Latest news with #BigRedMachine
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Pete Rose may now be a Hall of Famer. Not living to see it is punishment enough
Better late than never, you could say. Tuesday brought unexpected news that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has removed Pete Rose, 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson and other deceased players from the league's permanently ineligible list. The commissioner ruled that punishment of banned individuals ends upon their deaths. Advertisement Around these parts, that means only one thing: Pete Rose is now eligible to be voted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. The decision comes after Rose's death last September at the age of 83, and one day before the Reds' scheduled 'Pete Rose Night' at Great American Ball Park in which Marty Brennaman will serve as emcee and several former players from the Big Red Machine will talk about the game's all-time hits leader. Should Rose be in the Hall of Fame, considering he broke baseball's unbreakable rule of wagering on the game while a manger of the Cincinnati Reds? Cincinnati Reds outfielder Pete Rose sits in dugout during the 1984 season at Riverfront Stadium. I'll admit to have softened my stance over the years. I started out passionately in favor of the lifetime ban and opposed to Rose's Hall induction not just on the basis of his infraction, but his initial denial and then his ever-changing story concerning his guilt. In recent years, I've not held to that hard line, however. Advertisement I'm in favor of putting Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame, as long as the entire Peter Edward Rose story is told. That includes his integral part of Cincinnati's World Series titles in 1975 and 1976, the Philadelphia Phillies' World Series championship in 1980, his three batting titles, his 1973 National League Most Valuable Player award, his record 4,256 hits, the 'Charlie Hustle' manner in which he played the game, but also the MLB investigation that led to commissioner Bart Giamatti issuing the ban. As former Cincinnati Enquirer sports columnist Paul Daugherty wrote on Substack on Tuesday morning, 'As the years passed, Baseball's noble vigilance sunk into grudging pettiness and it became easier again to side with Pete.' Add the fact that Major League Baseball has now formed partnerships with sports betting entities, to the point where the Reds played host to a BetMGM sportsbook site inside Great American Ball Park. It's now across the street. That doesn't mean that Major League Baseball players are allowed to bet on the game. Any MLB game. They're not. The Cincinnati Reds offered a daylong visitation for Pete Rose at Great American Ball Park on November 10, 2024. Rose, MLB's all-time hits leader, died in September. Rose's reinstatement doesn't mean enshrinement is a sure bet, however. Pun intended. Advertisement 'Pete Rose's 4,256 hits can't erase that he admitted to putting the integrity of the game in question with his gambling,' wrote author Travis Sawchick for theScore. 'A strong deterrent must remain in place to guard against our weakest impulses. In the case of baseball, it's a ban that extends beyond a lifetime.' Since the bulk of Rose's on-field accomplishments came before 1980, his candidacy will be considered in December 2027 by the 16-person Classic Baseball Committee, which also considers Negro League and pre-Negro League stars. Rose won't be inducted before July 28. By any measure, Rose was a flawed human being. He was accused of statutory rape, which he denied. He served time for tax evasion. He could be charming when he wanted to be, combative when he didn't. When Rose managed the Reds, I remember once asking to speak to him in his office at Riverfront Stadium. He gave a gruff answer, then stopped and remembered I was from Lexington. That launched a conversation about another of Pete's favorite gambling subjects, horse racing. Advertisement But I don't agree that his enshrinement now would undercut the 'integrity of the game,' as Marcus Giamatti, Bart Giamatti's 63-year-old son told USA Today. 'I don't know how a fan could go and watch a game knowing that what they're seeing may not be real and fair anymore,' Marcus Giamatti told Bob Nightengale. 'That's a really scary thought.' Anything other than a 'lifetime ban' punishment for Rose would have been a blight on the game. Instead, Charlie Hustle did not live to receive the honor that, outside of the World Series title, he coveted most. That's punishment enough. Cincinnati Reds third baseman Pete Rose, left, grimaces while watching the races at Keeneland on October 13, 1976. The Reds had won the National League playoff series against Philadelphia the day before. Reaction to penalties on Kentucky Derby winning jockey shows racing's disconnect Advertisement Sovereignty skipping the Preakness is another reason to change the Triple Crown Why have Secretariat's records never been broken? It's simple and complicated. I was at the Final Four. I can report that college basketball is far from dead.
