My Favorite Red Sox Players 25-21

 

25. Mike Greenwell

Man, I wanted Greenwell to continue that unbroken Sox left field MVP lineage of Willams, Yaz and Rice. If Canseco didn’t have a monster 1988, it’s probable that Greenwell would have been number four.

But he did (with better living through chemicals), Greenie fell short and ended up as the American League MVP bridesmaid. For ten seasons Greenwell wasn’t a perennial MVP candidate but he was really good. He hit for average, more than a little power and was a fun player to root for.

He wasn’t fast nor could he field the easiest position in the Majors (left field at Fenway) but you could do a lot worse with Greenwell hitting third in the lineup.

He played in Game Six (struck out on three straight pitches), often destroyed centerfield teammate Ellis Burks because he was a disaster in left and got his ass handed to him when he tried to big time Mo Vaughn in the batting cages when the Hit Dog was a rookie. However he was never boring. I like dudes with personality on the Sox.

Fun fact, I personally saw him hit an inside-the-park grand slam against the Yankees. How about that?

24. Roger Clemens

Speaking of better living through chemistry.

Am I a Roger Clemens fan today? No. I can’t say that I am. Do I hate him as much as I did 20 years ago? Also no. But 35+ years ago he was, without a doubt, my absolute favorite player in the world.

These caveats all count for something in the rankings.

We don’t have to go through Clemens’ career high/low lights: MVP and a billion Cy Young awards, two 20K games, a couple of World Series titles, HGH, an extramarital relationship with an underage girl, playing for the Yankees, inability to beat Dave Stewart or Pedro Martinez when it matters, his unique ability to completely psyche himself out on the mound on front of 40,000 people.

It’s all part of the Clemens stew that made Roger, Roger. I don’t know. Aside from 1986 when he came on like a rocket (pun intended), I can’t say that I enjoyed the Roger Clemens experience. I remember making more excuses for him during his Sox career than actually enjoying him pitch.

I guess that’s what you do when you’re young and have sports idols, isn’t it? The ump was obviously squeezing him, his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shoelaces were too tight, the manager removed him from the game against his will, he was just too pumped up for this important game. It was always something.

Rooting for Roger Clemens was never easy as he mixed transcendent dominance with abject frustration and by the time he left I think everyone was just plain exhausted of the rocket ride. If he finished the twilight of his career in Toronto and Houston, I think we all would’ve been okay.

But he didn’t.

Add that to the pile of complexity that is Roger Clemens.

23. Nate Eovaldi

Can a journeyman who pitched one awesome game and lost be a favorite? He can if he’s Nate Eovaldi.

Game three of the 2018 World Series between the Dodgers and the Red Sox was one of the all-time greatest games in Fall Classic history. It took 18 innings, SEVEN hours and 20 minutes and only five runs total were scored.

It was one of the most tense games I’ve ever fallen asleep to. I know that sounds crazy but it started at 8:00 pm and ended after 3:00 am.

Eovaldi was the loser in this game as he gave up a walk-off homer to LA third baseman Max Muncy but he saved the Sox pitching staff that night as he gutted through six (mostly shutout) innings.

The Red Sox went on to take the next two games and won the Series that year. Much like Tim Wakefield taking the bullet for the staff in Game Three of the 2004 ALCS, I don’t think the Sox beat LA without Eovaldi pitching his arm off in this game.

When we think of how we’d be as pro athletes, I think a lot of us would say “I'm a team player” and “I don’t care about my health as long as the team wins” but it’s bullshit. Most people don’t put team first because it’s hard to do that. And a lot of times if you do do that and you get hurt, you’re screwed.

So it’s nice when a player does that. And that’s what Nate Eovaldi did on that October 2018 night. For that he’ll always be one of my favorite players and I wish he was still with the club.

22. Andrew Benintendi

The outfield for the Red Sox in the late teens (Benintendi, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Mookie Betts) is my favorite outfield ever.

They were young and full of promise. They played hard and hit and fielded and were fast but they looked like they had a lot of fun. They epitomized the joy of baseball for me. They reminded me of what it was like to play ball with your buddies.

