By Colin Woodward

Back in 2009, my then girlfriend (now wife), bought me a pack of baseball cards. I saw the cards of many players I grew up with. Two of them, Wade Boggs and Bill Buckner, played on the infamous 1986 Red Sox team, which came within one strike of winning the World Series. Had the Sox won that game, the team would have broken a 68 year long slump: as of 1986, the Sox hadn’t won a World Series since 1918.

The 1986 Season

That year, Boggs was my hero. For the third time in five years, he led the American League in hits and batting average. Bill Buckner, a former Cub and Dodger, also had a good year. But then again, Buckner was a good player. In 1985, his first full year with the Sox, he played every game, had 46 doubles, 16 homeruns, and drove in 110 runs. He also managed to steal 18 bases and hit .299.

In 1986, his .267 batting average was much lower than Boggs’s, but he drove in 102 runs–far more than Boggs did. To drive in 102 runs is impressive for any player in any year. Buckner also swatted 18 homeruns and hit 39 doubles. Were he playing today, Buckner’s annual salary would be in the eight-figure range.

In 1986, Buckner played first base most of the year, despite his bad ankles. He was a 36 year old veteran in his 18th season, with near-Hall of Fame caliber statistics.

It’s easy to forget how good Buckner was. Instead, his career is overshadowed by the error he made in Game 6 of the World Series that year.

Game Six

Here’s what happened. Leading 3-2 in a best of seven series, the Red Sox went into the bottom of the ninth inning of Game Six with a two-run lead. The first two Mets batters made outs. But then a rally started, and the Mets tied the score.

Ray Knight was in scoring position when Mookie Wilson hit a routine ground ball to Buckner. Buckner let the ball go through his legs. Knight scores! Mets win!!!!

The Red Sox went on to lose Game 7 and the Series. Buckner was “the Goat” both in New England and across the baseball world.

In 1987, the Red Sox had a losing season. Buckner finished the year with the Angels. Geographically, Buckner was as far as he could have been from Boston and still playing major league baseball. “Billy Buck” hit .306 for the Angels, his highest batting average in five years.

It was easy to call Buckner the Goat, the chump, the guy who brought down every Red Sox fan’s dream of winning the first World Series since 1918. But really, the Red Sox should never have been in the Series at all.

The 1986 ALCS

In the American League Championship Series, Boston pulled off an amazing come-from-behind win against the Angles in Game 5, in Anaheim. The Red Sox were down to their last strike when Sox outfielder Dave Henderson hit a ball off the end of his bat that had just enough pop to get over the fence. The Sox went on to win the game in 10 innings and take the series in seven.

What the Mets did to Boston, the Sox had done to the Angels a few weeks before. The Angels pitcher who gave up the homerun to Dave Henderson, Donnie Moore, killed himself in 1989. But for Angles fans, there was no curse to blame it on. Even so, the Angels had to wait until 2003 to win their first World Series.

1987

Buckner finished the 1987 season with the Angels. But Boggs stayed in Boston. In 1987, the year of the “Rabbit Ball,” Boggs again led the league in hits and batting average. He also had career highs in homeruns (24) and RBIs (89). The Red Sox had a subpar year, but not Boggs. In fact, he should have been the MVP, leading the AL as he did with a 1.049 OPS (a stat not used then to measure a hitter’s worth). Instead, he finished a mere 9th in the MVP voting.

My hero, nevertheless, was safe. Buckner was gone. And there was always next year.

The year 1988 was a good one for Boston. The Red Sox won first place in a weak American League East Division. But they got swept by the A’s in the post season.

Boggs had another stellar year. He again led the league in hits and average as well as doubles and runs. Again, he led the AL in OPS and finished 6th in the MVP voting. He was without a doubt, the best hitter in the American League, if not the majors (where his only competition was Tony Gwynn).

Boggs was my hero, the guy whose stance I copied when mine wasn’t working for me in Little League. He was the “Chicken Man,” who supposedly ate chicken before every game. Another one of his superstitions was that he took his final laps at 7:17 at night before a game in the hopes of going 7 for 7 (which has been done only once since 1892 in a 9 inning game). He even had a candy bar: the 352 bar, named after his lifetime batting average of .352.

Marrrrrgoooooo! Marrrrrgooooo!

In 1988, Boggs was at the height of his career. But then scandal hit. And Boggs arguably went through a far greater humiliation than Bill Buckner ever went through.

The press announced that Boggs was having an affair with Margo Adams. Boggs was a married man, and he was shamed in an era before we assumed our best athletes were dishonest and sleazy. It was a shock.

In one of the Red Sox yearbooks from the early 80s, Boggs was seated with his wife Debbie in their house in Florida. Boggs looked tan and happy. And maybe he was happy with Debbie. But he was also happy with Margo. Until she told everyone.

The scandal worsened. Adams posed for Penthouse magazine. Rude fans of the Red Sox’s opposing teams began yelling “Marrrrgoooooo! Marrrrrgoooooo!” when Boggs came to bat. Boggs went on Barbara Walters with his wife, and he cried like a little bitch (he had also cried on the bench when the Red Sox lost to the Mets in Game 7 in 1986).

Both Boggs and Buckner were in need of redemption. In 1990, Buckner returned to the Red Sox. It was his final season as a player. Buckner didn’t have a great year, and Boggs had his worst season up until that time. The Red Sox made it to the playoffs, but they were swept again by an awesome Athletics (whose two biggest sluggers were on steroids, but that’s another story).

Curse of the Bambino

In 1990, Dan Shaughnessy published his book The Curse of the Bambino. It discussed not just the 1986 season, but all the bad luck that had accompanied the Red Sox since the team sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1918. The year 1990 was a low point in the history of being a Red Sox fan.

