Mike Barnicle on Baseball

Originally published June 15, 1981, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

Why should we get upset because a bunch of guys averaging around $150,000 in salary for seven months work now claim their bosses are unfair? How can you feel sympathy for bosses who, as a group, should be given “The Dummer of the Decade” award for the way they have helped destroy baseball?

This baseball strike is like a war between Hitler’s Germany and Joe Stalin’s Russia: you don’t know whom to root for. It’s like a debate between Idi Amin and Castro; a fistfight involving Howard Cosell and Tom Snyder.

Both sides look like sleazes.

The players are like 16­year­old rich kids who get everything they want and a lot they never asked for. If the kid wants to go swimming, the parents buy a mansion next to the beach. When the kid says his feet hurt, a Mercedes shows up in the driveway.

And the owners are like all those whack­o rich parents you read about: they open up checking accounts for their children when they reach the age of seven, give them cars and $15,000 for gas money, and apologize when little Dexter throws a tantrum after he is asked to sweep up all the cocaine on the floor of his bedroom.

But the root of the strike is truly American. It all began in a courtroom. Everything in this country now either begins or ends in front of a judge.

The whole nation is one big legal mess: from busing to baseball, from marriage to municipal employment, human beings no longer talk to each other without the aid and encouragement of those modern robber barons called lawyers.

Without the consent of a hocus­pocus industry called the law, kids cannot pray in school, parents cannot do what they feel is best for the health of a daughter, and the list goes on and on. Why should sports be different?

A few years ago, a couple of ballplayers who had grown tired of being treated like property did not sign new contracts with their teams. The courts agreed with them when the ballplayers claimed they were free to sign with anyone willing to pay for their services. The owners fought this for a bit, and then they fell in love with the concept.

Soon, mediocre banjo hitters and pitchers unable to break a pane of glass with their fastball were on the open market. Not owned by any club, they went with the highest bidder.

The bidding is ridiculous. It helped make the sport a joke while putting huge sums into players’ pockets. Human nature and common sense dictate that when one man offers you a million dollars to cross the street while another man says he’ll give you a dime to stay where you are, you cross the street.

The players took the money. If they did not, they would have become candidates for a lengthy stay at the Menninger Clinic.

The owners have been turning profits for years off the backs of players and those naive fans who thought baseball was still a sport instead of the tax gimmick it is today. Owners could get through the year better without nine healthy ballplayers than they could without an accountant.

Now, having witnessed the almost ludicrous spiraling of costs, the owners are asking the players to help them stop the madness. “Please make us stop handing out money,” the owners are saying to the players.

Tell me it is not a great country when a Skip Lockwood is handed half a million bucks to prove that he can not play baseball. Without stupid owners, he would have been a greenskeeper five years ago.

Tell me we are not living in a screwed­up society when Dave Winfield gets $20 plus million from the Yankees to play a game. And tell me you wouldn’t take the money and run if it were offered to you.

All of it is more than enough to make you sick.

The players have wealth, opportunities, and marvelous and hard­ won benefits, and yet they cannot sit in a room with management to work things out. And the other side, truly a collection of snakes, makes money hand over fist through sophisticated write­off schemes and tax shelters and still has the gall to act like the injured party when, in fact, it started the madnesss.

Both sides stink. Both are bums.

Both have forgotten where their livelihood comes from: the poor stiff who, until recently, thought the bible of baseball was The Sporting News and not the minutes of the National Labor Relations Board.

The bottom line is that a bunch of bungling lawyers, a bunch of spoiled ballplayers, and a bunch of arrogant chiselers who think of baseball as a business ­ first, last and forever ­ have stolen our summer. They made a game into a legal brief. They took a nice, soft, pleasant part of America and turned it into a big, fat headache.

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Originally published August 19, 1981, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

This is a story about a little league baseball team, the Parkway All Stars of West Roxbury and Roslindale; two big league guys, Paul Nicholson and Frankie (Ballgame) Long; and a bush league company, New England Telephone. It will just take a couple minutes to tell.

Nicholson and Long work for the phone company. The two men are service representatives in the Brookline business office. They both live in Roslindale and manage the Tigers in the Parkway little league.

Both guys are nuts about baseball. As a matter of fact, Nicholson, every summer on his vacation, drives his family to Williamsport, Pa., for the Little League World Series. That’s 400 miles one way.

