31. Rickey Henderson
This year I'm doing a countdown of my all-time Top 31 Favorite Boston Red Sox players. Note: these are players that I consciously remember seeing play. So Ted Williams, Yaz, Luis Tiant, Fred Lynn, Moe Berg aren't on the list.
Kicking off the list is one of my top five favorite baseball players of all time. He didn't contribute a lot to the Boston club, though he did have his moments. He was old, but still funny as hell. And it was awesome just to watch him get into his crouch and hit.
I'm talking about the one and only Rickey Henderson. When I was a kid, my brother and I worshipped Rickey. We thought that he was the absolute pinnacle of speed and power and cool. Having him on the Red Sox, even if he was a shadow of himself, was a dream come true.
Rickey is Rickey is Rickey now matter how old he was.
30. Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd
Number 30 on the list of my All-Time Favorite Red Sox players is one Mr. Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd. He was temperamental, a little crazy but loved to pitched. He kept going well into his 40s in different pro and semi pro leagues.
If he made the All-Star team in 1986 (and he probably should have), could things have been different for him and the Sox that year? Maybe he wouldn't have gotten blasted the night before Game 7 of the World Series and be counted on to pitch instead of Al Nipper? Who knows? But that was the Can.
I have a feeling that if Boyd pitched a generation later, he'd have been something. There was a lot of bullshit that he had to deal with that had he had a more sympathetic front office or supporting system, it may have benefited him greatly. Even in this burst of a career, he shown brightly.
Boddicker may no longer be a widely remembered name in Boston but when the Sox got him in 1988 (for minor leaguers Curt Schilling and Brady Anderson) he was the perfect number three starter (behind Clemens and Hurst).
A control pitcher with a dominating hook, Boddicker was quietly component and was the pitcher that you depended on most in the ensuing years. Yes, even more than the combustible Roger Clemens.
I liked watching him pitch because he was thinking out there, seemingly a step or two ahead of the hitter. You could do worse with a staff that had Mike Boddicker at the two or three position. Had the Sox kept Bruce Hurst after the 1988 season and they had a starting staff of Clemens, Hurst and Boddicker; they could have done some stuff during that time. Maybe, just maybe, they could've have slid past the A's one year--provided one of these guys got hot.
28. John Marzano
Number 28 in the list of my favorite Red Sox is a guy who’s every one’s Olympic hero. Yes, I’m talking about John Marzano.
Part of the stacked 1984 Olympic team Marzano was drafted by the Sox, given very opportunity to win a job and ended up as the team’s backup catcher. He had his moments and he was a part of the wave of exciting rookies that made their debuts in 1987.
Marzano was the classic, if he was on a great team, then he must be great too type of players. That 1984 Olympic team was legendary by the time Marzano hit the scene: Barry Larkin, Will Clark, Mark McGwire, BJ Surhoff; if Marzano was on that team, he had to be great, right? It doesn't always work out that way. Marzano made the majors, which is awesome. He hung around for a bunch of years, also awesome. But he was never really a star.
However, for a little while he held the hope of being the next star.
But what I like most about John Marzano is his takes on the Red Sox message board Sons of Sam Horn. Whoever that person is, they know their stuff. This entry is a salute to that guy (or gal)!
27. Lee Smith
The day the Sox got Lee Smith, I was truly shocked. It may have been the first time the Sox have shocked me in a good way. And it was for Calvin Schiraldi and Al Nipper. Smith’s first game was tough, he blew an Opening Day save against the Tigers, but he was nails for 1988 and 89.
For some reason GM Lou Gorman signed Jeff Reardon in the 89 offseason and so the Sox had two really great closers on the roster at once. The idea was that Gorman was going to trade Smith despite the promise that "both men will share the closing duties", which even back then seemed like the biggest pile of shit ever. In May Smith was sent to St. Louis for Tom Brunansky, who was fine. And that was it for Lee Arthur in Boston.
All in all, I'd rather have saved the Reardon money, kept Smith and not had Brunansky. Gorman was so weird because by the early-90s, it seemed that he was trying to recapture the glory of the 1987 Minnesota Twins with Reardon, Brunansky and Frank Viola all on the roster. I mean they did win the World Series, but they really shouldn't have; both the Tigers (and Blue Jays) and Cards were so much better than them.
I never understood why Gorman spent the money on Reardon. No one has ever explained it either other than Gorman like Reardon better. But that was Lou Gorman in a nutshell, sometimes he could make a brilliant move (like getting Lee Smith for nothing) and then he could turn around and make a dumb move (like signing Reardon when Smith is already on your roster).
26. Wade Boggs
He’s number 26 on your scorecard and number 26 on this list. Of course I’m talking about the guy who literally can drink the most beers—and not some fabrication your dumbest friend in college made up—Wade Boggs.
Getting on base, working his ass off to be play a good third base, walking. That was stuff for wimps. I wanted one-dimensional homerun hitters on my team. I wanted guys who were fast and athletic. And when he did decide to hit home runs, like he did in 1987 (a years everyone did, incidentally) I used that against him.
Boggs was a strange dude that I never appreciated but I should have. All he did was hit. And hit. And hit. That’s not easy at all. In fact it’s probably more difficult than swinging from your heals every at bat.
A lot of people hold it against him that he went to the Yankees but the Sox released him and New York offered him a job, what else was he suppose to do? Not only that but Boston let him languish in the minors for years despite him being ready for prime time.
I’d have probably told the Sox to pound sand too.
