Impossible to Forget

[a700hitter]

I missed the "Impossible to Forget" special on NESN prior to opening day due to a NESN blackout for out of region viewers. The 1967 team got me hooked for life on the Red Sox and revived baseball in all of New England sowing the seeds for Red Sox Nation. The DVD will be released in June and Amazon is taking pre-orders for the 2 DVD set at a discount. The 2 DVD set has some extras that the TV special did not have. It includes the full broadcast of the September 30th game against the Twins-- the next to last game of the season. I have been looking for broadcasts of the last two games for decades. I guess that final game is lost to everything except our memories.

[TheKilo]

I'm in the middle of reading "The 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox". It's an excellent read so far.

 

It seems 2004 may be as close as we'll get to 1967.

[a700hitter]

I'm in the middle of reading "The 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox". It's an excellent read so far.

 

It seems 2004 may be as close as we'll get to 1967.

2004 was a very high-priced talented team that was expected to win, but they did it in an impossible fashion. After dropping the first three to the Yankees, the entire history of the game and the rivalry indicated that we were dead and buried. The team rose from the dead and charged to the championship. The 1967 team was not expected to finish in the top half of the league (back than that was called the "upper division"). They had been an awful team for many years, finishing last or next to last several years in a row. The season unfolded slowly. The early successes were thrilling and completely unexpected. The team was a bunch of kids led by a few veterans. The excitement built day after day as we watched these two superstars named Yaz and Lonborg blossoming. There was the horror in August of Tony C's beaning, but nothing stopped that team and the fans were going wild. A pennant race was like having sex after being in solitary confinement for decades. It was a total thrill and a new experience for most everyone in New England. Yaz was unreal in September. He carried the team on his back with no protection in front or in back. People who were around the game back then are still baffled that teams kept pitching to him. The last two days of the season were just a complete frenzy. I've read books where Yaz said that he literally got no sleep before those two games. He was driving around and taking walks. He was too charged up to sleep. Many kids like myself got little sleep too. It was the birth of Red Sox Nation. 2004 was our legitimacy. Both were great. Both were incomparable in their own way.