Word: sox
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Growing up with the Red Sox is usually a heartbreaking endeavour. Indeed, part of the beauty of being a Red Sox...
...clowning around, Lee was still very much a team player. He understood the dynamics of 25 guys trying to win 162 ball games a year and resents anyone who tried to interfere with that. Throughout their history the Red Sox's greatest obstacle has been the team's management and front office. The current Haywood Sullivan-Buddy Leroux power struggle over the team is only the long sorry history of bungled trades, bad player management and outright stupidity. Although he does it indirectly, Lee paints a very clear picture of what has, is and probably always will be wrong with...
First, not since Dick Williams left after the 1968 season have the Red Sox had a manager with the faintest idea of how to hadle his pitching staff. Every year since Babe Ruth left, the knock against the Sox has been their pitching, but it's not that their staff hasn't had good potential, Rick Wise, Juan Marichal, Mike Torrez, Dennis Eckersly Bill Campbell--almost none of them lived up to their expectations, and in almost every case Lee attributes their decline to the manager's handling. And for most his argument seems right on the mark Campbell...
Second, the Sox have a long history of rushing players through their farm system. Boston has one of the best farm systems around, but player after player from Rogilio Moret, to Gary Hancock, to Oil Can Boyd this year, was pushed too fast and suffered for it. Now, no player will tell the team he needs another year in the minors, but Lee drives home the point that the team's desire to win at the moment hurt it in the long...
Carbo was one of the game's finest pinch hitters and one of Lee's best friends on the team. In the middle of the 1978 season when the Sox were in a right pennant race with the Yankees, Carbo was shipped to Cleveland for a $15,000 pocketful of change. Lee walked off the team in protest. He was right too. Carbo was exactly who the Sox needed to send out to face Rich Gossage in the playoff game at the end of the season after Bucky Dent's heartbreaking home...