This summer, the Tigers won their regular season division with a record of 17 and 3. Finishing first meant that Nicholson and Long got to manage the league all­star team entry in the state championships.

Three ­hundred­ and­ twenty­ two teams started playing for the state championship about a month ago. A week ago Friday, only four teams were left in the semi­finals and the Parkway All­Stars were one of those clubs.

“We never got that far before,” Nicholson said.

The games were scheduled for Friday afternoon at Downey Memorial Field in Brockton. Swampscott was going to play Easthampton and Parkway was going to play Taunton West at two o’clock. The winner of the series would be state champs and get the shot to go to New York for the East Coast finals and then on to Williamsport for the championship of the whole world of little league.

Naturally, Nicholson and Long asked the phone company if they could take Friday off. Naturally, they were told no.

Three days before game day, Nicholson, the manager, asked for a half day off. He was told he could leave at one o’clock. This meant that he would miss a coaches meeting at ll o’clock and team practice but he took what he could and told Joe Petitpas, his coach, that he would be there just about two o’clock.

Frankie (Ballgame) Long was told at the Brookline Telephone office that he could leave at 3:30. After all, he was just the assistant manager.

On Wednesday, two days before the series, the schedule was changed and Parkway’s game was moved from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Neither man said anything about the change because they already had been granted charity, without pay, by their employer.

“I said beautiful’,” Paul Nicholson remembers. “That gave me a chance to run a pre­game practice.”

Friday came and Paul Nicholson left the office at one o’clock for Brockton. Ballgame Long got up from his desk at 3:15, went into the men’s room, changed into his game clothes and left the office at 3:20.

Taunton West beat the Parkway All Stars, 5­0. Swampscott beat Easthampton, 7­1 and went on to win the state championship by edging Taunton West, 6­4, in the finals.

“The kids were disappointed naturally,” Nicholson said. “But they had a great year.”

None of the kids were as disappointed as Nicholson and Long were, though, when they got to work a week ago Monday. There, the men were taken into separate offices and informed that they were suspended indefinitely for “falsifying reasons for time needed off” and, in Long’s case, for leaving work early.

Someone, it seems, had discovered that the ballgame actually began at 4:30 instead of 2. And, because the phone company is obsessed with time, Nicholson and Long, in addition to being suspended without pay, were told they would lose all overtime work.

Nicholson’s suspension lasted two days. Long was out all week. Both were not paid for the days involved.

“I still can’t believe it,” Nicholson was saying. “Little league is a community thing. It’s not like we were beating the phone company out of anything.

“Out of eight games we had to play to get to the semi­finals, five were on weekdays and we left an hour early from work to get to those games. We just came in an hour early in the morning and made it up on straight time. And we beat eight good teams.”

“What if you had won the state championship?” he was asked.

“They weren’t gonna let me go,” Nicholson answered. “Imagine that? I had already asked. Just in case.”

Obviously, Nicholson and Long should have just called the field where the game was played. If they called after five and dialed it themselves, they could have talked for six innings without losing a dime. After all, that’s what the phone company is all about.

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Originally published April 10, 1981, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

Somewhere today, someone will jump to their feet and shout at the top of their lungs over something that means nothing in the long run. A man, a woman, a young boy or a young girl will be delighted by one small event ­ a hit, athrow, an error, a run from first to third ­ which won’t lower the price of gas or raise the value of the dollar.

Today, people will come pushing and pulling their way up and out of the subway stop at Kenmore Square. They will move as one along Brookline avenue toward the little ballpark in the Back Bay where the rite begins again.

Opening Day, 1981. Baseball. It’s back.

Baseball is different. Baseball is a bit of magic.

It doesn’t really matter that over the last few years both management and labor have conspired to make team loyalty about as attractive as dinner with the Manson family. It doesn’t really matter that the events of the Red Sox winter leave a strange taste in your mouth, sort of like sucking on a lemon.

It doesn’t matter that Haywood Sullivan can’t figure out the difference between a post office and home plate. Or that something called a Skip Lockwood was thought to be of more value than Luis Tiant.

What matters are things like Tito Francona.