Reuters
13-05-2025
- Sport
- Reuters
Hall of Fame door opens for Pete Rose after removal from MLB's ineligible list
May 13 (Reuters) - Pete Rose, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and other deceased players will be removed from Major League Baseball's permanently ineligible list, Commissioner Rob Manfred said, possibly clearing the way for their induction into the Hall of Fame. Rose, MLB's all-time hits leader, was caught betting on games while manager of the Cincinnati Reds and was barred for life from baseball by Commissioner Bart Giamatti in 1989. A key part of the Cincinnati Reds' "Big Red Machine" that won back-to-back World Series titles in 1975 and 1976, Rose petitioned the league to be allowed back into the sport numerous times over the years but was unsuccessful. He died in September. Jackson and seven members of the Chicago White Sox were charged with being paid by gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series and were banned from the league in 1921. Manfred said the purpose of designating a player "permanently ineligible" - to protect the integrity of the sport by prohibiting the participation of those individuals and to create a deterrent effect to reduce the likelihood of future violations - breaks down once a player has died. "Obviously, a person no longer with us cannot represent a threat to the integrity of the game," Manfred said in response to a letter from an attorney for Rose. "Moreover, it is hard to conceive of a penalty that has more deterrent effect than one that lasts a lifetime with no reprieve. "Therefore, I have concluded that permanent ineligibility ends upon the passing of the disciplined individual, and Mr. Rose will be removed from the permanently ineligible list." The National Baseball Hall of Fame said anyone removed from MLB's permanently ineligible list will become eligible for Hall of Fame consideration. "Major League Baseball's decision to remove deceased individuals from the permanently ineligible list will allow for the Hall of Fame candidacy of such individuals to now be considered," Hall of Fame chairman of the board Jane Forbes Clark said in a statement. "The Historical Overview Committee will develop the ballot of eight names for the Classic Baseball Era Committee – which evaluates candidates who made their greatest impact on the game prior to 1980 – to vote on when it meets next in December 2027." In addition to Rose and Jackson, the policy change also impacts Eddie Cicotte, Happy Felsch, Chick Gandil, Fred McMullin, Swede Risberg, Buck Weaver, Lefty Williams, Joe Gedeon, Gene Paulette, Benny Kauff, Lee Magee, Phil Douglas, Cozy Dolan, Jimmy O'Connell and William Cox.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
'No cliques': The untold legacy of Cincinnati's Pete Rose on the Big Red Machine and MLB
During a wide-ranging conversation last season, Pete Rose at one point paused to get one thing straight: 'How do you think I played the game?' The Reds Great Eight, Pete Rose, left, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, George Foster, Dave Concepcion, Ken Griffey and Cesar Geronimo take the field at Great American Ball Park for Joe Morgan Weekend Saturday, September 7, 2013. Like your hair was on fire, like every pitch mattered. 'You owe that to the fans,' he said. 'If you can't go out there for two and a half hours and bust your ass, get another f—ing job.' The Cincinnati Reds team that became known as the Big Red Machine won its first World Series title in 1975. If anyone didn't already know how hot the fire burned in Rose when he played, it was clear it still burned in the man to his final days. Advertisement Less clear is the complicated, polarizing legacy of one of baseball's inner-circle greats, one of the most publicly flawed, locally beloved figures to ever capture the imagination of fans anywhere – from the generation that discovered the power of head-first flight into Little League bases around the country to the generations too young to remember him for much more than scandal and his permanent ban from the game for gambling on baseball. All of those colliding perceptions and realities take center stage yet again when the Cincinnati Reds honor the hometown legend in a May 14 ceremony at Great American Ball Park 40 years after he broke Ty Cobb's all-time hits record and 7 1/2 months after his death at his Las Vegas home last fall. 