29 April 1986 - After showing promise in his first two seasons with Boston, Roger Clemens started the 1986 season 3-0 before taking the hill on a cold Tuesday night at Fenway Park to face the Seattle Mariners with just 13,414 loyal fans sitting in the surrounding seats. The first batter Clemens faced, former University of Texas teammate Spike Owen, struck out on a 3-2 count. He followed by striking out the other two batters of the inning, Phil Bradley and Ken Phelps, on identical 3-2 counts. By the end of the third inning, Clemens had recorded 6 strikeouts, but there was little reason to think at that point that it would be a magical night at Fenway.

However, as Clemens cruised through the next few innings, the strikeouts began to add up. In the fourth and fifth innings, he struck out the side in each of those innings and then struck out the first two of the sixth inning before Owen lined out to deep center; the eight consecutive strikeouts tied an American-League record. With 14 under his belt to that point, fans in the upper bleachers began to hang red K’s on the wall behind them, indicating each strikeout.

In the seventh, Clemens struck out the first two batters, Bradley and Phelps, but then he made his only mistake of the evening by allowing a solo home run by designated hitter Gordon Thomas, giving the Mariners a 1-0 lead. However, Clemen’s teammate and Red Sox veteran Dwight Evans came to his pitcher’s rescue in the bottom of the frame; after Rich Gedman and Marty Barrett failed to reach, Steve Lyons singled and Glenn Hoffman followed with a walk. With Ed Romaro brought in to pinch-run, Mike Moore, who finished the night with just four strikeouts, faced Evan, who took an offering and deposited the ball over the center field fence and giving Clemens all the runs he would need.

Clemens then struck out two in the eighth and it wasn’t until he got back to the dugout that fellow starter and current Boston pitching coach Al Nipper told his teammate that he needed just one strikeout to tie the major-league record. Without missing a beat, Clemens climbed back on the hill in the bottom of the ninth and proceeded to strike out Owen on a 1-2. With two chances to put his name in the record books, he took Bradley to 2-and-2 and finished him off looking. Phelps then ended the game with a groundout to short, ending a memorable game in the Red Sox archives.

Clemens would go on that year to record 24 wins, winning 14 starts to begin the season before a loss at Toronto in early July. He would end the season pitching in a World Series for the first time in his career and earn not only his first Cy Young award but an American League MVP award, the last starting pitcher to earn that distinction. He would also equal his 20-strikeout performance 10 years later facing the Tigers, and only Chicago Cubs pitcher Kerry Woods has managed to equal this feat. (Randy Johnson struck out 21 for Arizona in 2001, including 20 in the first nine innings, but left with the score tied at 1-1; thus his performance is not recognized in this category.)

27 April 2002 - After he converted 42 saves to lead the American League in 2000, Derek Lowe fell apart in his role as the Red Sox closer in 2001; though he amassed 24 saves over the course of the season, he also blew six other opportunities and fell out of favor with the loyal Boston fans. Lowe was eventually made a starter late in the season after going 4-10 with a 4.04 ERA in 64 relief appearances; though he pitched just two games over the remainder of the season, he responded well, going 1-0 with a 1.13 ERA (2 ER over 16 IP) over two appearances to finish the season. The following April, with a permanent spot in the rotation, Lowe began the season 3-1 before taking the Fenway Park mound on the afternoon of 27 April 2002 against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

The day started off well enough as he struck out the first batter he saw and retired the side in order. In the bottom half of the first, leadoff batter Ricky Henderson would give Lowe all the offense he would need that afternoon, taking Tampa pitcher Delvin James out of the yard for a quick 1-0 lead. In the third, Brent Abernathy led off the inning with a walk; Russ Johnson, the next batter, forced out the lead runner on a ground ball to Rey Sanchez and made it as far as second base before Lowe finished the inning forcing leadoff batter Jason Tyner to ground out to first.

In the bottom of the third, Boston exploded for six runs, forcing James from the game. Meanwhile, Lowe continued to work his magic before a full house at Fenway Park. By the end of the sixth inning, the walk given up three innings earlier was the only blemish on his day. More than that, Lowe was getting most of his outs on ground balls or strikeouts, already having induced nine groundouts and striking out five while only four balls had been caught on the fly, including a pop-out to foul territory near third base by Greg Vaughn.

As the game progressed and his teammates realized what was happening, many of them having worked behind Hideo Nomo one year earlier as he threw a no-hitter in Baltimore on the second day of that season, they all stayed well away from him in the dugout, acting on a baseball tradition to not speak to a pitcher working such magic. As he pitched those final three innings, Lowe maintained his focus as the fans slowly realized that they were on the verge of witnessing history; no Boston pitcher had thrown a no-hitter at Fenway Park since 1965, when Dave Morehead accomplished the feat versus the Cleveland Indians. With little effort against a relatively weak lineup, Lowe retired the final nine batters he faced and, as Tyner grounded out to second baseman Jose Offerman to end the game, Lowe simultaneously pumped his fist and kicked the air in celebration and then was immediately surrounded by his teammates. With that game having taken on new meaning, many of those same fans who had booed him just a year earlier stuck around for minutes afterwards to give him more-than-deserving applause.