As things are measured ­ both in baseball and life ­ Tito Francona was nothing to write home about. He was just another rookie outfielder for the Baltimore Orioles who once played in an opening day game at Fenway Park nearly three decades ago.

He was never a big star. Never hit for a big average. Never hit a lot of home runs. Matter of fact, he never managed to hit much of anything at all.

He was good enough to make the big time, though, and that was back when there were only 16 major league teams. Tito stuck around for a few years and played with a few clubs. Not many at Fenway today will remember him, but he played the game.

Francona was a rookie when pants were still pegged; when Elvis was king and Ike was President. He played when No. 9 was still swinging the bat and Bill Haley and the Comets were still swinging, period.

He was a rookie before ballplayers had agents and hair dryers. Before owners had accountants and excuses. He played baseball in a time that is frozen forever in memory.

 

If you can remember when milk still came in bottles, when hotel operators still took messages, when a candy bar was a nickel and a comic book a dime, when Mass was just on Sunday, when grass was mowed instead of smoked, when coke was from Atlanta not Colombia, then you know a little bit about the special magic of baseball and players like Tito Francona.

 

Baseball is unlike any other sport. Baseball is still getting into an argument over who is better: Williams, DiMaggio or Musial. It is pointing out that Mantle, with two good legs, might have been the best of all. Or was Mays better?

 

Baseball is getting angry over the memories of Denny Galehouse and Bucky Dent. It’s thinking that Parnell could never win the big one, that there was never a stronger hitter than Skowron or a meaner pitcher than Radatz or, maybe, Gibson.

 

Given the proper ingredients ­ a sense of madness, an old box score, a baseball encyclopedia ­ any moment and any player can be revived from the dust of memory and brought back to the plate and the park that still sit in the mind of anyone who ever thought they could hit a curve. Baseball is part of the permanent record of youth. And in Boston, it is more than a religion, more than a pastime. It is, or was, a matter of life and death.

 

But now it’s a matter of the bottom line. It’s rent­a­team. And the 1981 Red Sox are reality therapy. They are a “Thanks­I­needed­ that” slap in the face for anyone who held out the hope that this was still a fabled franchise.

 

It is not. Now, it is just another tank town team.

 

But it’s still baseball. And that is still magic. Ask Tito Francona.

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Originally published October 4, 1982, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

This is the way it was meant to be with rust colored afternoons and shadows creeping slowly across infields that stand as the last, faint reminder of summer. And, yesterday, as the Birds of Baltimore went at the Brewers from Milwaukee, a game of baseball chipped away at the years, bringing recollections and visions of other afternoons spent in the sun.

The huge crowd spilled out and up from the subway. Brookline venue was a parade of the faithful and all along Jersey street, people pushed each other with a soft patience as they moved through the turnstiles into the tiny ballpark.

Behind third base, up in the grandstand, a small boy sat beside his father. The boy let the excitement of the crowd and the day wash over him while his eyes darted from player to player as they took the field below him.

“Which one is he, Dad?” the boy asked.

“There he is, right there,” the father told him. “Watch him. Then you’ll be able to tell people you saw the greatest player of all time.”

“That’s him?” the boy wanted to know. “Number 5?” “That’s him,” the father said. “That’s Joe DiMaggio.”

There is a game of baseball not played on any field. There is a game that always takes place in the pale light of memory; innings played in earlier, easier times when October afternoons meant everything and nearly everyone came to a halt while two teams faced each other for the championship of the major leagues.

The kitchen radio is turned up loud and Russ Hodges’ voice fills the small room and spills out onto the sidewalks. A man named Bobby Thomson is at the plate facing a pitcher named Ralph Branca as the Giants and the Dodgers face each other for the National League pennant.

With one strike on the batter, Thomson swings and the ball disappears into the haze, into history. Bobby Thomson; one pitch, one swing, and a man becomes part of a miracle that stands forever.

Political campaigns never really got under way until the final out of the World Series. And that one event, that one spectacle of baseball, was a gift.

It gave people a peace of Indian Summer when all concentration centered on each one of Don Larsen’s pitches. Instead of biting your fingernails over the rate of inflation, you bit your lip as Robinson stole home or Mantle knelt in the on deck circle. Whole mornings raced past as conversations centered on Bill Mazeroski’s home run or a catch by Sandy Amaros, events of the afternoon before.