'He played the game the way everybody should play it and left a mark on a lot of us that looked up to him,' said La Salle graduate Tim Naehring, the current Yankees executive, who brought a similar, hard-nosed style to an eight-year career as a Red Sox infielder. Pete Rose sat down with Gordon Wittenmyer in Las Vegas to talk baseball, gambling and the Hall of Fame. But beyond the Charlie Hustle flair and flamboyance on the field – with all those hits and head-first slides and sprints to first on walks – and beyond the off-the-field hustles that led to brushes with the law and a lifetime ban for gambling, Rose's legacy includes a lesser-told impact on the best teams in Reds history and influence on a generation of leaders that came after him. MARCH 9, 1963: Reds Relax After to right, Pete Rose, Sammy Ellis, Teddy Davidson, Frank Robinson and Tommy Harper. Big Red Machine had leadership from core four 'No cliques.' Advertisement That's how Hall of Famers Johnny Bench and Tony Perez both describe their clubhouse during the height of the Big Red Machine 50 years ago – a testament, they say, to the strength of relationships among a multicultural leadership quartet of Bench, Perez, Joe Morgan and Rose. Using the head-first slide he made famous in his years at Cincinnati, Pete Rose dives toward home plate in 1984. Rose may have had an outsized contribution to that clubhouse continuity that was unusual for the 1970s compared to the other contenders of the time with big stars on the roster – the Oakland A's, Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees, remembered as much for conflict (sometimes physical) off the field as winning on it. 'The thing that people don't talk about is how players used to think, between black and white (players),' Perez said during a recent conversation at his home in Miami. 'It was a big difference.' Advertisement That was especially true in the 1960s, when baseball's integration was still fresh, when American civil rights battles intensified nationwide and when Rose broke into the big leagues as the surprising starter at second base. 'In '63 when they brought Pete to the big leagues, the second baseman was a guy who was loved by all the white guys,' Perez said. 'They ran together, went out together and stuff. And they didn't accept Pete.' April, 8, 1963, Cincinnati, OH, USA; LOW RES - Pete Rose, center, with a big grin on his face, runs onto Crosley Field for his major league debut along with Gordy Coleman, left, and Frank Robinson. Manager Fred Hutchinson made the brash, young Rose the starter over popular incumbent Don Blasingame, leaving Rose shunned by the other white veterans in a clubhouse that was as divided by racial and cultural cliques as any other at the time. 'They (white players) never accepted Pete' in early days Rose gravitated instead to the Black veterans, specifically seeking out Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson as mentors. 'They accepted me,' Rose would later say. 'They tried to help me become a better player.' Advertisement Perez, a minor-league teammate who joined Rose on the big-league club in 1964, became perhaps closer to Rose as a teammate than he might have otherwise once they were together in the Reds clubhouse. 'I remember Pete with us,' Perez said. 'And I was with Vada, Frank and Leo Cardenas and Tommy Harper and those guys. And the other guys, that group (of white players), they were separate. They never accepted Pete.' That was unusual, even borderline scandalous for the time. 'Oh, yeah, that was different,' Perez said. 'There were still problems (racially).' Rose, the hometown kid and Rookie of the Year for the southernmost MLB team at the time, stood out so conspicuously for his friendships on the team that team officials advised against him spending so much time with the Black players. Advertisement He treated that advice like he did a lot of suggestions from institutional authorities over the years: He ignored it. 'I didn't care what color you was,' he said years later. Perez and others close to Rose over the years say that by the time Rose became a veteran leader on those 1970s powerhouses, he showed the influence of that experience as a young player. 