My first memories of Fenway Park as a kid was that it was a pristine green cathedral of the national pastime. The infield was never greener. Today the ballpark looks almost as if the turf is the wrong color of green, some dull forest shade that marks the new local color of the team, or should I say the colorless grandeur.
My cousin used to joke and bet he could hit a superball out of the cozy yard. Of course, back then we didn't realize that the left field wall was hardly a first down beyond a football field's length from home plate. Little did we know, it was the smallest ballpark of them all. And ignorance may have been bliss, but too many cheap homeruns over the monster tended to give the dreaded jinx a sense of spacial familiarity.
Although I have vague, hanting memories of watching the '67 Impossible Dream series as a poverty stricken kid in a run down fleabag hotel in LA, the jinx did not hit me stone cold until the last few games of the '75 series. The Ed Armbrister interference non-call. And then the T ball, Xmas gift sitter jack given up to Tony Perez was beyond the comical and bizarre.
It was the stuff that could only happen in a Stephen King horror novel where perhaps the pitcher was a crazed killer who just murdered his family the night before and could care less about winning the game. Indeed, only a man with a mind clouded by intellectual egotism and cosmic chaos could throw that sorry, sad and sickening blooper pitch. And in Game 7 of a World Series no less. He was a man more adept at making social statements than focusing on winning.
That man was Bill Lee, better known as "Spaceman". Now we know why. That pitch defined his career. No one remembers it. And yet it was far more infamous than the Bill Buckner boner of '86. Scapegoat Buck had some abysmal relief pitching to aid his losing cause. But baseball head case Lee felt that somehow his worst pitch would fool a clutch future Hall Of Famer. No way.
Curious thing about Lee however, is that although his mind was always working overtime---Gemini rising?---he was a team player and never a snob. He was the rebel guard poster boy who stood by his dog house buddy, Bernie Carbo, who along with Rico Petrocelli, may well have been the last in a long line of Italian-American starters who played for the BoSox when the field seemed to be a brilliant flourescent green and the superstructure did not need detailing.
Today I can rattle off a long list of olive skinned brothers who somehow have not been able to click with the team;
the team of Cicotte and Viola, Malzone and Conigliaro. We can start with guys like Carl Pavano, who never was able to hit his stride after being traded off to Montreal, a hockey town where no one cares. Then Jeff Fassero, who went to the Cubs and built a rep as a late inning closer.
And Rico Brogna, who hit in the clutch but was still sent his walking papers. Finally, Gary Gaetti, World Series vet who tore it up during spring training a few years back only to be forgotten and pushed into retirement. I'd be willing to bet that he would had outplayed Hall Of Famer Henderson if given the chance in a career swan song season.
I wonder. Will the list go on? And is it just business, the luck of the draw, coincidental or subtle signs of reverse discrimination? Regardless, only two are left. And they are both expendable because neither have been given the chance to start regularly.
Lou Merloni was once hitting over .300 and yet was never able to secure a starting job. Now he is the butt of jokes on sports talk show TV. And Doug Mirabelli, who was hitting over .500 this past spring training is a backup waiting in the wings behind overrated Varitec. My guess is, Merloni will be traded. And Mirabelli will not become the next Piazza until and unless he gets a few full seasons to start. Somewhere.
All in all, social innuendo issues aside, the Red Sox are still a cocky team leader and a larger than life skipper away from the promised land. They need a field general and not a player's manager. A master motivator. Unless Lasorda sheads his retirement Dodger Blue or sweet science Einstein Joe Morgan gets tired of being a prime time talking head, Boston will never bask in a victory parade beyond a 7th game in October in my lifetime.
If this is their year, it will be rendered moot by an impending strike. Score another one for the jinx. Moreover, Little Italy locals in New England are best advised to stick with bocci and forget about baseball. If this trend continues, not only will I cease to be a Boston Red Sox fan, I will start a cult dedicated to the preservation of the jinx.
Go Torre, go Giambi, go Ventura! Go Yanks! Sorry, but blood is thicker than the boyhood dirt under your feet. Not only can you never go home. You can't even play for the home team. And if you can't play, then why root? GM Lucchino, are you reading this, paisan?
» Hank Festa is an alienated BoSox fan who would remind us that baseball history's winners boast a fair share of Italian-American players, such as the mighty New York Yankees, the winningest sports team franchise of all time.
Also by Hank Festa
» The Strike Zone Or Your Life: The Bean Ball Debate Exposed
» Seasons In The Sun : Baseball In The 70s
» A Closet GM's Philosophy Of Winning: Stats & Role vs. Heart & Soul
» Gibby's '88 Series Limp Shot: Baseball's Last "Earned Home Run"
» Flamethrower's Epiphany: Confessions Of A Live Arm
» In The Event Of A Strike...: The Time Off Must Be Used to Fix the Game
» More submissions
Copyright © 2002 by Hank Festa. Posted June 19, 2002.
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