Two to two. Eighth inning, Indians at bat. Runners on first and second with nobody out. Don Liddle is one the mound for the Giants, throwing to the left handed batter, Vic Wertz.

The TV set is a jumble of shadows and blurs that bounce across the tiny screen. Liddle winds and throws and Wertz hits a rocket toward center field.

There is a young man in center field who, when you shut your eyes, is forever young. He is wearing No. 24 and he is galloping across the grass of the Polo Grounds, his back to the plate, his arms stretched out in front of him, his hat just beginning to fall from his head as, amazingly, the ball lands in his glove.

He is Willie Mays. He is all the Octobers of youth summed up in one lunging, impossible catch. There is 1967, Lonborg, Yastrzemski and a season for the ages. There are Carbo and Fisk, and late October 1975.

Yogi Berra and Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax and Dusty Rhodes all march across the edges of summer’s last sun. A pitcher checks the ball, hitches his belt and checks the infielders who wait behind him.

The air crackles with just a hint of frost as innings dance by and the bottom of the order approaches. Darkness paints the grass and spectators become participants as hope rides on every pitch and each swing.

Men become children for the briefest of moments. And as winter pulls closer, you can shut your eyes and there, there on that larger field of imagination is a game that moves differently from all the rest; a game of motion and memory. A game that can be captured in fractions and splices of the mind because, after all, it was only yesterday when the Brewers beat the Orioles in the sunlight. And it was only yesterday when the great DiMaggio played in your dreams.

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Originally published July 15, 1983, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

Every once in a while ­ about twice a day as a matter of fact ­ you hear a little story that makes you stop for a second, scratch your head and mutter about how much things have changed. Usually these stories involve something either sad or outrageous that has just happened to somebody.

Here’s one involving Chris Gallo. He’s 6 years old and lives in Medfield.

He’s a big Red Sox fan. He’s not the kind of fan most of us are at 26, 36 or 46.

Chris Gallo just loves the Sox. Of course, he likes to see them win and everything but he’s far too young to have grown accustomed to the annual July fade, the September swoon and the team slogan: “Look Out Below.”

Every weekend there is a home game, Chris and his 9­year­old brother, Joey, go to Fenway Park. Their parents are big fans and the family has one of those weekend­only season ticket deals, four seats in the left field grandstand.

Last weekend was no exception. The Gallos were right there when the gates opened.

“The kids love to watch batting practice,” Pam Gallo was saying. “Chris and Joey would sit there all day watching the ballplayers.”

On Saturday, Chris ran into the park and went directly toward the Red Sox dugout. He wanted a few autographs and maybe, just maybe, a baseball.

Every Red Sox player he approached was too busy, of course. Too busy for a nod, a hello or anything else.

The guys on the Olde Towne Team have a lot on their minds these days. They don’t know who owns the club but they do know they’re all heading down faster than The Nautilus.

Evans and Rice and Yaz are usually good for autographs but they didn’t seem to be around. So Chris Gallo walked over to the Angels’ dugout.

There, by the left field boxes, Chris was yelling at a couple of playersfrom the visiting team. Finally, Andy Hassler came over to the 6­year­old.

You might remember Hassler. He used to play here but got lucky and ended up with California. Hassler talked to Chris Gallo for a bit. Then he gave him a ball, an autographed ball.

“Chris was beside himself he was so happy,” his mother said. “All the times he’s been to the ballpark, he’s never gotten a baseball. And to make it even better,” she added, “we bought him a brand new Red Sox cap.”

Chris Gallo raced back to his seat. He couldn’t wait to show the baseball to his mother and father and brother.

Everybody thought it was great. And everybody thought Andy Hassler was great, too.

Chris didn’t want the ball getting all dirty with fingerprints and ice cream and stuff so he tucked it away in a paper bag. He put his new hat right on top of the bag and placed everything on the seat beside his father.

By now, batting practice had begun. A lot of guys on the Red Sox are absolutely fabulous in “BeePee.”

They might freeze just a bit with runners on during a game situation, but batting practice is time for heavy lumber. In boxing, athletes like this are called “Dressing Room Fighters.” In baseball, they are referred to as members of the Red Sox.

A line drive rocketed into the left field seats near the Gallos and everybody scattered. A man right alongside Chris’ father was hit by the ball and some spectators went over to see if he was OK.