'I think it had lasting impact on him,' said longtime broadcaster Marty Brennaman, who became a regular dinner companion of Rose and Morgan over the years and developed a close bond. Frank Robinson, shown here before his Reds debut in 1956, was one of the players who greatly influenced Pete Rose after his debut with the Reds. 'Anytime I was around him in all the years we were together and the subject of his coming to the big leagues for the first time came up, he never failed to talk about how he was embraced by Frank Robinson and Vada,' Brennaman said. Advertisement By the time he was a veteran, the inclusiveness, relationship-building and respect across cultural differences might have come more naturally to the hometown white kid from the West Side. 'Oh, yeah,' Perez said. 'He was a leader. He was running the show. 'And everybody followed us.' Certainly, Rose didn't run that show by himself. Perez is to this day, by all accounts, considered the glue guy on that team. Bench was a natural leader every bit as cocky as Rose, and as the star catcher held the unique position of on-field general. And once Morgan joined the group in 1972 after the greatest trade in Reds history, he quickly ascended into a role among manager Sparky Anderson's four-man Alpha-male board of assistant managers. Advertisement Bench said former Baltimore Colts coach Ted Marchibroda once asked him, 'Why are you guys so successful?' 'I said, 'Well, we have Black leadership, white leadership and we have Spanish (language) leadership. So everybody covered everybody,' Bench said. Pete Rose acknowledges the crowd after breaking the all-time hits record on September 11, 1985. 'We didn't know what color we were' 'We didn't know what color we were,' he said. 'Whatever they say, that we have this problem or that problem, with Tony, Joe, Pete –we didn't have one thought. Not even one thought about that. 'We were there every day to play baseball, and we were there to support each other. And there was no jealousy.' Advertisement Other clubhouses, including the one belonging to the arch-rival Dodgers, couldn't say that at the time. 'What I understood is they had like five different cliques,' Bench said. 'So they had like five guys here, five guys there and five guys there, and they were all talking about the other group. It (wasn't) unusual.' Various written accounts from the time and descriptions by guys like Bench and Perez in recent weeks paint a picture of a multicultural, self-policing, uniquely driven and professional group of players who mercilessly razzed each other to the point of inevitable humility. Perhaps none more so than Rose and Morgan, who lockered next to each other and became close. SEPTEMBER 12, 1985: Pete Rose thanks the crowd as he and former teammate Joe Morgan leave the field after post-game ceremonies the night after Rose became baseball's hit king. The Enquirer/Michael E. Keating 'Joe was his best friend. They were very tight,' Brennaman said. 'We would go out to dinner on the road, socialize when the club was traveling. It made no difference to him what race you were, whether you were a Latin American player.' Advertisement It seems obvious that was simply part of Rose's nature and humanity. It also seems like those early experiences with the Reds in the 1960s helped shape him as he gained stature in the game. 'It almost had to,' Brennaman said. Bench and Rose both were great with mentoring young players, Brennaman said. 'But Pete would go so far as to help hitters on other clubs, young guys,' he said, adding it led to occasional consternation from those among his own club. 'That was just the nature of Pete.' Reds manager Pete Rose greets first baseman Terry Francona (10) at the dugout during the 1987 season. Terry Francona saw Rose's hands-on manner up close Terry Francona, a promising first-round pick for the Montreal Expos, was a 25-year-old first baseman when Rose joined the Expos for much of the 1984 season. Advertisement He knows first-hand what Brennaman talks about, both as one of the young players Rose mentored that season but also the inclusiveness. He got a chance a few years later to play for Rose, the manager, in Cincinnati and saw the same leadership ethic. 'If you had on our uniform, you're us,' Francona said. 