My Favorite Red Sox Players 10-6

 

10. Mo Vaughn

In the early 90s, the Red Sox had a problem. The perception around the league, which was more Black than it is now, was that the Red Sox didn’t want Black players. It was hard to argue as Ellis Burks was the only African American on the roster for a year or two.

Black players were straight up telling reporters that there was no way that they’d play for the Sox because the organization and the city made them uncomfortable. As a fan of the Sox and Boston (Massachusetts has been my home forever), that really bummed me out. I’m not Black, so I can never fully understand what they were saying but it made me angry.

Not angry at Black players of course, but angry at the situation as a whole. The Sox had to be aware of the perception of the city, why the fuck weren’t they being more open to Black players? Every time the press asked about it, they’d get blown off. Why didn’t they care?

Then Mo was promoted. Unlike the more shy Burks, Vaughn came up and immediately began asking the tough questions. “Why weren’t there more Black players in the clubhouse?” “How come Black fans don’t feel comfortable in Fenway?” “What is this organization doing about it?”

Finally a person who got it. Predictably older columnists, like Will McDonough, fought back. Some fans told him to essentially “shut up and hit”. But Mo kept talking. Louder and louder. Until someone did something.

The thing is, unless Mo was producing, no one would listen to him. But he was hitting, he hit for average. He hit long bombs. Drove in runs. Pretty much anything offensive that the Sox needed him to do, he did. He won (actually probably stole) the MVP in 1995 from Albert Belle. Reporters hated the notoriously prickly Belle and I’m convinced the votes for Mo were actually votes against Belle. Though TBH John Valentin had a case to beat both of them.

If I was a Cleveland fan, I’d probably still be pissed. But I’m not, so sucks for Belle, I guess.

Mo never delivered the ultimate prize for the Sox, no matter who his running mate was—Jose Canseco, Nomar to name a few—but he kept trying. In 1998 Mo knew he wasn’t going to get the money he felt he deserved in Boston so he went to Anaheim and became an Angel. He had a decent first year there, then got injured, gained weight and bounced to the Mets for his last few seasons.

But Mo Vaughn was a catalyst for change in Boston. He showed the league that Boston can embrace an opinionated Black man. Mo set the stage for players like Pedro, Manny, Ortiz, Betts, players of color who spoke their mind. If he won a few championships maybe he could’ve been our generation’s Bill Russell? But we should still honor what he did both on the field and off.

9. Tim Wakefield

Everyone thinks they’re a good teammate. But that’s probably not true. If you’ve ever been on a team you’ll know that there are anxieties, jealousies, selfishness. For all of the rah-rah, "we're a team!" stuff that gets thrown around any locker room, at the end of the day, sports is kind of a selfish pursuit. This is especially true when things start to go south and the team is floundering. You end up playing for yourself in the hopes you get noticed so you can get off this dumb team.

But every once in a while there’s a person on your team who’s relentlessly positive with out being corny, helpful without being a nag, someone who continually does the right thing and isn’t expecting anything back.

I never made the Major Leagues but I’ve read/heard enough stories to know that every team is filled with ultra Alpha type athletes who have never had a bad thing happen to them on the field. Guys whose outwardly confidence is high into the stratosphere and are used to being the best player in any team they’ve been a part of. They’re so good they’re not expected to be good teammates. That’s a job for shitty players.

Getting to the Majors and learning to be a good teammate and sacrifice for the benefit of the other players, that’s not really a part of most athletes' tool box. But every so often its obvious when a team has a good guy like that truly puts team first.

On the Sox from 1995 until 2011, that guy was Tim Wakefield. His first year in Boston he was picked up off the scrap heap—Pittsburgh dumped him in Buffalo and the Red Sox were desperately in need of starters so they grabbed him. Wakefield pitched a game in Anaheim limiting the Angels to a few hits then shut out the A’s TWO days later in Oakland. And he was off. I’ve seen Clemens, Pedro, Schilling, Beckett, Lester, Sale and others pitch but Wakefield going 14-1 for a stretch in that season for the Sox was truly unbelievable.

He was a mainstay of the pitching staff for the rest of his career. He worked out of the pen as a mop-up guy, a closer, a seventh inning bridge. He was a member of the starting rotation. He was a spot starter. Whatever he had to do, he did. Sometimes he was really good, sometimes he was really bad. Sometimes I couldn’t wait for his next start, other times I wondered why the Sox were employing a knuckleballer. But I never doubted that he gave everything to the team.

When the Sox needed innings in Game 3 of 2004 ALCS, Wakefield gave it to them. Without his sacrifice and a rested bullpen, the Sox don’t win four straight over the Yanks. He was left off the 2007 World Series roster, Wakefield didn’t raise a stink. He just cheered on his teammates from the bench.