That’s what I like most about sports, but baseball in general. One of the reasons why you watch the seemingly endless parade of games is because it connects you to something in your past.

Whether it’s at Fenway Park or on the diamond at the Town Park in Amesbury, at its best, baseball is about the relationships you make with your teammates.

The three Bs had that strong bond, or at least it seemed like they did.

Benintendi came up last and had the most hype. He was a high draft pick from the University of Arkansas and he was the kid that might be the best. Mookie had the MVP, Jackie had the highlight reel of unbelievable catches, but Benintendi was going to be the one who outdid both of them.

Fun fact: I saw Benintendi’s first pro homer when he was a member of the Lowell Spinners. He turned on a fastball and launched it out of LeLacheur Park. It was crushed and I thought, this kid’s the real deal.

Unfortunately Benintendi was good (he made the All-Star team after the Sox traded him the Kansas City) and he had his moments (his defense in the 2018 postseason is iconic) but he never quite lived up to the hype.

He’s bounced around the league but by the end of his career there will be nothing to be ashamed of, but that potential of youth. That’s what I’ll remember most.

Again another connection for us all.

21. Don Baylor

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the 1986 Red Sox and how they were the first team that I really was obsessed with. Aside from my obsessiveness, there were a ton of things that I noticed for the first time.

One of these firsts were the first time a player who wasn’t homegrown had a great year for the Sox. That player was Baylor. I was used to players like Jim Rice, Dwight Evans, Wade Boggs, Roger Clemens, Rich Gedman, Bruce Hurst and Oil Can Boyd being good for the Sox. They came up through their system and (theoretically) you watched their careers unfold. Since this was my first year of following baseball, I knew that these guys were good because of course they’re good; that's how baseball works. .

But it wasn’t until this year that I fully understood that team actually acquire good players too. When I looked on the back of Baylor’s baseball card (he was pictured as a Yankee!) and saw his numbers, the amount of teams and that he was the 1979 MVP, I was shocked.

“Why wouldn’t you keep a guy like that forever? Why did the Orioles and A’s and Angels and Yankees let him go? He’s good!”

But at the same time, I thought it was awesome that he was good for the Sox. How did we get so lucky? Not only was he good on the field but supposedly he was a good guy in the clubhouse. The papers say he runs the team’s Kangaroo Court.

What the fuck is a Kangaroo Court? Why do they need this? Why don’t we have one of these on my Little League team? It sounded so cool.

Between the bombs, the frozen ropes he hit for doubles and being a Kangaroo Court judge—a role he played on a bunch of other clubs—Don Baylor was built like a brick shithouse and seemed exotic to me because of his well traveled resume. Plus he got hit by the pitch a lot. And it never looked like it hurt him. New guy, awesome guy, tough guy. So cool.

Like I said he produced too. In ALCS Game Five against his old team, it was Baylor who got the ninth inning started with a home run off Mike Witt in the top of the ninth.

Without that dinger, Dave Henderson is just another guy who made a mistake that lost Boston a big game. Baylor was a catalyst in more ways than one and made a lot of things happen in 1986–including a dropped foul pop up in Clemens’ 20K game. If he catches that, Clemens finishes with 19.

Every team should have a Don Baylor type. That's just smart baseball.

Daryl Irvine 1992 Fleer

Sometime in the last two or three months, I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

 

 

 

I don’t recall anything about Daryl Irvine’s days in Boston. According to the back of this card, Daryl was “one of the top closers in the minor leagues [and] will try to graduate to the big leagues in 1992.” He played three years in the Bigs (1990, 1991 and 1992) and was the exact opposite of what you want in a closer.

 

In 63.1 career innings, Irvine gave up 71 hits, 33 walks and only struck out 27 batters. Not surprisingly, his ERA was astronomical: 5.68; so not only did he put runners on base, but he let them score too. No matter how good he was in the minors—not good, actually he pretty much had the same kind of issues down there—he wasn’t going to close for anyone unless he missed some bats.

