Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Welcome Back
Even haters have to admit that was pretty damn moving when you consider what that guy's life's been like for the last twenty years. Bill Buckner was an extremely good player and a class act and never deserved what he and his family had to go through.
Excuse me, there's something in my eye...
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5 comments:
Your points re McNamara & Buckner I agree with. But blaming Stanley over a certain fella name a' Shiraldi???
You crazy, man? Believe me, I watched that inning with the same degree of interest you did, and while I may have felt a bit differently when Ray Knight crossed the dish, I know what you seem to have forgotten: Calvin Shiraldi shared the titled of Goat No. 1 with McNamara.
Amazing. Of course, it took the salve two championships for Boston to let bygones be bygones and reach out to the guy.
Mike-
McNamara bears the brunt. For pulling Clemens and pinch-hitting rookie Greenwell over Baylor against McDowell in the 8th.
Yeah, Schiraldi loaded the bases after retiring the first two, but he should NEVER have been allowed to face three hitters at that point. He was a kid, already struggling in the post-season, and he had clearly lost it. I have always felt almost as horrible for Schiraldi as Buckner. That's on McNamara too.
I just never liked Stanley, so he's an easy target for me. Throwing his fucking "palmball" to the backstop was what tied the game, and moved Knight (winning run) into scoring position. It's true that he might have scored from first on the Buckner error, but by no means a gimme.
Here's the next nail in Mac's coffin...
Buckner should NEVER have been out there in the 10th inning. This is a guy playing on two ankles so bad he had to ice down for hours before and after every game. He had hightop cleats (no common) custom-made for him so he could hobble out to the field.
Dave Stapleton should have been in for defense.
Toast-
Most (real) Boston fans never had a problem with Buckner. Distributing the blame much as I did above, with more going to Schiraldi perhaps...
Buckner's warrior-like performance that season was alway appreciated, and he actually came back the next year, and again in 1990 to a warm welcome to play for the Sox. IIRC he had a fluke inside-the-park home run that year, and wheeling around the bases on that probably ended his career...
Moron fans and writers like Shaugnessy wrongly saddled him with the choke that was many plays in the making.
I agree that they would not have invited him to throw out a first pitch of the season ha the team not won a championship yet. Too much curse/jinx factor.
already struggling in the post-season
That wasn't my recollection. He saved Game one (or was it game 5?). Anyway, who else was McNamara gonna bring in? Stanley? We saw in game 7 what happened when he emptied the bullpen.
Shiraldi was a gutless bum. Any Met fan knew that, because we had him in '84 & '85. Believe me, those bambi eyes didn't appear for the first time in the '86 post-season.
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