'I don't think it matters race, color, creed, language – if you had our uniform on, it was us.' Francona, the Hall of Fame-bound manager in his first year at the helm of the Reds, often talks like that about his own players and clubhouse now, perhaps picking up some of that from his one-time mentor. 'I hope I did,' he said.'Because as a teammate, you couldn't find anybody better. We all know the hiccups later. But as a teammate, that's what you're looking for.' Advertisement The hiccups are the low-hanging fruit of Rose's legacy, the well documented scandals that everyone who follows baseball, the Reds, or Rose's headlines can probably recite and file into neat compartments of unambiguous judgment. The problem with neat compartments is the breadth and nuance of a life usually doesn't fit neatly. In talking about Rose's influence, for instance, Francona compares the influence of his own father, former All-Star outfielder and first baseman Tito Francona. 'Even Dusty Baker to this day tells me all the time, 'In '68 in Atlanta your dad was kind to me,' ' Francona said. 'He goes, 'That wasn't necessarily always the case.' That's always stuck with me.' Advertisement That Francona frames Rose's influence in the same context probably says something about Rose's legacy well beyond lifetime bans and headfirst slides. Maybe even says something about that point Rose wanted to get straight during the conversation last year. About how he played the game. About how he's remembered. 'In some ways, he was ahead of his time, or the game,' Francona said. 'That's how I choose to remember him.' Pete Rose, shown in 1976, was a leader on the field as well as off. Chris Dye works on the top half of he Pete Rose mural located on the corner of Elm Street and Magnolia Street in downtown Cincinnati, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. The mural wasl added as an installation for BLINK. Cincinnati Reds great Pete Rose, left, smiles with former teammate Tony Perez during a press conference before the MLB game between the San Diego Padres and Cincinnati Reds, Saturday, June 25, 2016, at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. This story has been updated to add video. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: The untold legacy of Pete Rose on the Big Red Machine and baseball
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
USF baseball building new culture. Will consistency follow?
TAMPA — Cincinnati Reds games served as the soundtrack of his childhood in the mid-1970s. Reared in a coal-mining region of southeast Ohio, Mitch Hannahs often segued into slumber by listening to the feats of the Big Red Machine — a world title ensemble led by Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan — as chronicled by radio play-by-play voice Marty Brennaman. For a kid cutting his athletic teeth, the Reds embodied every championship prerequisite: talent and tenacity, determination and devotion to craft. Advertisement The exact same traits he's trying to pour into the once-middling baseball outfit in Tampa that he inherited 11 months ago. 'I think when you have your culture and really good players, you never have to remind guys about the target,' Hannahs said from the third-base dugout of USF Baseball Stadium on a warm early May afternoon. 'You never have to remind guys the work that needs to be done, you never have to push guys. I think it becomes a very self-motivated player trying to maximize his abilities to help the team at the highest level.' Such is the multihued culture — green and gold, with some blue collar and Big Red sensibilities blended in — Hannahs is trying to instill in a USF program that was skidding prior to his arrival. Though located in one of the nation's recruiting epicenters, the Bulls had suffered three consecutive losing seasons, and four in the previous five (excluding the abbreviated 2020 COVID season) prior to his arrival. Advertisement And while Hannahs encountered some nasty roots and rock-strewn patches while digging his own foundation, the Bulls mostly have responded to this 57-year-old baseball lifer who reached five NCAA tournaments and won a pair of conference titles in 11 years at Indiana State, his alma mater. 