The lowest part of his career had to be giving up the walkoff homer to Aaron Boone in the 2003 ALCS. Apparently he was weeping in his locker wondering if he’d be his generation’s Bull Buckner. Like Buckner, Wakefield didn’t deserve those goat horns and luckily it never came to that for him. Tim Wakefield was beloved by New England. In his last year he made the All-Star team and then left the mound for good. He worked for NESN almost immediately after his retirement so it seemed like he never left us.

On the last day of a miserable 2023 season, Tim Wakefield passed away. The sadness that enveloped Red Sox nation was immense and heartfelt. Wakefield may have been from Florida, but he was like one of us (hell, we named a town after the guy!) and whether it was because of his countless hours of charity or the way that Wakefield was so brave going to he mound armed with nothing a knuckleball and a dump truck full of resilience, he seemed like the type of guy you wish you could be.

Wakefield was a rock.

8. Dwight Evans

If you have a brother you might share a bunch of stuff: a room, toys, clothes. But the one thing you don’t share are your heroes. You can both like the same player, my brother and I both worshipped Bo Jackson and Rickey Henderson, but inevitably one person likes the player a little more and he becomes “yours”.

When my brother Jay and I were younger, I thought Jim Rice was the best and he really liked Dwight Evans. I’m not sure why he did but he talked a lot about Dwight Evans. I liked Dewey too but eventually Jay moved on to Don Mattingly (he’d kill me if he knew I was putting this out into the universe) and then others, but Evans was his first.

While I told you about voraciously defend Jim Rice from 6-4-3 jokes, I was also watching Dewey and getting a real strong impression for him. Truthfully he did a lot of stuff Rice didn’t do, he hit for a higher average, he seemed a little faster, defensively he was amazing and he had a cannon for an arm. Rice had a little more power (though Evans wasn’t a slouch) and he also had a few years where he put everything together and had a few monster seasons. Rice had higher highs but lower lows than Evans and that’s probably why he’s in Cooperstown.

But Evans deserves to be there too. I hate comparing two worthy HoF players but Evans played longer than Rice, was more consistent, his drop off wasn’t as sharp. And like I said, his defense was unparalleled. No one ran on Dwight Evans. And the catch he made in Game Six of the 1975 World Series? Amazing. Carlton Fisk doesn’t become CARLTON FISK without that catch. If that didn’t happen then what does Robin Williams talk about to Matt Damon in “Goodwill Hunting”? Not only does Fisk owe Dewey something but Ben Affleck and Damon do as well.

In any event it wasn’t just Evans’ production that everyone loved. He had a long road from prospect to All-Star. He got beaned in the head which resulted in a massive concussion and eventually messed with his confidence at the plate. He had his entire swing remastered by Walt Hriniak mid-career, which no one liked, especially Ted Williams. When the greatest hitter of all time calls you out, it must be tough.

But he worked hard and improved every year at the plate. Getting on base, hitting bombs (remember when he hit a homerun on the first pitch of the 86 season off Jack Morris?), driving in runs. He showed you can improve and excel with age. As the years went by, he became a New England institution. But it wasn't just the production, it was the other things. Like yelling “DEWWWWWWW!” when he was at bat. It was the Selleck-esque mustache. It was imitating his batting style—the toe tap, leaning all the way back before uncoiling—during Wiffle Ball. It was knowing that a right fielder isn’t the shittiest player on the field, with your arm and glove, you can make a difference.

After the Sox let him go he played a year on Baltimore, which was weird to see him in Oriole orange, but the California kid came back to the Bay State.

A few years ago I saw him at Capitol Grille here in Burlington. I was with my wife and another couple and I whispered to them, “holy shit, that’s Dwight fucking Evans” and before they could answer I yelled, “DEWEY!” He turned around, pointed at me, said “Hey!” and asked me what I was eating. I think I said steak and he said, “great choice” then floated away.

I was beside myself. Dwight Evans asked me what i was eating. And I called him Dewey, a name I’ve heard that he absolutely hates. Who gives a shit, we’re best friends now.

I wish I could ask my brother what he thinks of Dewey. Whether he still likes him a lot, whether he cares if he gets into Cooperstown. But that’s impossible because he passed away a few years back. And that’s okay because whenever I think of Evans I think of my brother as a little kid talking about him, mimicking him in the backyard and that’s enough.

It just makes me feel good. Isn’t that what baseball is supposed to do?

7. Jackie Bradley Jr.

Remember the controversy when JBJ made the big league team in 2013? Some people were worried that he wasn’t ready others were afraid that the Sox burnt a year of his eligibility and that he’d be a free agent sooner.

I was all kinda dumb. Turns out he wasn’t ready for prime time and the eligibility thing didn’t even matter. FTR, I was one of those people wailing about the eligibility. Nothing like a little indentured servitude masquerading as “doing what’s best for the team”!

Anyway, Bradley went to Pawtucket after those first couple of weeks and came up for good in 2014. For some reason I was all in on the JBJ experience. I knew he wasn’t the best overall player on the team, but I spent a lot of time wondering how good he could be.

