Red sox Get Their Rings-- Spring Has Sprung

The only thing better than Opening Day is the home opener at Fenway Park if the Red Sox kick off their season on the road. And today was that day, with comfortable temperatures throughout the region the Red Sox took to the Fenway infield this afternoon to receive their 2007 World Series rings.

I had to come back to Worcester early today in order to attend a creditors meeting regarding HE&PG LLC, Brett Levy and the University Park Lofts. Because of this I left work in Canton at noon, by the time I hit the Mass Pike tolls in Auburn I flipped the station from Howard 100 over to WEEI and what do I hear? Bill Buckner throwing out the first pitch. Unless you have been reading this blog from the start (and few of you have, if any) or delve deep in my archives you would not be aware of the fact that I got into an altercation with Bill Buckner in Pawtucket back in 1993 when I was 18. It was pretty much directly after this altercation that Buckner declared that he was moving away from New England to Idaho.

I copied and pasted a couple articles from when the incidents happened into a post back in 2005, I've included the link below.

Since I was an impetus in Bill Buckner leaving New England I will say this.

I respect his accomplishments on the baseball field over the course of his 20 year career. However the emotion of the loss in game 6 of the 1986 World Series had a long and lasting impression on me. I was 12 years old at the time and I feel that game and that series was my induction to "Red Sox Nation" and "the fellowship of the miserable". Without that heart wrenching loss a whole generation of late 20 and early 30 somethings would not have had the true Red Sox experience. Something that I could share with my parents as well as my grandparents. The shared experience of Red Sox losses and perpetual futility was something that bonded my family closer and I'm sure many others throughout New England.

Bill Buckner, Bucky Dent, Aaron Boone and all the rest just made the Championships of 2004 and 2007 all that much sweeter. We know that the kids of this generation will never know the heartbreak that many of us endured, even if we did have the Celtics in the 80's. In the 200's we are lucky enough to live in a region that has been laden with championship hardware and that trend looks as if it will continue. I'm certainly not gonna complain. But I'm not going to back down and blame 1986 on Calvin Schiraldi, Bob Stanley or John MacNamara. Baseball is a game of plays and Buckner did not make the play when it counted. Great career, bad play. But Bill Buckner you are forgiven as you made these past two championships all that much sweeter.


Previous Buckner Post with articles