'It's definitely a blue-collar culture, you know,' said Bulls first baseman Sebastian Greico, a Gaither High alumnus whose 14 home runs lead the American Athletic Conference. 'We get out here and practice hard every day. I've been at several schools, and this is by far the hardest I've ever gotten to practice.' Even after dropping three games to AAC front-runner UTSA this past weekend, USF (12-9, 24-21) remains in a three-way tie for second in the league. Two of its losses to the Roadrunners (18-3, 37-10) were by three total runs, and during one stretch of the weekend, it held UTSA scoreless for 10 consecutive innings. And while the Bulls don't dominate any one statistical category, they don't lurk in the basement either. USF ranks fifth in conference games in team batting average (.273), is second in stolen bases (66) and is tied for sixth in team ERA (5.65). Advertisement Which is to say, Hannahs has seen snippets of the culture he's trying to establish in his first 45 games. 'I see guys battling in the fire a little longer,' said Hannahs, whose club was set to face Florida in Gainesville on Tuesday night. 'I see pieces, but I also see pieces that you don't want to watch either, you don't want to see. So it's still a battle, and it's always a battle. Every program throughout the country probably has the same battles now that we're in the portal era.' The initial skirmish Hannahs encountered upon his hiring was cerebral: The Bulls' collective mentality had to be transformed. To that end, he and his staff initially sacrificed nuance during early practices (holding runners, bunt defense, etc.) for a series of fast-tempo workouts designed to put the Bulls through a grind. 'There are a lot of good programs throughout the country,' Hannahs said. Advertisement 'You see them, but also when you get to the end of the season and you start looking at teams on video ... the maturity and mentality jump off the page. And it's the willingness to do whatever it takes to win as a group. And I think when you've lost and you've been in those cycles, you're a long way from that mentality.' While restoring that collective mindset, Hannahs also had to replenish the roster. To this point, his initial portal acquisitions mostly have sparkled. Veteran left-hander Corey Braun, an Osceola High alumnus who spent last season at Ole Miss, has flourished as the Friday night starter (6-2, 3.15 ERA, 80 IP, 82 strikeouts). FSU transfer Lance Trippel (.255, six home runs, 26 RBIs) has evolved into an anchor at catcher. Jesuit alumnus Bradke Lohry, a Tennessee transfer, has committed only one error at shortstop in the last two months. Holdovers from the prior regime include Dunedin alumnus Marcus Brodil (team-best .335 batting average) and senior leftfielder Jackson Mayo (seven home runs). Bryce Archie, the Bulls' quarterback once pegged for midweek work in a best-case scenario, has so surprised Hannahs (3-1, 4.00 ERA, 36 innings) that he has been summoned in five conference games. Advertisement 'It's amazing what he's been able to do,' Hannahs said. 'And I guess the other thing, with the weather warming up, we really have to monitor him as well. But man, in this day and age, you just don't see many guys that can throw and run through all the football stuff and then come over here and throw strikes.' Sounds like a grinder trying to maximize his gifts. A snug fit for the new culture of Bulls baseball. 'I think the key for us is just continuing to put in our work; it really meshes a team,' Greico said. 'I think, as you can see, as the season has gone on we really found the guys that fit in the lineup. We'll still be tweaking our lineup a little bit here and there, tweaking a little bit defensively, but I think we've found that core group of guys that has really meshed well together. And I think you've seen in conference play, it's really paid off for us.' Advertisement Contact Joey Knight at jknight@ Follow @TBTimes_Bulls • • • Sign up for our Sports Today newsletter to get daily updates on the Bucs, Rays, Lightning and college football across Florida. Every weekday, tune into our Sports Day Tampa Bay podcast to hear reporter Rick Stroud break down the biggest stories in Tampa Bay sports. Never miss out on the latest with your favorite Tampa Bay sports teams. Follow our coverage on X and Facebook.