 

When I wrote about Dana Kiecker a few weeks back, we talked about that 1990 team and Irvine was a part of that team, he pitched in 11 games. But the other two years he pitched, the Red Sox weren’t great. They had their moments in 1991, but in 92 the Red Sox were so bad. Tom Brunansky led the team with 15 home runs. Bob Zupcic led the team in batting average: .276, over Wade Boggs who managed to hit .259!

 

The team finished with 73 wins, but if you look at their roster, they should have been able to put something together: Boggs, Mo Vaughn, JodyReed, Tony Pena, John Valentin, Ellis Burks, Mike Greenwell (the latter two were apparently hurt) plus Brunansky. Add in older dudes like Billy Hatcher, Jack Clark plus young kids like Phil Plantier, Scott Cooper and Tim Naehring and I mean, they could have been league average or better, if they hit.

 

The pitching was kind of a mess with solid years from RogerClemens and Frank Viola heading the rotation and Jeff Reardon closing, but everything after that was a complete disaster. Plus they had Butch Hobson managing, who was clearly way, way over his head.

 

Fun fact: 1992 was the only year since 1986 that I haven’t seen a game live at Fenway. I’m not sure why, but I decided to sit this year out; which is odd because I’ve seen some really shitty Red Sox teams play baseball. I wish that I saw the Sox play at least one game that season because it’s easier to say, “I’ve been to Fenway for 37 straight years” instead of “I’ve been to Fenway for 37 straight years, except for 1992. So I guess I’ve only been to the park for 30 straight years.”

 

That’s right, if I had a time machine, I wouldn’t go back and kill baby Hitler; I’d go back and watch the 1992 Red Sox in Fenway Park so that uninteresting personal anecdotes would be easier for me to relay.

 

Anyway Boston was apparently unimpressed with righthander and Irvine was sent to the Pittsburgh Pirates after the 1992 season. This was year one of the Pirates annual depths-of-the-division league tour that they’ve been perpetually on since Barry Bonds took his talents to San Francisco. Andy Van Slyke was still there, as was Jay Bell and Jeff King but other than future Red Sox Tim Wakefield and Stan Belinda, the staff was a complete and total disaster. Irvine should have been used to the chaos.

 

Ultimately it didn’t matter as Irvine was never able to put his chaotic team experience to good use as he never got a call up to Pittsburgh. Through the very perfunctory research that I’ve done, I can’t tell when he retired, but I bet it was pretty soon after that. According to Wikipedia, he lives in Harrisonburg, VA.

 

What does Daryl Irvine do all day? I’m not sure, but the way that his baseball career went, I’d be surprised if he thought about his days in the Major Leagues. I prefer to think about how he was drafted by the Red Sox three times over a couple of drafts—I guess the Sox liked him very much at one point. He probably thinks of his dominance in high school and college and how at one point everyone he knew wanted to be Daryl Irvine.

 

I think that’s what I’d think about as I’m relaxing on my porch in Harrisonburg, VA. I wouldn’t be thinking about the boring-ass drive from Pawtucket to Boston, sitting around in a cramped, sweaty bullpen waiting to get my brains beat in. That’s for god damn sure.

 

Maybe I’d show some neighborhood kids my baseball card if they asked, but I’d say, “that was a long time ago” and dramatically stare off into the distance. That wistful drama is almost cooler than having a lot of success at the Major League level. 

 

Almost. 

Scott Cooper 1992 Pinnacle

On September 11, 2016 I received this card from the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB):

This is what I wrote on Facebook:

I received a belated birthday gift in the mail yesterday from the Baseball Card Bandit. Two-time All Star Scott Cooper. 

A cornerstone of some terrible Red Sox teams, Cooper was the only player deemed worthy of joining the Mid Summer Classic. 

Thanks to you Scott Cooper for giving us a bench mark for true mediocrity!

2019 Notes: I think that when people talk about how crappy those early 1990s Red Sox teams were, Scott Cooper is the shorthanded reference which needs to be said. Like I wrote a few years back, Cooper was a two-time (!!!) All-Star representative from Boston and it was because no one on those teams were very good. 