When Chris Gallo got back to his seat, there was no paper bag. Thinking it had been knocked to the ground, he looked beneath the chairs and in the aisle.

Somebody stole his baseball. To make matters worse, they took the 6­year­ old’s new Red Sox cap as well.

“How do you tell a 6­year­old that there are people who would steal a baseball and a hat?” Pam Gallo was asking. “What do you say to a kid? He was crushed. The whole day was ruined. He cried and cried and cried.

“I know there are a lot more important things going on in the world,” the mother added. “I know there are people who get their vans stolen and cars stolen but nothing was more important to that 6­ year­old then that baseball. I wouldn’t have minded half as much if they stole my wallet.”

Chris’s brother Joey tried to get another ball from one of the players with no luck. So the 6­year­ old went home a little wiser to ways of the world but still in love with the Red Sox.

“Things aren’t the way they used to be,” Pam Gallo pointed out. “What kind of a person would steal a ball from a 6­year­old, anyway?”

I don’t know, Mrs. Gallo. Probably the same kind of rat that would take a little kid’s cap, too.

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Originally published June 24, 1983 by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

Somehow, this is the saddest of all baseball seasons. It is a lost and joyless summer, a few months cut out of a year when the Olde Town Team seems intent on filling us with all the anticipation of a root canal.

Very little of the ill feeling has to do with the won and lost columns. It doesn’t stem from the fact that the pitching staff is so thin it could be called baseball’s answer to anorexia.

Forget even that opposing pitchers can go through the bottom half of the Red Sox batting order faster and more easily than you can go through the tunnel to East Boston at dawn on a Sunday morning. Ignore the fact that this is a club without one pure star ­ a guaranteed attraction ­ an athlete who puts people in the seats and excitement in the park.

Part of this year’s regret was born on the afternoon when Buddy LeRoux looked at Jean Yawkey and Haywood Sullivan the way Nicaragua looks at Honduras. But that’s just a small slice of the problem.

The big enchilada, as they say, the thing you cannot escape, the one element that hangs over Fenway Park the way smog hangs over Santa Monica is this: We have a bunch of losers on our hands.

Not losers in the sense that they won’t be there in October, although you can bet the farm that they most certainly will not be anywhere near first place come fall.

Losers in the larger sense: Three or four guaranteed big leaguers surrounded by fringe players who are up in the bigs only because they fit the budget, not the batting order.

This is a club that will prosper. This a club that will survive. And this is a club that will never make a run for the roses.

Let’s look at what we have and what we see. Forget front­office propaganda about farm systems and going with the kids. Ignore sports page patter about character and a bunch of nice guys. Baseball in Boston has never been an awards ceremony for the nine best smiles.

We need a first baseman at Fenway Park. We do not have one today. Yaz is too old. Dave Stapleton has no range. We need a first baseman.

We’re OK at second for a while. But Jerry Remy will not last forever and there is no one in back of him other than Dwight Evans.

Shortstop: the slide of this organization can be traced to the day they let The Rooster go rather than pay him what he was worth. Glenn Hoffman can play adequately well but he has less range than Margaret Thatcher.

At third base, you have Wade Boggs. The kid can hit the threads off a baseball but has a bit of a problem picking one up from the ground.

As outfielders go, the Red Sox are doing well. They have three major leaguers on a regular basis. But if one of them were ever out injured for any length of time, the club would go down faster than the Hindenburg.

There is no catching. There is very little consistent pitching.

You see, my friends, consistent pitching does not mean three well­ thrown games in April and May. Consistent pitching means a team has at least one man with one arm that can and will stop any club on any given day. It means you have at least one guy who can take the ball and you don’t have to rush to the Mission Church to pray for six decent innings.

The Olde Town Team does boast an extraordinary reliever in Bob Stanley. And if Ralph Houk continues to use Stanley as much as he is forced to use him, Boston will be the only team in history with a relief hurler who resembles Mahatma Gandhi.

Behind Stanley, there is the Mass. Pike Extension. That is it.

Of course, there is always Dennis Eckersley. And if he could ever throw the way he talks, he might win 10 games some year. Eckersley could not stop a toilet with a hamper full of towels.