With his performance that afternoon, Lowe became the only pitcher to record a no-hitter following a season that he had saved 40 or more games. The 29-year-old pitcher would later go on to record his best season as a starter, going 21-8 with a 2.58 ERA and earning consideration for the 2002 AL Cy Young Award. With his 21 wins, he also became the only pitcher to enjoy his first season with 20 or more wins after saving 40 or more games in a previous season.

Jonathan Papelbon - 58 - RHP
Week 3 - 17-23 April 2006

Sporting a mohawk cut in a fashion similar to Charlie Sheen’s character in Major League apparently hasn’t done much to stop Jonathan Papelbon from continuing to be the most dominant closer in the American League — strike that — Major League Baseball. It’s a far cry for the Red Sox from last season when, after a strong debut in 2004, Keith Foulke literally fell apart as the everyday closer and Boston saw several late leads disappear and result in more than a few losses.

Papelbon has made 10 appearances this year and has eight saves in eight opportunities. More than that, he has given up just six hits, no runs, walked two, and struck out nine. His WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched) is an impressive 0.71, which just about matches what Foulke threw in 2004, and opponents are batting just .154 against him. Okay, so three weeks is not enough to start polishing up the Rolaids Relief award for this 25-year-old phenom who some have labeled “the next Roger Clemens,” but doesn’t it feel good to know once again that, when the game is on the line and he walks out from that bullpen, it’s almost a guaranteed lock?

What’s even better is that Papelbon’s effectiveness has given Foulke the opportunity to return to the form that we saw in his first season with the Red Sox. With some questions in the rotation, it may become necessary to take Papelbon out of the role that has made him successful in the early going and become a fifth starter, but at least there is a better feeling about seeing the hired gun that the Sox wooed here a few years ago back in his rightful spot again. Until that time, we should continue to see the former Mississippi State Bulldog continue to close out some more wins for the Sox in the coming days.

18 April 1981 - 25 years ago this past Tuesday, on what was a chilly April night in Pawtucket, Boston’s Triple-A affiliate and the Rochester Red Wings, then a Triple-A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles, played 32 innings of baseball. The game was to begin per its usual starting time of 7:05 PM at McCoy Stadium but problems with one of the light stanchions pushed the start back one hour. The game would also feature future stars for both teams, including two future Hall of Fame players in Cal Ripken, Jr. for the Red Wings and Wade Boggs for the Red Sox.

The game was scoreless until the seventh inning when Rochester drew first blood. Down to its last chance in regulation, Pawtucket scored in the bottom of the ninth and that set the wheels in motion for what would be a longer night than anyone would ever suspect. The goose eggs kept getting posted every half inning for the next eleven innings. Rochester eventually broke onto the scoreboard with a run in the top of the 21st inning, but Boggs tied the score in the bottom of the frame with a run scoring single. Said Boggs following the game: “A lot of people were saying: Yeah, yeah, we tied it, we tied it! And then they said: Oh, no, what did you do? We could have gone home!”

At that point, Pawtucket tried to inform the umpires that International League rules forbid an inning from starting after 12:50 AM but the men in blue, having not heard of such a rule, told the teams to keep playing. It seemed as though, at the start of the season, the rule sheet they had received did not contain this bit of information, so play continued until well into the morning hours. With 32 innings completed and the score still tied at 2-2, a call from the International League president, Harold Cooper, finally stopped the game at 4:09 AM on 19 April, more than eight hours after the game had begun.

Though the two teams were scheduled to play another game later that same day, a decision was reached to conclude the game on Rochester’s next visit to McCoy on 23 June. With the baseball strike underway at that time, the major networks as well as ESPN descended on this small Rhode Island city to witness the conclusion of this game. Fortunately, it would take just 18 minutes. After a scoreless top-half of the inning, Pawtucket ended the game quickly; after Marty Barrett was hit by a pitch and moved to third on a hit-and-run single, Rochester reliever Steve Grilli walked the next batter to load the bases. Chris Speck then relieved Grilli but Dave Koza, who finished 4-for-13 in the extended contest, drove a 2-2 pitch into left field, scoring Barrett and ending professional baseball’s longest-ever game 3-2 in the 33rd and final innings.