In both games, he came in for the guy he replaced in Boston; Wade Boggs. 

The Red Sox were pretty bad in 1993, but Cooper probably shouldn't have gone to the ASG. Mo Vaughn had a much better OPS+ (Cooper didn't even crack 100), John Valentin did, Roger Clemens could have made it on his name alone -- even Danny Darwin and Mike Greenwell deserved it more than Cooper. The same players, except for Darwin, all had the same arguments the following year when Cooper inexplicably made it again. 

I suppose there were less really good third basemen in the league than there were first basemen, shortstops, outfielders and starting pitchers. Like a lot of things in life, Cooper was just the right guy at the right place at the right time. Or maybe Cito Gaston -- the World Champion Toronto Blue Jays manager who chose the reserves for the 93 and 94 teams -- really liked him for some reason. 

I don't know. 

But I do know that in the annals of baseball history, there are a lot of bad choices for All Star teams; but there isn't many worse for two-time All Stars. 

After everyone came back from the 1994 strike, Cooper was traded to St. Louis where he lasted with the Cardinals for one year. After the 1995 season he played for a year in Japan with the Seibu Lions and then came home. In 1997, he moved across Missouri and signed with the Royals where he finished his career.

Mike Greenwell 1991 Topps

On May 18, 2016, I got the above card in my mailbox and wrote the following on Facebook later that day:

“The game is afoot! Look who I found in my mailbox today. I hope I get a Phil Plantier tomorrow.”

Yeah. It’s not Shakespeare, I know. I was still trying to find my footing with this whole Baseball Card Bandit (BCB) thing and wasn’t sure exactly where this thing was going*.

* To be honest, I still don’t know. At Aly’s 40^th birthday party dinner on Saturday, someone asked me if I knew who the BCB is, I said that I did and told them a name. The entire room stopped, everyone looked at me and shook their head and told me I was one thousand percent wrong. So I’m not sure whether they were all screwing with me by trying to throw me off the scent or whether they were being truthful.

It reminds me of the Epimenides Paradox. From 19^th Century English academic Thomas Fowler via 21^st Century academic Wikipedia: “Epimenides the Cretan says, 'that all the Cretans are liars,' but Epimenides is himself a Cretan; therefore he is himself a liar. But if he be a liar, what he says is untrue, and consequently the Cretans are veracious; but Epimenides is a Cretan, and therefore what he says is true; saying the Cretans are liars, Epimenides is himself a liar, and what he says is untrue. Thus we may go on alternately proving that Epimenides and the Cretans are truthful and untruthful."

Back to Mike Greenwell. Greenwell played 17 games in 1985, 31 in 1986 and was part of the American League Championship Series and World Series roster that year. I know a lot about the Red Sox, I’m no Thomas Fowler, but I know a bunch about the team. I remember Greenwell whiffing badly in Game Six of the World Series, but if you had told me that he got into 31 games that season, I would have thought you were lying – like Epimenides!

Greenwell didn’t really come into my fan consciousness until 1987, when he and Ellis Burks teamed up to be “The Gold Dust Twins V2.0”*. It was thought that not only was Greenwell going to carry on the Boston leftfield legacy for another generation (Ted Williams to Carl Yastrzemski to Jim Rice to Mike Greenwell) but that he and Burks were going to be the second coming (though mirror images) of Rice and Fred Lynn.

* Every time the Red Sox have two rookies come up in the same year and experience a little bit of success, the Boston Media falls all over itself to call them the incredibly clichéd “Gold Dust Twins”. It happens all the time. From Greenwell and Burks to Mo Vaughn and Phil Plantier to Mookie Betts and Xander Boegarts, you can bet your mortgage that someone (probably Boston Herald writer Steve Buckley or Globe scribe Dan Shaughnessy) is going to write a breathless column wondering if this new duo is the next GDT. Guys, I’m begging you, come up with a new name. Please.