Unfortunately, this is a team put together on a Mastercharge. There is a salary limit, and not one dime more than necessary will be spent on tomorrow until they figure out how to pay for today.

Here in New England we have a group of limited partners presiding over a collection of limited talent. We have corporate write­off baseball and an infield that looks better as a tax break than it does as a double­play combination.

There can be no trades. No free agents. Nothing that might break the bank. Play a game in 1983 by rules that went out the window in 1973. Nothing matters other than the click of the turnstile and the constant cash from big TV contracts.

Pay off the debt. The pennant might come later. Look around. Look at what’s happened to baseball and Boston and the Olde Town Team. Someone has stolen our summer.

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Originally published September 30, 1983, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

Once, it was a simple game played on grass under the sun and fans deceived themselves into thinking that men played it only for fun. Over the years, the night took it from warm afternoons and there are green carpets now instead of lush lawns and the explosion of dollars has turned the music of the sport into the sound of an adding machine.

Kids no longer pose in playground shadows pretending to be DiMaggio, Mays or Mantle. The ballet involved in chasing long fly balls or the visual poetry of a double play is still there, but free agency and labor disputes have resulted in loyalty that has turned to rust.

Lawyers and owners speak in Wall Street tones; players mutter in some dead language that always has a clause for cash; and all three parties are part of a deceit that has robbed the game of its magic and the fans of a piece of their youth.

Yet through it all, across all the years, you can always find a handful of athletes who act and perform as if they are the custodians of the game’s reputation, as if their every time at bat is going to help restore a piece of the dream that every child once held in his heart whenever baseball was played.

Carl Yastrzemski is such a man.

He never had the power of a Jackson or a Schmidt. He never had the speed of a Clemente. He does not have the size or strength of someone like Winfield or Rice.

He approached the game the way a carpenter frames a house. His foundation was desire; the walls were made of intensity; the roof was nailed down with heart.

His career has stretched across the terms of six presidents, a couple of mayors and two decades that have changed the face of this country forever. There are people just one year out of college whose entire memory of the Red Sox is book­ended by the name Yastrzemski.

He played on some awful teams, some good ones and, perhaps, one great one. He was stacked in batting orders with players who were pathetic and a few others who had better natural ability and physical gifts than No. 8 did.

Through it all, the first­ and last­place finishes, the embarrassment and the applause, it was always Carl Yastrzemski’s pride that bound those teams together and carried them through the long season. From March to October, he ran everything out.

He was “The Captain,” but his speeches were given in the batter’s box and out along the cinder track in left field. He was an all­ star but the glitter in his game came from his consistency. He was a steady light in the sky, not some shooting star that faded in a haze of adhesive tape, whirlpools and excuses.

His talent was always disguised within a body better suited for a journeyman infielder. And there were years when he was hurt nearly all the time and the numbers from those seasons libel his career when looked at separately.

But he played. He altered his stance or favored his back. He limped a bit and took a little off the throw in to the cutoff man but, always, he played.

And all the games across all the years do not encompass one third the effort that Carl Yastrzemski poured into his sport. Box scores don’t show callouses picked up from hours in a batting cage and statistical totals don’t compute the sweat, pain and sacrifice of a life devoted to a game.

In September of l967, he became a legend. No man has ever had a month, a season, like Yastrzemski did sixteen summers ago. Day in and day out, he lugged a marginal collection of baseball players toward the dream of a first­ place finish.

In the fall of l975, he was an aging left fielder on a team of considerable talent. But it was Yastrzemski who took a ball off the left field wall, turned and fired to throw out Reggie Jackson, who had thought he could take second on an old man’s arm, and when the umpire called him out, the Oakland A’s died right there in the copper­colored dust of the infield.

By l978, there was a touch of gray at his temples and the lines around his eyes were not from laughing. And it is in a scene from a crisp, clear October afternoon of that year that Carl Yastrzemski will live forever in my mind.

His Red Sox had bled themselves into a tie for first place with the Yankees of New York. Now it was the ninth inning of a playoff game and 32,295 fans stood in silence for the duel: “The Captain” against “The Goose.”

They say the ball finally came down in Graig Nettles’ glove. They say there was a final score, and that the Yankees won. But they are wrong because legends live forever and there are dreams that never die.