What made him so confounding was that for three weeks, he’d absolutely carry the team offensively. Homers, big hits all over the place. Then you’d start to settle into thinking that Jackie has turned a corner and while he might not hit .600 for the rest of the season, the way he’s swinging he could easily reach half that.

Then he’d go into a six week funk where you wonder if he’s ever seen a baseball before much less hit one. He was the ultimate seesaw player. I think it was part of the lack of consistency that made him so appealing. Because even when he’d suck, you knew he’d eventually snap out of it. You just never knew when. Every day I’d check the box score to see whether yesterday was the day that JBJ was going to get on track. “0-4, not today, I guess. Maybe tomorrow.”

The one thing that never ebbed was his defense. I’ve been watching the Sox for longer than I care to admit and JBJ was the best defensive player I’ve ever watched. When JBJ was in his prime, I was addicted to Twitter. It was a different time and the app didn’t suck nearly half as much as it does now. But back in the day you could really cultivate what you wanted your feed to be and I mostly filled mine with funny people and sports. Baseball Twitter was amazing because the moment something happened, you saw it 40 million times on your feed. Big hit. Big pitch. Big catch. It didn’t matter, watching a game while scrolling Twitter was a lot of fun and I miss it.

The reason why I’m talking about Twitter is because JBJ was on my feed constantly with some sort of gravity defying catch. And like I said, I didn’t see it once but multiple multiple times. From different angles, in slow-mo, set to a song. I saw a lot of Jackie Bradley Jr. and his feats are imprinted in my brain. Does that have something to do with how I see him as the greatest defensive outfielder in my life? Maybe. But also hear me out, he just was.

There's a baseball cliche that says, "defense never takes a holiday" and JBJ was the personification of the argument “do you take a guy out of the lineup if he’s not hitting but he’s saving runs defensively?” In other words, how much does defense means?

Apparently a lot. I didn’t care that he was batting .230, I just wanted to watch Jackie rob homers and make sliding catches and gun people down (he had a very strong arm, which was nice after years of Johnny Damon, Coco Crisp and Jacoby Ellsbury). I just wanted the guy to hit because I was worried to how long a leash the Sox would give him.

At the end of the 2020 season the Sox sent him the Milwaukee (it was the very last transaction before the lockout) and for a year, and he was someone else’s worry. They brought him back a season later but he was cooked. Boston released him and he bounced around for a few teams. He played for the Long Island Ducks last year and hasn’t officially retired, but he’s pretty much done.

When looking back at his career, it’s nothing short of a huge success. He was an All-American at the University of South Carolina where he won an NCAA World Series. He was part of the Big Red Sox Machine of 2018, was ALCS MVP that year, won another ring in 2013, was an All-Star in 2016 and made over $55 million.

How can you not look back at that and see a success? Baseball is a tough fucking game full of inconsistencies, JBJ was able to navigate those into a nine-year career.

Not too shabby.

6. Nomar Garciaparra

It’s hard to say that Nomar came at a time when the Red Sox needed a superstar. They already had Mo Vaughn, so I guess what they needed was a new superstar.

Nomar showed up in 1997 took shortstop from incumbent John Valentin and didn’t stop hitting or fidgeting with his batting gloves—a tic that every Little Leaguer in New England immediately copied. That season Nomar crushed everything that came his way: fastballs, curves, sliders, knuckle balls, it didn’t matter. Nomar tattooed the wall like Wade Boggs in his prime.

A new generation of Sox fans loved him for it. He wasn’t Nomar, he was NOMMAHHHHHHHH. He won the Rookie of the Year and played every game with the biggest smile. I remember the last game of his rookie year he stayed around after the game and signed autographs for what seemed like days.

Nomar loved Boston and Boston loved Nomar. It was a match made in baseball heaven.

The next year, Nomar hit more than he did his rookie year. By 2000 he led the league with .372

average which was the highest average by a right handed hitter since Joe DiMaggio. As it often happens with athletes and this town, the love affair between Boston and Nomar was starting to lose some of its shine. The fans still loved him but the press was beginning to turn on him a little bit. And when he showed up shirtless and yoked on the cover of Sports Illustrated, whispers of steroids started to spread.

To make matters worse Nomar’s first name was starting to change to “the oft-injured” Nomar Garciaparra. And with the additions of brand new superstar players like Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, Johnny Damon and David Ortiz; someone was moving down in the pecking order of stars.

It all came to a head in the winter of 2003 when GM Theo Epstein had a deal to send Manny and Jon Lester (a throw in) to the Texas Rangers for Alex Rodriguez. Then the Red Sox were going to ship Nomar to the White Sox for Magglio Ordonez. But the complicated transaction didn’t pan out. To make matters worse teammate Kevin Millar went on SportsCenter and told the whole world that he’d rather ARod at short.

Yipes.

Things were awkward that spring and into summer as Nomar played but there seemed to be a dark cloud over shortstop. At the trading deadline, Epstein finally ripped off the Band-Aid and sent Nomar to the other Chicago team, the Cubs.