Things were looking pretty good for Mike Greenwell in his first two years. He was an All-Star in 1988 (and 89) while finishing behind Jose Canseco (who was the first player to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases when that was a HUGE thing) in the Most Valuable Player race*. Injuries took its toll on the Gator (that’s what he was called I guess because he was from Florida**) and he never reached the heights of that magical 1988 season.

* In the 2000s Canseco admitted to using steroids during the 1988 season, Greenwell began banging the drum that HE should now get the 88 MVP trophy because his former teammate (they ended up on the Sox together in 1995) was a cheater. That seemed kind of dumb, a waste of time and a bit desperate. Greenwell knew that he wasn’t going to retroactively get the award, right?

He was out of baseball at the age of 32 in 1996.

Greenwell was an interesting player and drama always seemed to find him. He was a butcher in left field and there were times when it seemed that he was going to inadvertently kill Ellis Burks** when the two would chase a fly ball. He would constantly say dumb things to the press and then get into fights with reporters over what he said. He got into a fight with Mo Vaughn while they were taking afternoon batting practice because Vaughn didn’t “know his place”.

** According to Wikipedia, he found an alligator, taped up its mouth and threw it in Burks’ locker room. I’m not sure if this is a true story, but if it is, do you see what I mean about him trying to murder Ellis Burks? What the fuck, Mike? Jesus.

That wasn’t a racial thing, but more a veteran-rookie thing. I guess in the baseball world if a veteran wanted to hit BP, he’d just cut in front of a rookie and the first-year guy was just supposed to shut up and take it (baseball players are just the worst—they really are). Vaughn never took any crap from anyone so they exchanged words which led to the rolling around on the dirt in Anaheim. It was kind of a big deal in the papers that week because by this point the Red Sox sucked, the Patriots stunk and it was too early to figure out whether Larry Bird and Cam Neely were going to suit up for their respective winter teams. So, it was all Gator and Mo, all the time.

At that point, I was pretty much done with Mike Greenwell. He devolved into an injury-plagued iron glove who didn’t hit with much power, but carried himself as top echelon guy. He was an extremely destitute man’s Wade Boggs, without the defense and the eccentric behavior. Greenwell also seemed to embody every dumb stereotype of Florida in one package: he loved NASCAR, he had that dumb, unironic mustache, that slow drawl and cackle.

Mo Vaughn was from the Northeast and he had that East Coast swagger. He was the future of the Sox and everyone knew it.  Mo talked big, he hit big and this hulk of a dude was going to lead the Sox somewhere. The Hit Dog (as Vaughn was known as) also seemed like a genuinely good guy—we all knew about his charity—and he sounded smart (though later we found out he did a lot of dumb things) especially compared to the Gator (both nicknames were pretty dumb in retrospect). When Mo chucked Greenwell around the Big A, it felt as if it was a palace coup and Vaughn was now in charge.

Unfortunately, Mo lead the Boston Red Sox to the same place that Greenwell did: an ass-kickings in the first round of the playoffs.

Looking back on Greenwell, he had a decent career: he hit for a better than decent average, had an okay batting eye, could drive in runs (he holds the all-time record for most Game Winning RBIs in a season with 23 in 1988, a record that will never fall because Major League Baseball no longer recognizes it as a valid statistic) and made $22 million. I’d take that.

And to be honest, it probably was unfair of me to project my feelings onto a guy I never met and only “knew” through 30-second soundbites. Greenwell probably wasn’t an Everglades Einstein, but who cares. The guy was paid to hit and he did a relatively decent job at it.

What's crazy to me is that Greenwell's son Bo was drafted by the Indians in 2007 and spent six years in the club's minor league system before going over to the Sox in 2014. His baseball career is done. Damn it, I feel old. 

Ever since John Henry and his crew came to own the Red Sox, they’ve done a lot of outreach with Red Sox alumni, even ones that left town acrimoniously (and there are a lot that have done just that). But the one guy you never see at the ballpark is Mike Greenwell. The guy played his entire career with one team: the Boston Red Sox, he was a star when the team desperately needed new ones and with better PR, he could have been the first version of Kevin Millar.

Come back Greenie, all is forgiven. Mostly.