In places beyond New England, there are people who claim that “The Captain” never played on a team that won a World Series. Yet on that autumn day, and on every day he wore the uniform, Carl Yastrzemski, No. 8, was always a world champion.

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Originally published March 16, 1984, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe

With snow covering much of the ground and political bull filling a lot of our air, it is time to pay attention to something truly important. In case you have not noticed, the Olde Towne Team is at it again down in Winter Haven, Fla.

This means that one of life’s major and constant disappointments is on the verge of heading north. Within a month’s time, the Red Sox will be back in Boston teasing, thrilling and tormenting men, women and children from Brattleboro to Block Island.

This year will be no different. The lineup will be studded with bats capable of knocking down “The Wall” and a middle infield incapable of picking up a piece of Kleenex.

They will roar out of the gate in a streak of 14­11 ballgames. By early June, sportswriters will be tagging them as a team to watch and papers will be running small headlines claiming that “Pennant Fever Grips Hub.”

But July brings heat and reality. The shortstop and the second basemen will be looking like back­ of­ the pack finishers in a marathon.

With August, the month of doubleheaders, the Olde Towne Team’s pitching staff ­ labeled “the best in memory” 120 days earlier ­ will be in more disarray than the Iranian government. They will have absorbed more hits than Pete Rademacher.

Yet, reality and phenoms aside, baseball remains a pleasant thought at the back edge of winter. And, around here, the Red Sox are bigger than baseball, larger than life itself. They are your proverbial “institution.”

So, to get in the swing of things this morning, we have a short quiz for lovers of the game and the Olde Towne Team. Perhaps it will make you feel that spring is really at the doorstep.

Q. Who was the biggest dog ever to play at Fenway Park?

A. A black Labrador retriever from Brookline named Chief. He showed up on Easter Sunday in l965, when the Orioles were playing the Red Sox. Lee (Mad Dog) Thomas hit a ground rule double into the seats in right field, and when the ball bounded back onto the field so did Chief. He retrieved the ball very quickly, so fast, in fact, that Dick O’Connell, then the general manager, thought about signing him. But, like the rest of the Sox outfield, the Lab had no arm and couldn’t hit the cutoff man.

Q. What is the best Red Sox dog story?

A. Easy. In l955, Ellis Kinder crashed his car into a Brookline telephone pole at 2:30 a.m. He said the accident happened because he swerved trying to avoid hitting a dog. He was out injured for 12 days. When he got back in uniform, he must have thought home plate resembled a dog because he never hit that again either.

Q. What is the best Ellis Kinder story?

A. Again, an easy one: After a rough night on the town in the summer of l950, Kinder, a great relief pitcher, was hit in the chest when the catcher threw him the warm­up ball. He looked around, but couldn’t find it. He couldn’t find his face that day. Nor could he find the plate. And he couldn’t understand Birdie Tebbetts’ signals, either, so they took him out of the game and said his arm hurt. Kinder walked off the field holding his left elbow. He was right­ handed.

Q. What was the longest drive by a Red Sox player?

A. In June l961, the late Jackie Jensen, afraid of airplanes, drove all night long to Detroit where the Sox were playing the Tigers. He should have stopped for a tune­up because he went O for 5 in the Motor City. Jensen soon retired for the second time. His slot on the roster was taken by a succession of young outfielders who didn’t mind plane flights but were petrified of fly balls.

Q. Who was the hottest Red Sox player ever?

A. On August 26, l947, Rudy York’s mattress caught fire in the old Myles Standish hotel. He managed to wake up, grab the mattress and flip it out the window on to Beacon street. Rudy could really pickle the ball. He was a big, strong right­hand hitting first baseman who left a little to be desired in the field. Too bad for him that nobody hit Sealy Posturepedics down the line.

Q. What is the best slump story?

A. Luis Aparicio went hitless for 11 games in l971. The goose eggs ended on June 1 when the little shortstop got a single, but after two more hitless games, he went 1 for 55 before getting the following note from an old baseball fan: “In my own career I have experienced long periods when I couldn’t seem to get a hit, regardless of how hard I tried, but in the end I was able to hit a home run.” The note was from Richard Nixon. His home run was later called back by the House Judiciary Committee after the Watergate captain got caught stealing and was ejected from the game.

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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.”

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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!”

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