That's me.
I was born in 1964. In 1967 I went to my first game and thought every dark-haired white guy was Yaz. LOL. In 1976, my uncle got about 50 tickets from his neighbor Louie Tiant for our big family. From that point on, I was hooked. I lived and breathed baseball, especially the Red Sox. I watched the games all the time and read magazines like Baseball Digest and The Sporting News. I had my parents buy the Sunday Globe just so I could read Peter Gammons. I read more books about baseball than you can imagine. I went to Ted Williams Baseball Camp and bought the strat-o-matic baseball game.I started collecting the complete set of baseball cards every year after that too. I started playing baseball in school also, choosing to become a catcher like my hero Carlton Fisk.
In 1977 and 1978, I worked at Fenway Park. I opened the gate to the player's parking lot and got to know the players pretty good. George Scot did not like me though, as he tried to punch me in the face when I asked for his autograph (He was drunk). I also had season tickets from 1977 for many years. I saw many things like Yaz covering home plate with sand, The Red Sox blowing away records for most homeruns in consecutive games, many of Yaz' milestones, Yaz' farewell tour including Yaz Day when all the fans received a numbered plaque (I got number 67 by chance) and I saw Jim Rice play in his 163rd game of the season (a record), but unfortunately Bucky Dent ruined that game. I saw Butch Hobson throw many balls over George Scott's head, but still managed to hit more homeruns than any other player that was 9th in a batting order. One day I traded my box seats in for some bleacher seats, and what a great day to do that, as I had the perfect view into the visitor's dugout to watch Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson go at it in a fight.
I remember how the Red Sox wanted to replace the ill-armed Butch Hobson with Ted Cox, who they said was destined to replace Rice as the cleanup hitter. Having seen him in Pawtucket, I knew he would not. Cox did surprize me though. He set a record by getting hits in his first 7 at bats, but soon proved that he was NOT the next Babe Ruth. You may be saying "Ted Cox ? Who is He ?" EXACTLY !!! He played on 4 teams in 5 years and retired with a batting average somewhere in the Mendoza range. I called him The Human Slug, because he sucked the life out of a baseball game. I remember Burleson and Remy turning over double plays one after the other, Rice following Lynn around the bases, Dwight Evans batting 8th in a totally stacked batting lineup, and how he used to throw bullets to homeplate to nab hopeful scorers, and Yaz was no slouch in left field either. As incredible a hitter Ted Williams was, that's how incredible Yaz was as a left fielder. I never saw an outfielder nab more people at second base who were trying to stretch a single into a double. I also remember Jim Rice carrying Remy off of the field after he got hurt. A pretty cool act of kindness, if you ask me. I remember Louie Tiant looking so cool when he took the mound. He never looked bothered about anything during a game, except when they tried to take him out of the game. I also remember Dennis Eckersley's high kick followed by a look on his face like he was trying to throw that ball 3000 miles. I remember a lot of things that have happened since too...It was because of doing baseball statistics that I grew up to be a teacher's assistant in the course Psychological Statistics.
