Yuku free message boards

Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments. Again if you care, here's this week's column, with a focus on HBO's documentary oh and that's a pen name. Didn't want my employers on my case)
____________________________________________________

Incidental Misery

by Jack Dana/Barstool Sports



When the show is named after Shaughnessy’s book, you are pretty much guaranteed to hear X-Files music and see a fat actor in the shadows of Fenway. This is the easy sell for a national network like HBO. It’s just a shame that when somebody wants to make a documentary on the Sox, the most dramatic, complex sports team in America, for the best cable channel out there, they base it on an asinine curse and ask Eddie Andelman for his ludicrous opinions. Brilliant.

As expected, it was as mediocre and as incorrect as always. Didn’t Glenn Stout’s research already debunk this nonsense? The regular players were the stars of the show: Pesky. Frazee. Ruth. Buckner. Yawkey. Stanley. And of course, the main culprit and only ballplayer interviewed, Bucky Dent and his immensely overplayed home run. Yes, that home run that has been pounded into the heads of Red Sox Nation by the local and national media. The same home run that may in fact have been the third or fourth most important play of the only baseball game ever played on October 2, 1978.

The Red Sox are as complicated as any woman or calculus equation. Every famous moment in the team’s post-World War II history has been accompanied by an equally important subplot. Carbo’s home run preceded Fisk’s famous blast. Dom DiMaggio, the best defensive centerfielder in baseball, injured himself late in Game 7 in 1946, which took him out of the game. There is no way Enos Slaughter even tries to score with Dom in there. Pedro’s six no-hit innings in Game 5 in Cleveland has now overshadowed a offensive day for the ages for Troy O’ Leary. Dave Henderson’s blast in Anaheim would never have mattered if not for the other two-run homer in the ninth by the keeper of the kangaroo court, Don Baylor. Everyone knows that the ’49 Sox went into Yankee Stadium and just needed one win for the pennant and lost them both. They must have stunk, right? The reality is that the 1949 Red Sox won 12 of 13 leading up to that series in NY, including a 3 game sweep of the Yankees at Fenway a week earlier to get them into a decent position for the final weekend. The Yankees had just lost 6 of 9 to allow the Sox to jump into first. Yet the Sox are portrayed as the chokers.

Subplots were all the rage for Game 6 at Shea. Buckner was the lucky fellow to grab the top billing and Stanley seems to have attracted Denis Leary’s attention, but it is so much deeper than that: no Stapleton, McNamara pulling his closer after three fairly soft singles, Gedman’s immobility behind the plate, Greenwell for Clemens, Schiraldi pitching Kevin Mitchell EXACTLY how he told him he would when they were minor league roommates, the lady behind the plate and her arm movement…it really never ends. But what it all comes down to, the easy media definition of the Sox-Yanks rivalry and the subsequent suffering of Sox fans is Bucky Dent, a nice tidy package of pain. Unfortunately for fairy tales and simple explanations, Reggie Jackson and Lou Piniella played that day too. It’s just not all that convenient to mention them.

Torrez was pitching a gem when Bucky hit his home run in the 7th to make it 3-2. It wasn’t in the ninth and it wasn’t backbreaking. The final score wasn’t 3-2. It was 5-4. It does not take Will Hunting’s math skills to figure out that the Sox scored more runs than the Yankees had after Dent’s home run. So what else happened? How about a RBI double by Munson? How about a massive home run by Reggie Jackson to make it 5-2 in the 8th, a home run that when all is said and done may be bigger than Dent’s. After all, it is the game winner. But it isn’t as fun to blame the Sox loss on one of the greatest home run hitters of all time than to point toward a powerless infielder who hit another homer an inning earlier that put the Yankees back in the game. Accuracy be damned!

The Sox staged a mini-uprising in the 8th with Remy and Yaz at the center of the storm to bring the score to 5-4. That brought the Fenway crowd to a frenzy and the Sox entered the 9th with a legit chance to take the game. Burleson got on with one out and then unquestionably the most important play of the game took place, much more so than Dent’s home run. Remy hit a seed to right in a twilight game and Lou Piniella had no idea where the ball was. None. It was lost in the sun for 280 feet. If it gets by him, Remy has a triple and quite possibly an inside the park, game-winning home run. That bastard Piniella stuck his glove out on a whim and the ball appeared about 8 feet in front of him. He snagged it with his left hand and somehow Burleson was standing on second base instead of third. The momentum of the entire inning changed. Rice flew out deep and Gossage got Yaz to pop out and all of the sudden 99 wins were not enough to get to the ALCS. Piniella changed the result of that game in a crucial spot more than anyone else at Fenway that day. Piniella always gets a token mention when this game is discussed, but the spotlight is always on Bucky: put him in the Monster seats, let him throw out the ball during playoff games at the Stadium, have Fox and ESPN show that clip every single time the Sox play a big game. It’s not convenient for HBO and the media to tell the entire story, which is much more interesting. Ruth, ghosts, Bucky Dent and X-Files music are a nicer little package to taunt Sox fans with. Do yourself a favor and buy Glenn Stout’s Red Sox Century and invest the time to read it. The truth is out there.
---------------------------------------------------------

Quick annoying note of the week: I love all these new Bills like Gash and Milloy trashing the Pats for their lack of loyalty. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather have Milloy on the team than not, but painting Foxboro as hell on earth and Buffalo as the Promised Land is just so silly. Buffalo has loyalty for its stars? Their best defensive player of all time, Bruce Smith, was let go before his career ended. He wasn’t happy about it. There was loyalty toward Buffalo’s All-Pro running back from the lost Super Bowl years? I do recall Thurman Thomas wearing a Dolphins jersey. Guys, play hard with your new team, enjoy the weather up there and stop talking. You sound stupid. There is no loyalty anywhere in the NFL.
___________________________________________________

It's a fair argument, but I do believe it is the 3rd most important event in the game. I believe Piniella is number 1. Ninth inning, everything on the line. I believe that Reggie's home run, which is the game winner, is huge as well. It's a watershed game, so there are many opinions, but Dent's homer put the Yankees in the game. It didn't send the Sox into a catatonic state for the next 25 years are proposed by some. The rallied heavily in the 8th and 9th!