It was 1963. I was 13 years old. JFK was still president, and things looked optimistic, both in the world and with the Red Sox. Mike Higgins, one of the symbols of Sox mediocrity, had been pushed upstairs. Johnny Pesky, only 44 years old, was the new manager. And the Red Sox were winning.
They had some stars. Carl Yastrzemski was in left, and he would win his first batting title that year. Frank Malzone, a fixture at third since the late 50’s, was still near the top of his game. Bill Monbouquette, the righthander from Medford, would win 20. Dick “the Monster” Radatz was saving games, sometimes taking over as early as the fifth inning. After a win, he would raise his hands over his head in triumph. A couple of rookie pitchers named Dave Morehead and Bob Heffner were showing promise.
On July 23, the Sox were in third place with a 51-42 record, 7 1/2 games behind the Yankees. Though I had no hopes that they would overtake them, finishing in the “first division” would be a major achievement. The Sox hadn’t even finished over .500 in five years. All I remembered was the Yankees winning almost every year and rooting for them to lose in the Series, which they seldom did.
Monbouquette had a 13-6 record. Yaz and Malzone were 1 and 2 in the AL in hitting. Radatz had a 12-1 mark. First baseman Dick Stuart, a power hitter but weak fielder, had 19 homers and 60 rbi’s. Second baseman Chuck Schilling was a fine defensive player with a fair bat.
My friends and I were excited. Then it started. Diego Segui of the Kansas City A’s, who would come to the Sox late in his career as a reliever, pitched a 1-0 shutout over the Sox at Fenway before 13,000 fans (a normal weeknight crowd in those days). The seventh place A’s would sweep four games from the Sox. The fold had begun.
I kept thinking “they’ll be back, this is just a slump.” But it wasn’t- the Sox would lose 18 of their next 21 games and end up the year in seventh place. After the Segui game, their mark was 25-43.
There were reasons. The papers didn’t talk about it much, but Pesky, still active at 93 and an institution at Fenway, had many good traits but managing wasn’t one of them, at least not in the majors.
In his book Baseball, the Wall, and Me, Yaz writes; “Pesky had trouble maintaining discipline of some players, especially Stuart.. He was a heavy-handed first baseman who earned the name Dr Strangeglove for his erratic fielding at first He was a massive player and a big home run hitter but he had two faults: he struck out a lot and he used to argue with Pesky in front of us….the strikeouts weren’t as bad for the club as the effect his constant bickering with Pesky had….he once tagged one deep in Yankee Stadium and he shouted: ‘How far was that, Mr. Manager?’ …Pesky started talking about pitchers of his time, how Stuart wouldn’t have gotten around on a Bob Feller fastball. Stuart shot back: ‘And you could, huh? ‘Pesky told him he was a guy who got 200 hits for three straight years and Stuart replied ‘yuh, a singles hitter’…Incidents like that one escalate when a club is losing, and you make more of them in your mind than you should.”
Personally, I don’t fault Pesky too much. It was his first year managing in the majors. His GM, Higgins, a notorious drinker and racist who once said a black player would never be on the Red Sox as long as he was there, was of no help at all. Tom Yawkey seldom appeared, spending most of his time on his South Carolina plantation. The front office was a mess, and would be until Higgins was fired two years later.
The Sox have had many “folds” since then. A few come to mind. 1969. 1974. 1978. 1986. The list goes on . Things, of course, would not really change until 04. But this was the toughest one for me, as a Sox fan. My team had disappointed me, and 48 years later, I still feel it a bit.
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