Pedro Martinez came to Boston in 1998 and immediately electrified Red Sox Nation. The franchise made the playoffs that season and again in 1999. Pedro won the Cy Young Award. For the starting pitcher, the arrival of a new millennium was more of the same. But for the rest of the 2000 Boston Red Sox […]
The Boston Red Sox endured their fair share of heartbreaking finishes through an 86-year championship drought. One thing they often did was make credible bounceback efforts. The one-game playoff loss to the Yankees of 1978 was followed up by 91 wins in 1979. The 2003 devastation at the hands of the Yanks was followed by […]
The Red Sox made an unpopular decision when they let go of manager Joe Morgan, who had led the team to a successful four-year run that included AL East titles in 1988 and 1990. The 1992 Boston Red Sox would be led by Butch Hobson, who had been a popular player in the late 1970s. […]
The Yankees battered the Red Sox from pillar to post, winning 19-8.
No one would have guessed that the Sox had just lost for the last time in 2004—and if they had, they might have noted the score bore an eerily similar look to “1918”. Boston now had to win four games in four days
Dent’s home run has earned him the nickname “Bucky (expletive) Dent” in New England, but there was more drama packed in these final three innings then there were in the first six.
The five years from 1986-90 were good for baseball fans in New England, at least by pre-2004 standards. The 1990 Boston Red Sox continued a pattern of even-year magic—the franchise won the AL pennant in 1986, took another AL East title in 1988 and grabbed another division crown in 1990. Roger Clemens was the biggest […]
The pressure was on for the 1988 Boston Red Sox. After their pennant-winning campaign of 1986 ended with a crushing World Series collapse, the Red Sox kept the collapse going through a poor 1987 season. Manager John McNamara’s job was on the line and everyone in baseball knew it when the 1988 season began. The […]
The 1986 World Series is one of the games’ historic, thanks to an ill-fated groundball that skipped through the legs of Bill Buckner. But the battle between the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox had more—it had early twists of fate, a Game 7 itself that was dramatic and the entire Game 6 run-up […]
One team was one of baseball’s history-laden franchises, the other an expansion team. But they were united a shared heritage of heartbreak. The Boston Red Sox and California Angels met at the 1986 ALCS and it was inevitable that somebody’s fan base would be crushed when it was over. In a rare turnabout for the […]
They’re remembered for a fatal error that cost them the World Series. Kinder observers will also remember that they had a miracle comeback of their own in the American League Championship Series. But before the 1986 Boston Red Sox could do any of the above they had to win the AL East and that, in […]
The 1979 Boston Red Sox entered the season dealing with the wounds of heartbreak from the previous two years. Both times they lost a close race for the AL East crown to the hated New York Yankees. The ending in 1977 was disappointing, the finish of 1978 positively devastating. The ’79 Red Sox came back off the canvas and still played good baseball, but they slipped just enough to fall well off the pace in the AL East.
The 1981 Boston Red Sox took advantage of the unique nature of that season’s major league baseball campaign to put themselves in position to reach postseason play. But the Red Sox continued their pattern of the 1970s and came up short at the worst possible time.