26 September 1998 - On this day ten years ago, Boston Red Sox pitcher Dennis Eckersley takes the hill for one final time in a major league uniform to move into first place all-time in appearances with 1071, one more than Hall of Fame pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm. Eckersley began his career at the age of 20 in 1975 as a starting pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, making 359 starts over twelve years with the Indians, the Red Sox, and Chicago Cubs. With Boston, “Eck” was 84-70 over six-plus seasons between 1978 and 1984, winning 20 games in his first season with the Sox and earning a trip to the All-Star game in 1982.

In 1987, Eckersley’s baseball career took a dramatic turn when, after a trade to the Oakland Athletics, then-manager Tony LaRussa decided to move the 32-year-old, 12-year veteran to the closer’s role. Over the next nine seasons with the club, he averaged nearly 36 saves per season, including 51 in 1992, enough to earn him American League MVP honors and the Cy Young award, the last pitcher to earn both honors in one season and the last to be recognized as a league MVP. Eckersley also saved 11 post-season games with the Athletics and 15 total over his career, winning the American Championship Series MVP award in 1998 after saving all four wins for the Atheltics against the Red Sox. Unfortunately, he is also remembered as the pitcher who gave up Kirk Gibson’s memorable pinch-hit home run in Game One of that year’s Fall Classic, but he would earn a championship ring the next season as his team swept the cross-town San Francisco Giants in the 1989 “Bay Bridge Series.”

After two years with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1996 and 1997, Eckersley agreed to return to the Red Sox in 1998 for one final season and made 50 non-too-memorable appearances out of the bullpen, save for his final one at Fenway Park that put him one ahead of Wilhelm’s mark. One year later, Jesse Orosco surpassed Eck and later finished his career with 1252 games, still the career leader. Although two others, Mike Stanton and John Franco, have since passed him in appearances, Eck is still the career leader for games pitched by a right-hander, 15 more than current Red Sox reliever Mike Timlin. His final totals over 24 years in the majors also included 197 wins, 390 saves, and a 3.50 ERA, good enough to earn him better than 83% of the Hall of Fame vote on his first try and a spot in the Hall of Fame in 2004.

Tags: Boston Red Sox, Dennis Eckersley, Mike Timlin

The Boston Red Sox announced Tuesday that, prior to Friday night’s game at Fenway Park against the New York Yankees, the team will retire number 6 in honor of former shortstop Johnny Pesky, whose name has been synonymous with the club for decades since lacing up his cleats as a rookie in 1942. With his number posted on the façade above the right field grandstand, Pesky will join Bobby Doerr (1), Joe Cronin (4), Carl Yastrzemski (8), Ted Williams (9), Carlton Fisk (27), and Jackie Robinson (42) as the only players to have received this honor from the club. The honor will also be made one day before the legendary Red Sox figure celebrates his 89th birthday.

The move came as a surprise for most familiar with Boston’s long-standing policy for awarding this honor. Until yesterday, numbers have only been retired by the Red Sox if a player spends at least ten seasons in Boston and is then elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. (Media outlets continue to state that a third criterion – a player had to finish his playing career with Boston – needed to be met. However, this was dropped to allow Fisk to have his number retired even though he spent the second half of his career in Chicago with the White Sox. A quick check of the official policy at redsox.com confirms this.) Team president Larry Lucchino, in acknowledging that an exception was being made in this instance, stated:

We inherited a set a rules that applied to this question of retiring numbers and we have looked at that and considered that to be useful but as guidelines rather than firm rules… Johnny Pesky’s career cries out as exceptional and its length of term and the versatility of his contributions – on the field, off the field, in the dugout, etc. – are such that we considered Johnny a worthy exception to the rules that were set down before.[1]

As a rookie in 1942, the 22-year-old shortstop amassed an eye-popping 205 hits, tops in the majors, and batted .331, second only to teammate Ted Williams; his efforts were enough to place him third in voting for the American League MVP. After putting his career on hold and serving in the Navy for three years during World War II, Pesky returned in 1946 along with fellow veterans Williams and Dom DiMaggio to help his team finish first in the American League with a record of 104-50. His time away from the diamond had not diminished his abilities; he led the league with 208 hits and batted .335 that season, the third best average in the American League, to finish fourth in the MVP vote. In eight seasons with Boston, he batted .313 and amassed 1227 hits.