Josh Beckett - 19 - RHP
Week 2 - 10-16 April 2006

After Roger Clemens left the Red Sox via free agency following the 1996 season, Boston fans had to endure a season where their top pitcher was - gulp - Tom Gordon. However, as one door closed, another opened for the Red Sox in 1998 when Pedro Martinez came and won 19 games on his way to seven brilliant seasons with the Sox. After Martinez left following the 2004 championship season, Boston fans were again left to sit through last season where there was no true ace on the staff. However, as 2006 begins, it appears that the void may soon be filled by Josh Beckett.

Those lucky enough to have a ticket for Opening Day at Fenway Park last Tuesday witnessed a near-perfect performance by Beckett, who after getting through some first-inning struggles finished with just one run on three hits through seven innings of work as the Red Sox opened with an eventual 5-3 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays. On Sunday, Beckett again took the hill trying to match fellow Sox starter Curt Schilling, who had won his first three starts. Opposing Seattle Mariners ace Jarrod Washburn, Beckett again pitched brilliantly, allowing just two runs on six hits while striking out five as the Red Sox eventually came out on top, 3-2. His signature inning came in the sixth when, with a runner on third and just one out, he struck out sluggers Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre back-to-back to end the threat and preserve the slim lead.

With three starts in the books, Beckett is a perfect 3-0 with a 1.29 ERA. Though it’s still too early to award him a Cy Young award, combined with Schilling and Jonathan Papelbon closing the door effectively (six saves in six chances), the pitching corp looks like it may have a new leader - possibly for years to come?

Written by Graham Knight, graham@redsoxconnection.com
Reprinted with permission from Red Sox Connection

Every year, on the third Monday in April, the Red Sox play host to the only morning game on the entire Major League Baseball schedule. The annual 11:05 a.m. game at Fenway Park is part of the festivities of Patriots Day, a federally recognized holiday in Massachusetts.

Many people have never heard of Patriots Day, which was a distinctly New England holiday prior to 2001, when Wisconsin became just the third state in the U.S. to honor the events that led to the American Revolution. Maine, a part of Massachusetts during Colonial times, is the only other state to recognize the holiday.

The Red Sox have played at home on Patriots Day every year since 1960, except for off days in 1965 and ‘67 and the players strike in 1995.

First observed in 1894, the holiday commemorates the battles of Lexington and Concord that were fought on April 19, 1775. These battles started the American Revolutionary War and were made famous because they spawned the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

Besides a Red Sox game, reenactments of the battles at Lexington and Concord have become a Patriots’ Day tradition.

Despite the hoopla surrounding the game at Fenway Park, the Boston Marathon is the biggest sporting event of the day, as over one million people line the 26.2-mile course that starts in Hopkinton and finishes in Copley Square.

The Boston Marathon - the world’s oldest annual marathon at 109 years – has been run on Patriots Day since 1897 – four years before the Red Sox became a charter member of the American League.

The Red Sox first began the tradition of playing a morning baseball game on Patriots Day in 1903, their third year of existence, when 8,376 fans showed up for a 10:00 a.m. start at the Huntington Avenue Grounds to watch the team (then referred to as the Americans) defeated the Philadelphia A’s 9-4.

At the time, Boston was a two-team baseball town and the National League’s Braves scheduled an afternoon game that drew only 1,800 fans (or cranks, as they were then called).

In later years the Red Sox and Braves agreed not to compete against each other on Patriots Day. By the 1940’s the Red Sox played a Patriots Day home game only on even-numbered years while the Braves got to host the holiday game on odd-numbered years.

Each team frequently scheduled a doubleheader on their home date, something the Red Sox first did in 1904 when 28,000 showed up for a morning-afternoon doubleheader against the Washington Senators.

The Braves finally tired of playing second fiddle to the Red Sox in 1953 and moved to Milwaukee, leaving the Patriots Day tradition to the boys at Yawkey Way.

In the 1970’s, the Red Sox experienced a surge in attendance at Fenway Park and discontinued playing doubleheaders on Patriots Day for financial reasons. But they continued to play a single game in the morning, usually starting at 11:05.

After complaints by Red Sox players to the Players Association, the 1987 game began at noon, but in 1988 game time was switched back to 11:05 and it has remained that way since.

Written by John Molori, MoloriMedia@aol.com
Reprinted with permission from Boston Baseball magazine
April 2006, Vol. 17, No. 1, p. 32

They are the new wave of Red Sox chroniclers, for whom pens and microphones have been replaced by XML and cyberspace. They have created dynamic avenues of information for Red Sox followers and have broken new ground in baseball media.

So, how do these Red Sox-themed webmasters get started? The answers vary. “During the run to the 2004 World Series, I was reading everything I could in order to keep up with the post-season frenzy,” says Bill Mahoney of CalloftheGreenMonster.com, a Red Sox humor site. “I thought the idea of doing a parody site focused solely on the Sox would be entertaining and unique.”