As you know, the Sox won the Series that year but Nomar was watching that him with his wife Mia Hamm. No one seemed to miss him.

Obviously, it’s awesome that the Sox won that year. I wouldn’t change any part of that drama for anything but it was a little sad that Nomar wasn’t there. He got a ring, but I’m sure it’s a hollow bauble.

In the late 90s Nomar gave us all something to cheer. It was the Golden Age of shortstops and while ARod was the best overall, Miguel Tejada won the MVPs, Edgar Renteria and Omar Vizquel won Gold Gloves and Derek Jeter had World Series trophies, no one hitter harder than Nomar (and I’m including ARod).

The skinny kid from Georgia Tech was amazing. And he looked like he was having so much fun too. Baseball is a lot like life, it can just wear you down after awhile. The glee and joy you find in your job or everyday life can evaporate in a second, if you’re not careful.

That’s why when you have that happiness you need to hold on to it as long as you can. Really drink it in. When I think of Nomar I choose to think of him as a pup slamming balls all over the park and signing autographs after.

I’m sure that’s the way he’d prefer to be remembered too; young and with a smile.

My Favorite Red Sox Players 15-11

 

15. Bill Mueller

It’s difficult to say that anyone on the 2004 Boston Red Sox is underrated—hell, little used reliever Curtis Leskanic receives hosannas when he comes back to town. This is all deserved, that team fucking rules.

But one of the more under appreciated, anonymous players was third baseman Bill Mueller. Yes, everyone knows about the glorious hit through the box against Mariano Rivera driving in Dave Roberts in the ninth inning of Game Four of the ALCS. That’s the hit that exposed a chink in the armor of the great beast. That's the hit that showed the Sox that the Russian can bleed. That’s the hit that began the greatest comeback in all of sports history.

But while absolutely amazing, that hit shouldn't have been a surprise. Mueller was a professional hitter. All he did was hit He hit at home. He hit on the road. Day games, he hit. Night games too. He pounded out hits against the American League. When it was time for interleague games, he hammered National League pitching. He hit in Spring Training, during the regular season and the post season.

During the ARod glove to the face game, who won that game with a ninth inning ding dong johnson off Rivera? Bill fucking Mueller did, that’s who.

Mueller came to the Sox in the 2002-03 offseason with David Ortiz, Kevin Millar and Jeremy Giambi. The Sox already had the immortal Shea Hillenbrand at third. Epstein wanted to improve production at first, third and DH. He figured that three of those five guys would solve those problems.

And he was right.

The first year Mueller was in Boston, the switch hitter lead the league in batting average. The second year he became the first hitter ever to hit two grand slams from each side of the plate in one game.

On a team full of extra large personalities, Mueller went about his work and perfected his craft. Hit after hit, game after game, season after season. He was a metronome. Not only could he hit for average and power but he was a damn fine third baseman. Did Mueller ever make an error? I’m sure he did. Do I remember any? No I don’t.

You may have heard of a comedian’s comedian or a writer’s writer, Bill Mueller was a ball player’s ball player. Everything he did was just right.

I loved watching him play.

14. Jon Lester

Lester is the best left handed that the Sox drafted and developed since Bruce Hurst and is probably the overall best pitcher to come out of their system since Roger Clemens.

It always sucks when the Sox (or any pro team) low balls a player, but it especially sucked with Lester. It was just weird for them to do that. He’s a home grown player that was beloved by the fans. Due to his battle with lymphoma, he was a tireless worker for the Jimmy Fund. Both his illness and charity work have increased his standing with the Boston fans and the Sox were like, “nah, we’ll move on”.

I get that pro sports is a business but I think that there are players you make an exception for. Jon Lester was one of those guys.

Lester came up in 2005 and had a pretty good year, he was 7-2 with a high ERA but there was enough there to think that he’d be a player. His sophomore season was interrupted when he was diagnosed with lymphoma.

After treatments he came back in the middle of 2007 season and provided a shot in the arm for the Sox pitching staff. He started—and won—Game 4 of the World Series, which happened to be the day my eldest daughter was born. It was a remarkable comeback and Lester kept rolling.

2008 saw him throw a no-hitter, and after two very solid seasons, he was named an All-Star in 2010. 2011 was a mixed bag for both the Sox and Lester as the team gagged a big lead and Lester was implicated in the “chicken and beer” fiasco that vilified 3/5s of the starting pitching staff.

The other two “culprits” Josh Beckett and John Lackey got far more scrutiny than Lester did but he got a bit. This was sort of a strange era for Lester. He was born and lived most of his life in Washington state but for some reason he began speaking with a Texas accent around this time. It was kinda like when Madonna married Guy Ritchie and she thought she was English. I don’t know whether it was because he wanted to impress the Texas born Beckett but it was annoying. I think he dropped it after Beckett was sent to LA as part of the Punto trade.

