With the 2010 baseball season underway I thought it might be cool for us to share a favorite baseball memory. We all, as students and fans of the game, have them in fact we all probably have too many.
Just sitting here writing this with no real hard thought I remember my first Fenway experience in 1973; sitting in the stands watching the Red Sox go back-to-back-to-back off Catfish Hunter in 1978; buying bleacher seats in 1990 so my girlfriend and I could actually say we went to a playoff game and watching Oakland’s Dave Stewart manhandle the Sox; watching Roger Clemens 17 K return from the top row of the first base grandstand and being able to take my oldest son at age 4 to his first game and see the look on his face when he saw the Green Monster up close and personal.
But my favorite baseball memory is one I shared with my dad. I love taking my dad to baseball games and when life was easier and tickets were less expensive I always tried to take him for his birthday in September. For his 49th birthday in 1990 I took him to the Toronto Blue Jays-Boston Red Sox game on Saturday the 29th. That day we saw the Red Sox win 7-5 as they got closer to winning the American League East title and they were led by Roger Clemens who won his 21st game of the season and right fielder Tom Brunansky who hit home runs in 3 consecutive at bats and drove in 5 of the team’s 7 runs that day.
In the bottom of the 5th, Bruno led off and broke a scoreless tie with a solo HR off Todd Stottlemyre to deep left field over the Monster. In the 6th Toronto replaced Stottlemyre, who was in deep trouble at that point, with Duane Ward. Ward was attempting to stop a bases loaded one out rally but Boston got the best of him putting up 5 runs in the inning capped off by a 3 run HR by Brunansky to give the Sox a 6-0 lead after 6 innings. In the 8th inning in his final at bat of the day, Brunansky hit his 3rd home run of the game; all three into or over the left field net above the Green Monster, with two out increasing the Red Sox lead to 7-0.
Remember I said the score was 7-5, well that was because Dennis Lamp was hanging around in the Sox bullpen. He gave up 5 ninth inning runs, all with two out capped by a Kelly Gruber grand slam off the speakers in left center field. I remember Fenway going from one of those feelings of elation to one of near despair but with the tying run on deck the Sox closer Jeff Reardon earned his 20th save of the season getting Fred McGriff to pop out to Wade Boggs at third.
As a Sox fan the game was pretty great, how many of us get to go to a major league game and see a guy go yard three times? But what I’ll always recall is spending that day in the late September sun with my father.
So let us hear about your great baseball memory by adding it to the comments below I look forward to seeing yours.