At the end of the 1992 season, Boggs signed with the Yankees. His hitting skills had worsened since the Adams scandal. That was bad enough. But for Boggs to have signed with the Yankees was for me–and many Sox fans–an act of betrayal. First you cheat on your wife, then you cheat on your team? Buckner committee an error, an honest mistake. Boggs, though, seemed to be a jerk.

With the Yankees

Once in New York, though, Boggs became a better hitter. He also won a World Series ring. He finished his career in his adopted home state, Florida.In his last season, he hit .301 and joined the 3,000 hit club.

In 2005, Boggs was inducted into the Hall of Fame. He finished his career with over 3,010 hits, 578 doubles, and a .328 batting average. Boggs wore a Red Sox cap at his Hall of Fame induction. He didn’t finish his career with Boston. Bill Buckner did, though.

Buckner didn’t make the Hall of Fame. But he came close. He had 2,715 lifetime hits, 498 doubles, more than 1,200 RBIs, and he was a career .289 hitter. His career spanned from 1969 to 1990, but for most of those seasons, Buckner played fewer than 140 games. Had he been healthy for two more seasons in his prime, he would have finished his career with 3,000 hits–a lock for the Hall of Fame. But he didn’t.

And yet, he had a higher lifetime batting average than Hall of Famers Cal Ripken, Ryne Sandberg, Carl Yastrzemski, Craig Biggio, and Tony Perez, just to name a few. He also had far more hits than Sandberg. And unlike Sandberg, the great Cubs second baseman, Buckner came very close to winning a World Series.

Almost

Buckner was a very good player, but not a Hall of Famer. As with so many of us, he was good but not great. Memorable but not immortal. The guy hobbling on one leg, trying to win the big game.

Buckner almost caught Hank Aaron’s 715th homerun. But he didn’t. He could’ve made that play in the ninth inning of Game Six against the Mets. But he didn’t. Maybe if Buckner had fielded Mookie’s slow roller, the Sox would have won that game in extra innings. Maybe not. The Sox still could’ve won game seven, but they didn’t.

Life is a series of moments that we can never get back. Maybe we could have gotten into a better school, made first string, first chair, got that raise, caught that fish. Might have ended that relationship better. Might have done better in the interview. Got the bad guy, found the cure.

Baseball players are lucky. There’s no Hall of Fame for most of us. Boggs is there. Buckner isn’t. But Buckner never cried like a little bitch on the bench in ’86 or on national TV with Barbara Walters.

Redemption

In 2008, Buckner received a four-minute standing ovation at Fenway Park. The Red Sox had won the World Series the year before. It was the second for Boston in three years. In 2004, the Sox came from a 3-0 deficit to defeat the detested Yankees, winning the last two games in Old Yankee Stadium. “The Curse of the Bambino” was no more.

But, there never was a curse. Just bad luck.

The Sox went on to sweep the Cardinals in the 2004 World Series. That took care of previous defeats at the hands of the Cardinals in the 1967 and 1946 World Series. In 2007, 2013, and 2018, the Sox again won the World Series.

Red Sox fans have a long memory, but they have long forgiven Bill Buckner. Game Six and the Buckner error are now just history–just a footnote to one of the most storied franchises in all of sport.

Curb

Ten years ago, Bill Buckner appeared in an episode of the great sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm. Even Larry David, a Yankees fan, wanted to see Buckner redeemed. On the show, Buckner makes a great catch.

And Boggs? Well, I don’t want to say Wade is a redneck. But, his first name is Wade; he lives in Florida; owns a bar; fishes a lot; liked to retweet Trump’s jingoistic statements about the military; his Twitter photo has him in camouflage; he has been accused of racism by former players; and he has been photographed with Charlie Daniels and Travis Tritt.

The last story I heard about Wade involved him drinking massive quantities of beer on a cross-country flight while he was playing. Was Boggs an alcoholic? I dunno. No one knew about Margo Adams for a long time either. Wade Boggs: Hall of Fame drinker.

But, Boggs at least has a sense of humor about it. His legendary exploits for guzzling beer were satirized on a memorable episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Boggs, to his credit, had a Red Sox hat on.

I wanted to be like Boggs, but I’m content to be more like Buckner. The Hall of Fame is for major achievements in baseball, but someone like Buckner makes you want to reassess our criteria for immortality. He was a very good player and one who had a major role in the history of the sport. Unlike Boggs, he is not in the Hall of Fame. But Wade Boggs hasn’t shared the stage with Larry David.

The lesson: our heroes are flawed. They screw up. Life goes on. Boggs and Buckner: two giants in my collective baseball memory. Whatever their faults, I love them both.

In Memoriam

I’d wished Boggs and Buckner had done a podcast together. I would have loved to hear their stories. Sadly, on May 29, 2019, Bill Buckner died in Idaho of Lewis Body Dementia. He was 69. More bad Buckner luck.

Fittingly, Dan Shaughnessy, who had coined the term “The Curse of the Bambino,” wrote Buckner’s obituary for the Boston Globe. Shaughnessy reminded readers that Buckner had more hits than Ted Williams or Joe DiMaggio. He quoted teammates such as Bruce Hurst and Dwight Evans who said Buckner was not the reason the Sox lost the ’86 World Series. Shaughnessy–not exactly one to ever go soft on players–agreed.

Buckner is gone. His memory is not. And in a period where Covid wrecked so much baseball, we should remember that the only thing worse than a crushing defeat is not getting to play at all.

 

Colin Woodward is the author of Marching Masters: Slavery, Race, and the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He is also a lifelong Red Sox fan and baseball enthusiast. He is working on a book about Johnny Cash.