Dumb voice choices aside, in 2013 he was part of another World Series championship and the following year he was sent to the Oakland Athletics when he couldn’t come to terms with Boston on a contract extension.

Seeing Lester as an A was just strange, seeing him as a Cub wasn’t as strange but it didn’t look right either. Seeing him as a National or a Cardinal was not as jarring because I don’t recall these stops very much.

The Red Sox are like any other franchise, they make good moves and bad ones. Not signing Jon Lester was a particularly dumb one that took the Sox a few years to repair. There’s a cliche that says, “if the front office listens to the fans, they’ll soon be sitting with the fans” and that’s probably correct more times than it’s not.

This time, it wasn’t.

13. Dustin Pedroia

Baseball is the most democratic (small d) of all sports. What I mean by this is that it doesn’t matter how big you are, how fast you are, how tall you are; if you have great hand-eye coordination you will play. Chances are, you'll play well.

Dustin Pedroia is about a foot shorter than current star Aaron Judge. Despite their height differences both are former MVPs and both are Hall of Fame candidates. I think that many fans gravitate towards the Pedroia types because they see themselves in him.

It’s hard to see yourself as a football player, you have to be the size of a fridge and run faster than a Ferrari. Basketball? Only if you’re freakishly tall. Hockey player. Do you have world class hand-eye coordination? Cool. Can you do it on a millimeter thick piece of metal on ice?

Even someone like Judge is tough to relate to because he’s incredibly athletic for his height. But Pedroia? He’s 5’7”, I’m taller than 5’7”. Not only that but Pedroia played the game the way we think we’d play: all-out hustle, dirty uniform, getting your nose in everything.

Pedroia was more than that, of course. He could flat out rake and he was nails at second base. A leader on the team, he was acerbic and funny and he seemed like a genuinely cool guy. Everyone loved him from Terry Francona to David Ortiz to Alex Cora. The only person who didn’t seem to love him was Bobby Valentine, who was about as popular as rug burn in Boston.

He won an MVP award, Rookie of the Year, was a multiple All-Star and was part of three World Championship teams. So Pedroia was a mirage, right? Due to his height you may think you’re as good as him but you’re not. You’re nowhere near his level.

That’s okay. The world has use for mirages, it does the opposite of grounding us, it gives us hope. Without ballplayers like Dustin Pedroia, how are we to dream that we can do anything? Pedroia is essential to the MLB fan experience.

12. Jim Rice

Whenever you started following sports, you always had a first favorite player. Someone who was larger than life and could do no wrong. For me, that was Jim Rice. He was the first player that I can remember seeing on TV. In my mind’s eye, I can picture him at bat: 12 feet tall, weighing about 500 pounds gripping his bat like a toothpick just daring a pitcher to make a mistake.

By the time I started following the Sox, he was settling into a part of his career when the Fenway Faithful sorta took him for granted. This is an era that happens with all Boston greats where if they don’t deliver every. Single. Time. They’re overpaid bums. People used to joke that Rice’s license plate was 6-4-3, for his seeming propensity to bounce into double-plays “when the team needed him the most”. Of course, that’s not true, Rice delivered more times than not.

In 1986 Rice had his last really great year, leading (with Roger Clemens) the Sox to the World Series against the Mets. I think the Sox won that year but I also passed out for two weeks after the top of the tenth of Game 6, so who knows?

Speaking of World Series, in late 1975 Rice broke a bone when he was hit with a pitch by Angels pitcher Vern Ruhle. Considering how close that Series was without the slugger, could history have been different if a healthy Rice was in the lineup?

From all accounts Rice was considered “the most feared slugger in the American League” and he rode that perception into the Hall of Fame on his last year on the ballot. Should Jim Rice be in Cooperstown? I don't know. If you’re a small hall person who didn’t grow up with him, no. But I’m a big hall guy whose first favorite player was Jim Rice, so I definitely think he deserves it.

Rice has settled into a role with the Sox where he shows up at Spring Training (gets yelled at by shithead front office types) and is on NESN during the regular season. For a guy who was notoriously prickly to the media, I’m glad that Rice never faded away.

To me he’s a great reminder of my childhood and why I loved baseball.

11. Ellis Burks

Like I’ve said a million times, I began seriously watching baseball in 1986 which, the way 99.8% of the season went, was a pretty awesome introduction to the sport.

Aside from one night in October, the one thing that sucked was that it impacted how I thought roster construction should be. That year the Sox’ philosophy was to get a bunch of big dudes and try to hit the ball out of the park. Speed was not part of the equation at all. It would taker an on-base machine like Wade Boggs three singles to score if he walked.

But pretty much everywhere aside from Boston, teams were promoting athletes—players who could hit and run as well as field. Eric Davis in Cincinnati. Rickey in New York. Darryl Strawberry also in New York. Kirby Puckett in Minnesota Jose Canseco in Oakland. Tim Raines in Montreal. And there was also a push towards dudes who could run and catch: Willie Wilson in Kansas City, practically everyone in St. Louis.

