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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