On January 29, 2017 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):
On Facebook, I wrote: Yesterday I received another BCB card, this time it was from Austin, TX and it was of Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk.
The greatest catcher the Red Sox and New England ever produced, Pudge Fisk was unceremoniously told to leave because the Boston front office was both cheap and inept.
Fisk literally changed his sox, going to Chicago and tormenting the AL for another decade plus. And he usually saved his best games to beat his old team. I remember being at a game where Eric Hetzel was dominating the Pale Hose, but the Red Sox couldn't score a run. In the eighth inning he left a ball up in the zone and Fisk hit it to Cambridge. Final score 1-0, Chicago.
Durable as hell, Fisk also is one of a handful of players to see MLB action in four decades. In short, screw you Haywood Sullivan for letting Fisk go and trying to replace him with your banjo hitting kid.
2019: There's not a hell of a lot that I can add to this entry. I mean there is, but if you know anything about baseball in the last 30 years, there's nothing more than I can add. Carlton Fisk was beloved in New England because he was one of us (born in New Hampshire, grew up in Vermont) and he represented what we all want to be. Fisk was a hard working, no shit taking, tough-ass Hall of Famer who was not only great day in and day out playing the roughest and most cerebral position on the field but rose to the occasion during the big moments (see Game 6, 1975 World Series).
No matter what we do, we'd all like to think that we're the Carlton Fisk of our jobs. Deep down you know whether that's true or not*.
* It's funny, my dad coached my brother's Little League team and the parent of the worst kid on the team used to call my father after every game and yell at him over the (perceived) lack of playing time the kid got -- BTW, this kid did not like baseball at all. The one thing he'd say to my dad practically every time was, "You're making a mistake [redacted] is the next Carlton Fisk! He should play more!" Even almost a decade after Fisk left Boston and was slinking into the decline of his career, people were using him as the example of greatness. That's how transcendent Fisk was.
In any event when Fisk left, Red Sox fans were pissed. They were pissed when Lynn and Burleson and Tiant and Lee were all shipped out of town; but they were really mad when Fisk packed up and went to Chicago. And when the Sox said it was a mail snafu, fans were doubly angry. It never should have got to that point, they screamed. And they were right. Haywood Sullivan was a shitty owner and his kid, Marc was an even shittier catcher. I guess it's wrong to blame Marc Sullivan for his spot on the Red Sox roster -- what would you have done? -- but if there was ever a human avatar for the bumbling of the Red Sox front office in the 1980s, it was him.
Anyway, time heals most wounds and Fisk came back to the Red Sox and has worked with the team in some nebulous front office position. It's kind of how he got his 27 retired. Even though I got into baseball five years after Fisk changed socks and all I knew him was a Chicago guy, I like Carlton Fisk on the Red Sox.
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