The point is, baseball was moving towards athletes. Boston was firm in not doing that. Over 30, old guys was what they were going to build around. Flipping from a Sox game to a Cardinals game was like going from Earth to Neptune.

When Ellis Burks was promoted from Pawtucket, Red Sox nation collective exclaimed, “finally, we have our athlete!” Burks showed up and he was fast, he had power, he could hit for average and he could field. He was a four-tool player (I don’t think his arm was that great) but it didn’t matter, we finally had our Willie Mays!

Burks had several solid seasons with Boston but the problem was, he was always getting hurt. That tends to happen when Mike Greenwell is playing on your right, but there were still plenty of non-Gator injuries.

I remember being bummed out when Burks was elected to the 1990 All-Star but he couldn’t play because he was hurt. I recall Burks jogging out to the first base line in Wrigley and thinking, “so close, man. This sucks for him.” After a few more injury plagued seasons, the Sox let him go. This is when Burks flipped the switch and became a star. First in Chicago, then Colorado, then San Francisco and Cleveland before coming back to Boston in 2004. Every stop aside from his last never ended in a Championship.

But, I’m not sure if you heard this before, the Boston Red Sox won it all in 2004. Did Ellis Burks play? Of course not. But the coolest thing was when the plane landed in Boston after their flight from home from St. Louis, who was the person walking out the door with the trophy? Burks.

Burks always represented the future. From the time he showed up at Fenway, Boston is taking part in the modern game! To his injuries, just wait until Burks comes back, then we’ll be clicking. Until he didn’t.

And ironically, that's when he had his most success, when he wasn't in Boston. However when he joined the team in 2004 it was a link to the past. Burks seemed to represent all of the players who were on those close-but-no-cigar teams, the teams that were out of it by Memorial Day, the teams that were good but never great.

Ellis was our avatar. I can’t prove this but for a lot of people my age, Ellis Burks was their favorite player because he was the future and at that time, we were too. Over his 17 seasons we grew, changed, had families, excelled, failed, reached some of our potential and fell short in other places. Just like Gen-X hero Burks. So when Ellis walked off that plane, brother that was all of us. That’s how we want to go out, a champion!

How can you not relate to that?

My Favorite Red Sox Players 20-16

 

20. Bruce Hurst

By the time the 1988-89 offseason rolled around, I considered myself an astute baseball fan. I had seen it all: older post season heroes leaving for greener pastures, youth movements began, managers had been fired, a big trade had been swung, winning streaks, losing streaks, fire, rain, whatever. I pretty much considered myself the Peter Gammons of Amesbury, MA.

The one thing that I hadn’t experienced was one of our free agents, a guy we needed to keep, spurning the Hub for another town. Until that offseason. That person was 1986 World Series hero Bruce Hurst. That dude packed up his curve ball and went to San Diego.

The Padres? He went to the Padres? The team with the brown and orange uniforms, who play in a stadium named after a sportswriter, who are both anonymous and sucky? Those Padres? Why? Why would he do that?

Before baseball landed a deal with ESPN and before any modern convenience that started in the 90s, baseball in San Diego and Seattle was like Siberia. Do they even play 162 games in those places? Do they even have fans? They’re never on TV so if there’s a homer without anyone seeing it, did it happen?

Why would Hurst go there? I couldn’t understand it; he’d been a Red Sox since he was drafted by the club, why wouldn’t he want to stay here? When this sort of thing happens, you go through a bunch of stages, starting with disbelief which I just chronicled.

Then anger, “fine fuck that guy, I hope his arm snaps. He’s going to look dumb in brown, which is the perfect color for him, but the way. That piece of crap.”

After that you sorta start thinking you don’t need him anymore. “Fuck it, we have Clemens and Boddicker and Tom Bolton’s supposed to be pretty good. Fuck that guy. Enjoy the West Coast and no ‘real’ fans, dude.”

Then you just get over it until it seems like Hurst played for the Padres forever. “Bruce Hurst? Oh yeah, he pitched here, right? I kinda remember him, he was pretty okay. I guess. He’s no Rob Woodward though.”

Obviously Bruce Hurst was better than pretty okay, he was a monster in the 86 post season. In fact, he really came into his own that season. While Clemens was getting all the love and Oil Can a bunch of attention, Hurst was quietly pitching really well. With that big looping curveball that would make hitters’ knees buckle, he was everything Roger wasn’t: thoughtful and crafty.

It sucked losing him. It really did. But he went to SD for a bunch of really good reasons: more money, better weather, less pressure. Plus it was closer to his Provo, Utah home. As an adult, I can totally see why Hurst would want to put Boston in his rear view mirror.

I’ve lived here my whole life and if someone gave me that opportunity, I’d be gone too. Why wouldn’t a laid back, west coast Mormon want to do that?

