For those who think that discord and the Boston Red Sox are something new, think again. Discord and the Red Sox have been partners for longer than most of us have been alive.
In fact, it was more common back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s than it is now. David Price’s little dust-up with Dennis Eckersley is really the first time since the bad old days of Bobby Valentine in 2012 where the off-field nonsense has dwarfed the baseball.
It seems as if the Red Sox have always had those one or two players who could cast a pall over the room in about 12 seconds. For all his skill and dependability in the clutch, Carl Yastrzemski was a somber person whose disposition did not lend itself to levity and harmony. Reggie Smith was a lot like him, and it should be no surprise that they were friends on those late 1960s-early 1970s teams that were known more for the tension that followed them than anything they ever won.
Later, in 1975, Jim Rice came along and he, like Yastrzemski, was not one to toot his horn unduly. In fact, Rice was even more aggressively reluctant to engage reporters and glad-handers than Yastrzemski was.
All of this comes as a prelude to talking about Don Baylor, who died Monday after a long battle with multiple myeloma. Baylor came to the team before the 1986 season, mainly because Lou Gorman, the general manager at the time, understood how fast brooding superstars — and Rice was still very much a part of that team — could bring a room down. The Red Sox had a young pitching staff and Gorman didn’t want any of them, including a 23-year-old phenom named Roger Clemens, taking their cues from seemingly unapproachable players.
Baylor was exactly the opposite. He was friendly, approachable, and seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to delivering just the right tone for the moment.
When he was with the Orioles, Baylor learned from the great Frank Robinson the value of the Kangaroo Court — a humourous accounting of all sins big and small — and he created one, and presided over it, in the Red Sox clubhouse.
He wasn’t just a mood-brightener in the clubhouse either. He could back it up on the field. Baylor was a fierce competitor between the lines. His specialty, other than hitting home runs, was being hit by pitches. He had a way of turning his body into pitches while looking as if he was getting out of the way. In his career, he was hit by 267 pitches, and I don’t recall him doing anything other than dropping his bat and trotting to first. This business of running out to the mound and starting brawls wasn’t for him.
People often forget that Baylor also had a 2-run homer in the ninth inning of the 1986 ALCS’s Game 5. It brought the Red Sox to within a run (5-4) and set the stage for Dave Henderson’s dramatic blast.
All I can say is RIP, Don. I enjoyed covering you very much.
Another guy I enjoyed covering was Vince Wilfork. Big Vince certainly had the size and presence to be truly larger than life, but he was anything but. He was just a regular guy off the field — albeit a regular guy who loved to barbecue racks and racks of ribs and talk about them as if they were his children.
Someday Wilfork will be in the NFL Hall of Fame, but there won’t be many pertinent stats anyone could use to justify it. Wilfork’s specialty was tying up blockers and holding his own against double- and often triple-teams. This way, faster, more mobile, defenders could roam free to make tackles and score sacks.
He also had the knack, same as Troy Brown and Tedy Bruschi before him, of making plays when plays were sorely needed. It has always irritated me when “experts” rhapsodize about the “tools” players have, but neglect to talk about what’s really important: Can the player be counted on to come up with the big play?
Wilfork had that ability. Once, he picked up a fumble in a playoff game and ran it back almost 20 yards. Now think about this. Of the 11 offensive players who had just given up the ball, at least eight of them had to be able to run rings around Big Vince. Yet Wilfork got almost 20 yards on them before going down (perhaps more from exhaustion than anything else).
Said Wilfork afterward, “I ran the ball in high school. I was the best player on my team.”
There was a playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens in 2012 where the Patriots really had to make a fourth-down stop. The Ravens were knocking on the door and a first down would have surely resulted in a touchdown.
Wilfork lined up slightly off center, read the play correctly, shredded blocker, and stuffed the runner for a loss. The Patriots ultimately won that game — the AFC championship game — because Baltimore kicker Billy Cundiff missed a chip-shot field goal as time expired.
Big Vince announced his retirement Monday in a most unique way — by putting it on YouTube with his denim bib overalls and barbecued ribs.
He will most definitely be missed.