Since the end of his playing career in 1954, he has served in several capacities for the club, including stints as manager, broadcaster, coach, and scout. These days, he continues to serve as a special instructor and as an unofficial club ambassador, well-regarded today by fans young and old. He also has the distinction of having a Fenway Park feature, the right field foul pole, affectionately named “the Pesky Pole” in his honor.

Regarding the announcement, a clearly-humbled Pesky said:

I’m very flattered about the whole thing because I didn’t think I was in the Ted Williams or Bobby Doerr class. I played with some good guys and I’m quite flattered by this announcement and I’m really going to enjoy it.[2]

[1], [2] Sox to retire Pesky’s number Friday. Boston.com, 23 September 2008.

Tags: Bobby Doerr, Boston Red Sox, Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Fenway Park, Joe Cronin, Johnny Pesky, retired numbers, Ted Williams

The Boston Red Sox will return to the post-season for the fifth time in the last six seasons, thanks to a white-knuckle 5-4 win over the Cleveland Indians at Fenway Park Tuesday night. Whether the Red Sox win the American League East division title or earn the wild card berth depends on how they and the Tampa Bay Rays finish down the stretch; with a three-game advantage and five to play, the Rays also hold the head-to-head tie-breaker, meaning that they only need a combination of wins and Red Sox losses that total two to win the division for the first time in the club’s 11-year history. Regardless, Boston has a chance to win its third world championship in five years and back-to-back championships for only the second time in its storied history, having won consecutive titles in 1915 and 1916 under manager Bill “Rough” Carrigan. It also means that the New York Yankees, who have been a post-season fixture in recent years, will miss the playoffs for the first time since 1993, not including the strike-shortened 1994 season.

Barring an improbable collapse by Tampa Bay, Boston will likely open the divisional round against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, who easily beat out the rest of the pack in the AL West and clinch their fourth division title in five years on 10 September. The Angels, who won a World Series title in 2002, have lost nine straight post-season games against the Red Sox dating back to Game Five of the 1986 American League Championship Series, which include series sweeps in the divisional round in 2004 and 2007. However, head-to-head over nine games this season, Boston won just one game against Los Angeles and were swept in a series of at least three games for the only time this season at Fenway by the Halos in late August.

Boston has two more games against Cleveland and finishes its season this weekend with a three-game series at home against New York.

Tags: 2008 Post-Season, Bill Carrigan, Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park, World Series

For the first time since the 2002 season, the Boston Red Sox will open the regular season at Fenway Park on 06 April 2009 against the Tampa Bay Rays, according to the club’s tentative 2009 schedule released on Wednesday. After opening the 2008 season in Japan against the Oakland Athletics, the Red Sox will face off three times in four days against the Rays, then immediately head out west to play the Los Angeles Angels followed by the Athletics. Boston will host the New York Yankees for the first time on 24 April at Fenway, then visit the new Yankee Stadium for a two-game series beginning 04 May. Other highlights include interleague series against teams from the National League East division, including two against the Atlanta Braves and one against the Washington Nationals as the Sox make their first visit to Nationals Park in Washington, DC.

In contrast to the 2008 schedule, which kept the Red Sox on the road over much of the first half, Boston will enjoy two extended homestands before the All-Star break, including nine games against the Baltimore Orioles, Minnesota Twins, and the Yankees in April as well as a stretch of ten games with the Seattle Mariners, the Athletics, and Kansas City Royals leading up to the Mid-summer Classic. Boston will have another stretch of ten games to end the month of August and will end the last week of the season at Fenway against the Toronto Blue Jays and Cleveland Indians, with the last game of the regular season scheduled for 04 October.

Tags: 2009 schedule, Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park

Since 1995, there has been one consistent presence in the Boston Red Sox clubhouse: pitcher Tim Wakefield, who currently stands as the longest tenured player in the organization. Oddly enough, he might never have seen a big league diamond if it weren’t for his ability to throw the knuckleball, a pitch that has almost no spin in flight, which causes it to float erratically from the pitcher’s hand into the catcher’s mitt. Drafted as an infielder by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1988, a scout pulled him aside and told him that he didn’t have what it took to be a positional player above Double-A ball. Determined to play in the majors, Wakefield eventually punched his ticket as a mound jockey, pitching the ball in the same manner as Hall-of-Fame pitchers Hoyt Wilhelm, Phil Niekro, and Jesse Haines. After enjoying moderate success with the Pirates, struggles on the mound eventually led to his release; less than a week later, just as the strike-shortened 1995 season began, he signed as a free agent with Boston, where he has remained for 14 seasons, now the longest tenure of any pitcher in franchise history.