I’m not sure how much Hurst enjoyed his time here, there was an incident in his first Spring Training where a coach questioned his manhood because he didn’t drink, smoke or chase women. The whole Wade Boggs/Margo Adams thing didn’t sit well with him either.

Why not go to San Diego and get paid and not have a bunch of asshole frat guys around telling you what a wuss you are? Fuck ‘em.

19. Xander Bogaerts

I think that Xander Bogaerts is underrated—hell, he might be underrated by me in my own list. What I mean is that Bogaerts is the best shortstop the Sox have had since Nomar. He might also be the best home grown shortstop the Sox have ever had once you factor in health.

He came up during the last few months of the 2013 season, the best prospect in the system, and played really well on a team loaded with big personalities and veterans. For a couple of down years, team-wise, he manned short (though he’d bounce to third when the Sox became fascinated with Stephen Drew for some reason) until the next wave of prospects showed up.

By then he was an All-Star, a veteran presence, a team leader. Beginning in 2016, the Sox turned into a juggernaut, making the playoffs every year before culminating with a World Series championship in 2018.

He seemed to like being in Boston, he certainly had the attitude for it: never too high, never too low, appreciated the fans, went out and produced every day. He even signed a team-friendly, long term contract with a player option after two seasons, that no one really expected him to take.

Why would he? He was getting paid a lot, the team was winning, all were happy. At some point Owner John Henry wasn’t happy when he looked at his payroll and the Sox started to get rid of Bogaerts’ teammates. The team bottomed out and Bogaerts was probably like, “screw it. If this team is going to suck I may as well get paid” and he exercised his option to be a free agent.

Chaim Bloom is my least favorite GM/PoBO the Red Sox ever employed. Not because he was Henry’s hatchet man, but mostly because it didn’t seem like he had any idea what he was doing. In the 2022-23 offseason, he said the club’s biggest thing to do was sign Bogaerts.

Bloom completely misread the market, offered Bogaerts a below market value contract and then watched as Bogaerts signed with San Diego (just like Bruce Hurst!) According to Globe writer Julian McWilliams, he said that Bloom was talking to reporters at the airport following the Winter Meetings, got a text telling him about Bogaerts and needed five minutes to compose himself.

You can argue whether Bogaerts “deserve” the money that the Padres gave him (he probably didn’t) but what Bloom further showed there let me know that "this guy, he’s not my guy" to quote Frank Costanza.

Do I wish Bogaerts stayed? Yeah, I do. I think it’s important for a club to have some connection to its past, especially when young players are coming up. Would I pay him what SD did? No. But it’s not my money. I think that there was middle ground that Bogaerts would have accepted that would have allowed him to retire in Boston.

That would’ve been pretty cool.

(I’m going to get more into the way players are viewed by the front office and how it’s different from fans. I just don’t want to get into it quite yet.)

18. Keith Foulke and Koji Uehara

Two, two, two for the price of one! We’re looking at my two favorite players for number 18! Why didn’t I make one 17 and the other 18? Good question. I just didn’t.

The ability to close down a game in high-tension situations may be the most important thing in the mix of championship team. You can have swashbuckling cowboys like Jonathan Papelbon or you can have roller coaster closers like Craig Kimbrel or you can have the two players here. But you need someone.

Uehara and Foulke are a lot alike. They were both quiet guys who came from other organizations whose first names begin with K, who just took control of a situation and locked. It. Down.

Foulke was part of a 2003-04 spending spree where the Sox got better at positions that were weak on an all-time team. In 2003, the Sox front office collected a bunch of arms and informed them that they were going to be a “bullpen by committee” which meant no one had a defined role. They could come in the sixth inning or the ninth or whenever, theoretically it didn’t matter.

But the bullpen is home to actual people and people like repetition and rules and defined expectations, and the Bullpen by Committee was a disaster. They traded Shea Hillenbrand to the Diamondbacks for Byun-Yung Kim, (mostly) stabilized the pen and it was absolute smooth sailing for the rest of the year and into the playoffs.

Except it wasn’t. GM Theo Epstein was shocked to find mistakes in his 2003 plan, so he got rid of the the guy who screwed it up, picked up the best closer on the market, made sure the entire understood their roles and the Sox streaked to an easy championship! (Also, not exactly true.)

In the playoffs, Foulke earned his money by pitching in multiple high-leverage situations night after night after night after night. When he needed a strikeout, he got one. When he needed a double play, he got one of those too. The amount of wear and tear he put on his right arm that month is insane.

As much as I love Manny, Foulke should’ve been the postseason MVP that year.

After his stellar October, his arm suffered and he never was quite the same. He heard boo birds in early 05 (which, seriously fuck all the way off) which understandably got under his skin, said some stuff and was gone after his contract was up. Time healed all wounds and Boston rightfully has welcomed him back as a conquering hero.

Around the time that Boston fans got their collectives heads out of their collective asses regarding Foulke, the Sox were putting together a frisky team for the 2013 season. Like 2004, GM Ben Cherington was collecting arms for the bullpen and he signed a little known Japanese import.