Boston Globe
04-04-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Red Sox turning back time to the memorable 1975 season and the best World Series ever, and other thoughts
Advertisement They wore two-toned, red-and-blue caps, won 95 regular-season games, swept the three-time defending Series champion A's in the ALCS, then took the 108-win, Big Red Machine to a seventh game in a Series that temporarily rescued baseball. In a hot Boston summer pepped with busing-stoked racial tension, the colorful and talented Sox gave us daily thrills and a common cause. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'That was a great time,' recalled Dwight Evans, who hit a homer, knocked in five runs, and 'It was magical,' added Bill Lee. 'I'm looking forward to seeing everybody, especially the Buffalo Heads. That'll be Rick Wise, Bernie Carbo, and Jim Willoughby. We're all alive and we're ancient. I'm deaf, Carbo is dumb, and Willow is blind.' Advertisement There'll be a moving tribute for Tiant Friday. El Tiante captured the imagination of Baseball America in the summer of '75 and is remembered for his five-hit shutout of the Reds in Game 1, then throwing 163 pitches in a complete-game victory in Game 4 in Cincinnati. 'He was the brains, the bard, and the conscience of the team,' said Lee. 'All he had to do was look at you and you knew. I still see him every day in my mind. Every day drives his Cadillac up to my house and we go for a drive and we kick ass and take names forever. He kept our team alive in '75 and now I keep him alive in my head.' Future Hall of Famer Rice and Lynn were mere rookies in 1975. MLB had never seen more impact from two first-year teammates. Rice hit .309 with 22 homers and 102 RBIs and Lynn copped MVP and Rookie of the Year with .331, 21, and 105. Local hero Tony Conigliaro hit the team's first homer of the season before retiring for good, and New Hampshire-raised Fisk batted .331 on his path to Cooperstown. Rookies Fred Lynn (left) and Jim Rice were known as the Gold Dust Twins in 1975. Associated Press Yaz? At the age of 36, eight years after his seminal 1967 MVP season, the captain/first baseman moved back to the outfield against Oakland, made a spectacular catch and batted .455 with a homer in the ALCS sweep. Yastrzemski is 85 and rarely seen around Fenway these days. His appearance would bring down the house. Advertisement 'I hope he comes,' Evans said. 'Maybe he'll slip in through a side door like he always does.' Former Globe great Peter Gammons, who turns 80 next week, was at the height of his prose powers in '75, pounding out this lead on his Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter mere minutes after 'And all of a sudden, the ball was there, like the Mystic River Bridge, suspended out in the black of the morning … ' Gammons's lead became New England's answer to Grantland Rice's 'Four Horsemen," classic in the New York Herald-Tribune after a Notre Dame-Army game at the Polo Grounds in 1924. A couple of days earlier, a couple of 22-year-old Globe correspondents named Dupont and Shaughnessy had a dual tagline in a World Series notebook cobbled together from a hospitality hotel ballroom before Game 6. Clipping from Dan Shaughnessy and Kevin Paul Dupont's World Series notebook in the Oct. 18, 1975, Boston Globe. Boston Globe The young scribes wrote that 87-year-old former Sox outfielder Duffy Lewis was scheduled to throw out the ceremonial first pitch before Game 6. With Tris Speaker and Harry Hooper, Lewis was part of a legendary Sox outfield trio outfield that last played together in 1915. We couldn't believe Lewis was still alive, never mind throwing out a Fenway first ball. 'Ridiculous,' we said to ourselves. 'He's so old! Who could possibly remember anything he ever did?' It turns out that a lot of people live to remember things that happened 50 or more years ago . Like all of you who played for, wrote about, and cheered for the 1975 Boston Red Sox. ▪ Quiz: 1. Name six players with more than 1,000 career RBIs for the Red Sox; 2. Name MLB's top six active career home run leaders. Advertisement ⋅ Bob Kraft, perhaps trying to court favor with those who keep snubbing him for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, finally caved Tuesday and announced that ⋅ The NBA is a better place when the Knicks are good, but the 2024-25 Knicks (48-28) look like frauds. They are 0-8 against the Celtics, Cavaliers, and Thunder. Look for the Celts to KO them in five games in the second round. ⋅ In the superb nine-part 'Celtics City' documentary on HB0 (installment No. 6 drops