Through his last start Friday night against Toronto, an eventual 7-0 win over the Blue Jays, Wakefield has a record of 163-144 with an ERA of 4.32 and 1681 strikeouts in 364 career starts and 501 total appearances as a pitcher in Boston. He also owns 22 saves, including 15 he collected in 1999 after then-closer Tom Gordon went down with an injury at mid-season and before Derek Lowe was moved to that role by manager Jimy Williams. His win total puts him third in franchise history behind Roger Clemens and Cy Young, both with 192, and his total appearances ranks him second behind Bob Stanley, who had 637 trips to the mound over 13 seasons with the club. He is also third in innings pitched (2568-1/3), second in strikeouts with 1786, and second in games started with 364. Unfortunately, he also owns some less-desirable marks with the club, including the most home runs allowed (342), walks allowed (961), losses (144), and wild pitches (95).

Tags: Bob Stanley, Cy Young, Derek Lowe, Roger Clemens, Tim Wakefield

05 September 1918 - On this day ninety years ago, the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs opened the 1918 World Series, with Babe Ruth and the Red Sox winning Game One of the scheduled seven-game championship series 1-0 over the Cubs at Comiskey Park. The 1918 Fall Classic was played far earlier than any other series in major league post-season history; due to the ongoing World War, baseball had agreed shortened its season. It was also decided that, due to travel restrictions that had been placed during this time of war, the first three games of the series would take place in Chicago, where the Cubs chose to play at Comiskey rather than their usual home field of Weeghman Park (better known today as Wrigley Field), and the remainder of the series would be played in Boston at Fenway Park. The Red Sox, winners of the American League pennant, had finished 75-51, 2-1/2 games in front of second-place Cleveland, while the Cubs, the National League title holders, finished 10-1/2 games ahead of New York at 84-45.

Ruth, who was still used at this stage of his career primarily as a pitcher, extended his post-season scoreless innings streak to 22 consecutive innings with a complete-game effort, scattering six hits while striking out four and walking one. Three times, the Cubs had a runner on third with two outs but failed to score off the southpaw. Meanwhile, the Sox scored their lone run in the fourth on a one-out single to left by first baseman Snuffy McInnis that scored second baseman Dave Shean as 22-game winner Hippo Vaughn went the distance in the loss for Chicago. Boston would need six games to earn its fourth title in seven years as Ruth’s streak of consecutive scoreless innings ended at 29 after pitching seven innings of no-hit ball in Game Four at Fenway. Unfortunately, it would be another 86 years before the Sox would win another world championship, while the Cubs have failed to take home a World Series title since their championship season of 1908.

Tags: Babe Ruth, Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park, Stuffy McInnis

On top of Boston’s come-from-behind, 5-4 win over the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday afternoon, the fans at Fenway Park helped the club make history; with 37,373 in attendance for the game, the team matched the longest consecutive major league sellout streak of 455 games, originally set by the Cleveland Indians. Between 12 June 1995 and 02 April 2001, every game at Jacobs Field, now named Progressive Field, sold out as the Indians won two American League pennants. Fenway’s current streak began uneventfully on 15 May 2003 with a 12-3 win over the visiting Texas Rangers; since then, Boston has played every game in front of a capacity crowd of Red Sox supporters, in part due to the recent on-field success of the team, which includes two championships following an 86-year drought.

Since the start of the sellout streak, Fenway Park has set new attendance records every season. In 2002, the park averaged 32,726 fans per game and the team sold 2,650,862 tickets; in contrast, on its way to the 2007 World Series title, the Red Sox sold a record 2,970,755 tickets and averaged 36,675 each game through the turnstiles. In addition to the on-field success of the team, the surge of interest in the team may also be attributed to the addition of approximately 6,000 seats discretely added by ownership which took control of the team in 2002. No longer officially the smallest park in the majors - Pittsburgh’s PNC Park holds that distinction with 38,365, though Oakland’s McAfee Coliseum, capable of holding over 50,000 fans, seats just over 35,000 due to the closing of the third deck - Boston’s home field now boasts a day-time of 39,195 and a night-time capacity of 39,605.

With the Red Sox going on the road for a brief three-game series in Texas against the Rangers, the team expects to set the new consecutive game streak of capacity crowds on Monday against the visiting Tampa Bay Rays, with all games officially sold out through the end of the season. With Boston vying for another post-season berth and consecutive world championships, the sellout streak is expected to continue into 2009 and beyond.

Tags: Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park