Roles were defined and Joel Hannahan was going to be the closer. Except he got hurt. Then it was going to be Andrew Bailey. And he got hurt. Finally manager John Farrell had no one to turn to except for Uehara.

Lucky for Sox nation, Uehara had the best season a Sox closer ever had. And it’s not even close. He had a 1.09 ERA, 0.56 WHIP (!!) and struck out 12.2 per nine. In the playoffs he was more dominant. His ERA in the ALCS and the World Series was 0.00 (!!!) and his WHIP was even better than his regular season number. He gave up ONE run that entire post season in 12 games.

And he was also 38-years-old.

He was as close to automatic as anyone I’ve ever seen and there was literally no worrying when he showed up on the mound. Man, he was terrific.

Guys, you really do need a closer.

17. John Valentin

My 17th favorite Red Sox player in the criminally underrated John Valentin. Valentin was played on a stacked Seton Hall team in the late 80s that included future Hall of Famer Craig Biggio and future Sox teammates Mo Vaughn and Kevin Morton.

I don’t recall a ton of buzz when it came to Valentin as he made his way through the minors. But when he made it to Boston he took over shortstop and just hit. And hit. And hit. He could also field a bit too.

In back-to-back games he turned two triple plays and hit three home runs. I was at one of those games, but don’t ask me which one because I can’t remember. I know it was against the Mariners, I’m positive that I was in college, I was with my buddy Skaus and we bought SRO tickets, which didn’t have the game date printed on them.

So I tell people I was at both of those games even though I was only at one.

In any event 1995 was Valentin’s year as he mashed. It was also Mo Vaughn’s year as he won the MVP from surly Cleveland slugger Albert Belle. But Valentin had the highest WAR in the league (8.3!!) and maybe should have won the trophy. But people didn't pay attention to that stat back in the day, so he was ignored.

The messed up thing is, he never made an All-Star team. Which is dumb. He put up big numbers, played in Boston, played on some good teams, why didn’t he get the recognition? I have no idea, I guess life is all about timing and also, it just isn’t fair sometimes.

Speaking of unfair in 1997, Valentin was told that he was being moved to third base because this new dude is scorching the minors and he’s ready to play in the Show. That person was Nomar Garciaparra. Valentin, was understandably miffed, and left Spring Training in protest.

These protests never, ever work and it makes the protestee look like a baby. He came back after a day or two, played a terrific third base and the Sox had a really good infield.

After ten seasons with the Red Sox, Valentin played a year with the Mets. Then he was done. While nowhere close to a Hall of Famer, Valentin had a great career that was lost to the ages. That kinda sucks but I’m sure he’s okay with it. Tonight, if you’re hoisting a few, remember John Valentin and hoist one for him.

16. Troy O'Leary

There was a time when the Red Sox weren’t the RED SOX and they just didn’t generate the revenue that they do now. Ownership didn’t have the cash, or at least they didn’t want to spend the money, and we were all kinda okay with it. "Whatyagonnado? These players are too greedy! They're playing a kid's game! They should give some of that money back!"

We just didn’t know better.

After a bunch of bad years, Dan Duquette was brought in to bring the Sox into the future. He had a plan, trade for good players, develop good players and grab players that other teams overlooked.

The minor leagues were in disarray so he couldn’t do the first two parts of his plan, so he started to do number three. It was basically dumpster diving.

Troy O’Leary was one of those guys. Languishing in Milwaukee, O’Leary was overlooked and the wasn’t getting any at bats. Duquette remembered him from his days in Suds City and signed him. When given the opportunity, O’Leary flourished. He wasn’t an all-star but he put up respectable numbers for five or six seasons.

But O’Leary’s biggest night also occurred on one of Pedro Martinez’ biggest nights so it gets a little forgotten (like the man himself). Bret Saberhagen and Derek Lowe got pounded by Cleveland in the winner-take-all Game 5 of the 1999 ALDS. Sabes gave up five runs in one inning, Lowe three runs in two.

The Sox looked cooked.

But O’Leary was there to rescue them. Cleveland manager Mike Hargrove walked Nomar Garciaparra to load the bases. O’Leary hits a grand slam. Two innings later Hargrove again elects to intentionally walk Nomar and O’Leary deposits another bomb, this time a three run homer, over the right field fence.

Pedro came out of the bullpen and no hit Cleveland and their stacked lineup for six innings. The Sox added five more runs and they won 12-8. O’Leary had an absolute monster game but Pedro was a bit better, so he gets the pub. I guess that’s okay because this was how O’Leary’s career went.

One of my favorite things about him is how huge he came up when his number was called. I’d like to think that if in a similar situation I would do the same. I think that’s the lesson of Troy O’Leary; it doesn’t matter where you started or how you got to where you are, if given an opportunity, seize it. If people disregard your talents, make them pay.

Troy O’Leary is the patron saint of doing that shit.