Monday night), former GM Jan Volk reveals that during the 1960s, Red Auerbach took 'BOSTON' off the front of the team's green road jerseys and replaced it with 'CELTICS.' This was in part because of the city's slowness to embrace the team, particularly its Black stars. Russell was fond of saying, 'I don't play for Boston. I play for the Celtics.' In this spirit, it's fascinating to come across an iconic Walter Iooss image featuring the Celtics on the road vs. the Lakers in the mid 1960s. In the photo, LA's Elgin Baylor is levitating toward the basket with the ball, and he's surrounded by four Celtics — the jerseys of Russell and John Havlicek read, 'CELTICS.' The jerseys of Sam Jones and Satch Sanders read, 'BOSTON.' And hardly anybody noticed. Advertisement ⋅ ⋅ The Rangers' petitioning MLB to have Kristian Campbell's Opening Day hit changed to an error for Josh Jung reminded me of an unfortunate (1992) episode during the Daddy Butch Hobson managerial era when Wade Boggs successfully lobbied a Sox official scorer to erase an error he'd been tagged with during a Roger Clemens September start. Clemens was vying for the AL's best ERA and the change raised the Rocket's from 2.24 to 2.31. Clemens said he'd lost all respect for his teammate. The Fenway Fallout was loud and prompted Hobson to call a meeting with two of Boston's all-time greats. When Alabama Butch came out of that meeting, I kidded him, saying 'A summit with you, Roger, and Wade. That must have been like Yalta.' Hobson responded with, 'Y'all what?'' I think it was the only time Butch truly understood what I was saying. ⋅ Spotted in the visitor's dugout at Globe Life Stadium in Arlington, Texas: a box of Chinook Seedery sunflower seeds, labeled, 'A collaboration with Bobby Witt Jr.' featuring Witt's signature flavor: lemon pepper. Imagine pitchers around the American League filling their mouths with Witt's signature seeds, then trying to strike him out while enjoying the lemon pepper flavor. Advertisement ⋅ Texas's Jacob deGrom taking the Globe Life mound for his Sunday start to the tune of ⋅ Yankees catcher Austin Wells is batting leadoff for the Bronx Bombers and homered at Yankee Stadium on Opening Day. Who remembers other catchers batting leadoff in the big leagues? Never saw Bob Tillman at the top of the order. ⋅ I'm already bored with the discussion about ⋅ Combative Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene evidently studied at the John McNamara school of media relations. When surly Mac heard a question he didn't like — from a reporter he didn't know — he'd snarl and spew 'Where are you from?' It was not so much a question as an accusation. ⋅ RIP Joe DePugh, Bruce Springsteen's Little League teammate in Freehold, N.J., in the 1960s and the inspiration for ⋅ Let the record show that it took less than three innings of the first game of the year for greedy NESN to miss part of a Sox game while cramming in an extra commercial. Boston fans deserve better. ⋅ Alex Bregman's mom, Jackie, is an attorney who graduated from Holy Cross with a degree in English in 1983. ⋅ Pedro Martinez and his wife, Carolina, will serve as commencement speakers and receive honorary doctorates from Fisher College May 10. ⋅ Speaking of Worcester, nice job by the WooSox naming the Polar Park press box in honor of the Worcester Telegram's Bill Ballou. Ballou covered the Boston Red Sox for 32 seasons before retiring in 2018 and knows more about Central Mass. sports than anyone alive. On the same day Ballou was honored, folks in Arlington, Texas, named the Globe Life Field press box in honor of John Blake, a Wenham native who worked for the Rangers PR department for 35 years and also had a memorable stint with the Red Sox from 2006-08. ⋅ ⋅ If you can't get enough of Boston baseball's 2024, 81-81, Romy Gonzalez All-Stars, the exhaustive, eight-episode documentary, 'The Clubhouse: A Year With the Red Sox'' drops on Netflix Tuesday. ⋅ ⋅ Rush to your local bookstore and get 'Yankees, Typewriters, Scandals, and Cooperstown,' a baseball memoir by New York Daily News Hall of Fame hardball scribe Bill Madden. It's a great walk through baseball's golden days when reporters had incredible access and were able to tell you what the owners, managers, players, and scouts were like. ⋅ 1. Quiz answers: 1: Carl Yastrzemski (1,844), Ted Williams (1,839), David Ortiz (1,530), Jim Rice (1,451), Dwight Evans (1,346), Bobby Doerr (1,247); 2: Giancarlo Stanton, Mike Trout, Paul Goldschmidt, Freddie Freeman, Manny Machado, Nolan Arenado. Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at
