo, of course, was a horrible actress who knew enough to get lost, stay lost and say nothing on the public record for decades. Carlton was an excellent lefthanded pitcher who remained mute for years: no interviews, no comments, not even an occasional grunt. Perfect.

I suppose it’s human nature to wish that everything was portrayed well in print and on TV. But when you have a pack of whining, marginally talented malcontents gathered together in one clubhouse it’s kind of tough to constantly wear rose­colored glasses.

Greenwell, I guess, doesn’t understand the function of papers and sports reporters. That’s all right, too, because a lot of fans don’t have the slightest clue, either.

If people in the news business operated the way the left fielder wanted them to, things would surely be different each morning when you bought this product and each evening when you watch the news for free. Everything would simply be swell.

Unfortunately, that’s not reality. Sometimes the truth is hard to swallow: We have a bumbler for governor. We have a pack of gutless swine in the Legislature. There are too many murders. Some kids are real maggots. Our schools have slipped. The family has faltered. The economy isn’t booming the way it was 6 years back. Money is owed. It rains. People get sick. Some die.

For comic relief, relaxation, pure joy ­­ a host of reasons ­­ a lot of New Englanders turn to baseball to bail them out of the doldrums. Well, we’re not getting baseball.

Instead, we’re getting a poorly prepared excuse for the sport. It’s played by men who get a good check to perform, and when they don’t, the least they could do is take their lumps like millionaires should.

No doubt about it, it’s a tough crowd around here. This is not San Diego, where the sun always shines and fans go to the ballpark to eat tacos and watch a chicken dance. It isn’t San Francisco or L.A. where, when you get bummed out about the score, you leave early, put on a purple body stocking and go dancing with 10 friends and 4 complete strangers.

There are a lot of angry, aggravated human beings in New England. For a lot of them, life is like scratching a sore. They spend half a year humping their way through a long winter, packing coats on little kids, fighting flu, skimming taxes, avoiding meter maids. When April appears and baseball returns, you can actually hear a huge sigh of relief.

Yet not too many Red Sox players understand their summer surroundings. The players are swollen with greed. Their principal loyalty is to an agent and free agency. Their love is concentrated on contract extensions and perfomance bonuses. Not one has ever offered to return any cash after a bust­out season. Instead, they hawk autographs for $8 a pop to little kids.

And, sadly, the money and premium pay ­­ most of it hard earned ­­ has affected the Red Sox and baseball more than it has any other sport. The Bruins are a small unit of personable, immensely likeable human beings. The Celtics play as if their lives depend on it. Both winter teams are a part of the community at large. They show up for charities. They smile. They at least act as if they are happy to be here.

Too many of the Red Sox walk around as if they are waiting for a call from the governor to commute their sentences. Off a roster of 24 players, there are about 6 truly nice guys. The rest of them just don’t get it: Fenway Park is the only true star. The players are merely part of a franchise that doesn’t have to work that hard because sellouts are a rule of thumb long before the team heads north with no pitching staff, no first baseman and nobody to dent the wall on regular basis. Fools like me still sit in our seats.

Sure, Mr. Greenwell has a right to complain about what is read to him in the newspaper. But I’d have a lot more respect for his dumb, hurt feelings if he simply did his job instead of trying to do mine. His job is simple: Shut up and perform.

###

Originally published October 1, 1991, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

A friend of mine from San Francisco called yesterday to gloat about the demise of the Red Sox and wonder whether or not baseball fans across New England had shed any tears on their pillow after Sunday’s brutal loss to Milwaukee. I thought this was ironic coming from someone who lives in a city where people blow kisses and wink at ballplayers instead of booing or cheering them during games but, out of politeness, I gave him a reply anyway.

“Bleep you!,” I explained.

Then, later in the day I heard several of these radio disc jockeys, most of whom have room­ temperature IQs, carrying on about “how the Red Sox have done it again.” A string of nitwit callers were saying the club choked or that they do this every year or that Boston will never win a World Series because of the tired old Harry Frazee­Babe Ruth thing and, more than likely, Chuck Stuart, the Police Department, the media and the incredibly grim racial tensions around here.

The fact of the matter is that the Red Sox, after throwing up on their shoes during July, gave us back a summer. They came from 12 games behind to provide us with an interesting, exciting September.

They played hard. They played hurt. And they played well above their collective heads because they don’t have much pitching and it requires someone with a Browning .9 millimeter in hand before any one of them can steal a base. The bottom line is there wasn’t any quit in them and I don’t know what else you can ask of or expect from a team these days.

The whiner syndrome is a tough thing to shake. Yet in this town it’s become a way of life, and it is totally unwarranted but completely expected because the truth is that Boston is a provincial tank town, a minor­league burg with an isolated, warped, and unbelievably provincial mentality that causes too many to think that the sun rises above the harbor and sets just past Route 128 each day and that nothing else exists.

Let’s start with sports. We have three pro teams: Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins, although ice hockey is tough to categorize because most of those who follow it require three minutes to answer the question “What color is the blue line?”

In the last few years, the Red Sox have done far better than teams in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, all of them large cities with big buildings, phone service and running water. But what do we hear around here? “Holy mackerel. They do this every year.” I guess all other major­league American cities have teams that make it to the finals each year.

The Celtics win more than they lose. And the Bruins seem to be there every spring, but I admit that’s kind of a phony point because it seems in the National Hockey League nearly everyone from Marla Maples to the Malden Catholic Drum and Bugle Corps have a shot at the Stanley Cup.

You may have noticed that I omitted the football team from this analysis. That, for a simple reason: The Hoodsies ­­ or whatever it is they are called ­­ play in a toilet near Providence and exist only to provide renegade bike gangs with a place to gather each Sunday in the fall.

Oddly enough, one of the few things that allows Boston to cling to the reputation of being a major league city is the fact that it does have three professional franchises. That, plus a lot of good schools and some unbelievable hospitals are about the only thing between us and Des Moines.

I mean, think about it: The entire nation stumbles beneath the weight of a recesssion of near­ depression proportion and people in Boston walk around whining and blaming a lightweight former governor for present unemployment, as if no other area of the country has been hit.

We have one fairly sensational murder case and instead of being able to see it for exactly what it is the demented work of a single, insane fruitcake who was not smart enough to pull it off ­­isolated whiners make it the crime of the century. We refuse to learn from it and then let it go.

We have black people who get beaten by whites and we have whites who get walloped by blacks.

It happens a lot from coast to coast because, trust me, race is still the single biggest factor and issue in this life of ours. But, according to some whiners in the media, no other city suffers from the weight of violence and discrimination the way Boston does. I guess the mobs in New York, the hate in Chicago, the bullets in L.A. are nothing compared to the stuff here.

Around here, people don’t know how to drive very well. They are incredibly rude. They can’t cross streets properly. You can’t find a decent restaurant that stays open late. We have very little perspective on life beyond the 617 area code, yet we act as if everyone in the world wants to live here and the only reason they don’t, or won’t, is the Red Sox.

Get a life.

###