Says Steve Silva, founder of BostonDirtDogs.com, “I started in July of 2001 making Boston Dirt Dogs t-shirts, an alternative to the crass “Yankees Suck” t-shirts. I then put up the website for people who couldn’t make it to Fenway, but wanted a shirt or hat. It was originally an e-commerce site, not an editorial site.”

In recent years, Red Sox websites have been growing like Matt Clement’s ERA.

“When I first started, I ranked about twenty prospects, got around thirty visitors a day and had little message board activity,” says Michael Andrews of SoxProspects.com, a Red Sox farm system site.

“Today, the site reports on every player in the organization, has 500 registered members and gets upwards of 4,000 hits per day.”

Many of these Red Sox-related sites have become as popular as traditional media (radio, TV, newspapers) and the issue of competition is very real. Says Jeff Moon of FenwayFanatics.com, a Sox data and history site, “I definitely feel as though I am competing with the other fan sites. It depends on what people want to do. If they want to find out about Tris Speaker’s career or Ted Williams’ only inside-the-park home run, they come to my site.

“As for the mainstream media, my competition with them is in the search engines. What I provide and what they provide are two separate entities.”

Adds Andrews, “I do really feel like some in the mainstream media are intimidated by the rise of fan sites. We can get information out fast without the red tape. Plus, some players have become justifiably disgusted because of the spin that has become rampant from the mainstream media outlets.

“If all we can do is provide another point of view or another outlet for players who want to get their stories out without the media spin, I think we’re doing a service.”

Silva has blazed a trail for fan sites, having been picked up by internet giant Boston.com. He states, “Boston.com purchased Boston Dirt Dogs (BDD) in May 2004. I work at Boston.com as a sports producer and am also responsible for publishing BDD. Boston.com’s sports department collaborates with the Boston Globe sports department on a number of initiatives daily.”

Subject matter varies from site to site. Allan Wood’s 1918RedSox.com takes a historical perspective. Wood also has a Red Sox blog at JoyofSox.blogspot.com.

“Considering how infamous (1918) is, not many Red Sox fans know about that team in any detail,” says Wood

Adds Mahoney, “I just enjoy taking this soap opera that is Red Sox baseball and looking for ways to make people laugh. I get emails all the time from people simply telling me, ‘thanks for the laugh.’ I find that very gratifying.”

While most of the issues regarding fan sites are all about fun, there is a controversy as to the separation of opinion and hard news.

Says Silva, “Some fans sites have gained a reputation for strong commentary or even delivering the news, while some traditional news sites have incorporated fan blogs. I’m not sure there needs to be a separation.”

Andrews sees a real difference between fans and reporters, saying, “The news-based sites have access that fan sites generally don’t get, and they get paid to do what they do. However, the fan sites often are generally faster in adopting new technologies (message boards, blogging, RSS feeds), forcing the news sites to follow trends.”

Wood views the various Red Sox media as more of a partnership.

“I still like reading the Boston papers for quotes and some of the off-beat stuff in the notebooks. Last season, I emailed questions to four or five of the Red Sox beat writers and posted their answers as a roundtable discussion.”

Fun aside, these trailblazing Internet content providers work hard to achieve their various goals. Silva: “We spend a lot of time scouring the internet, television, radio, message boards, blogs, emails, etc. I’ve seen a lot of people start blogs, then let them slide when they realize the commitment and time necessary to keeping it updated and relevant.”

John Molori’s columns appear in numerous newspapers and websites throughout New England. You can e-mail John at MoloriMedia@aol.com.

Curt Schilling - 38 - RHP
Week 1 - 03-09 April 2006

Last season, honestly, was a disaster for Curt Schilling. Never able to find his rythmn, the veteran ballplayer who had pitched so beautifully in 2004 limped to an 8-8 record with nine saves as he spent most of the first half on the disabled list and then spotted Keith Foulke as the team’s closer for the first part of the second half. Most people wondered aloud if the man who had given so much the previous year had exhausted his body to the point that a return to form was impossible. This past week, Schilling proved to many that he still has a lot left in the tank.

Opening the season in Texas, Schilling threw seven strong innings, allowing just two run on five hits while striking out five, and his arm seemed to get stronger as the day progressed as he helped Boston cruise to an easy 7-3 opening win. Five days later in Baltimore, Schilling locked in a duel with Orioles pitcher Bruce Chen and pitched even more magnificently, allowing just one run on a solo shot by Luis Matos in the bottom of the sixth and ended the night by striking out Jeff Conine in the seventh on a 96 MPH fastball that made Schilling pump his fist and pound his glove as he walked off the mound for the final time that evening.

On the young season, Schilling is a modest 2-0 with 1.93 ERA, which would be nothing to cheer about if there was not recent history still fresh in the minds of many. If his work this past week is a sign of things to come, then good fortune should smile on the Sox this season.