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Home , 2018 World Series, Charlie Hough, Globe Life Field, Gorman Thomas, John Valentin, Josh Roenicke

The Red Sox Tuesday, April 21, 2020

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Red Sox will pay full-time employees through May

Peter Abraham

The Red Sox informed full-time employees Monday that their salaries are guaranteed through at least May 31.

The decision was made after Major League informed teams that commissioner Rob Manfred will suspend uniform employee contracts as of May 1. That gives teams the option to furlough baseball operations employees or cut their salaries because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That includes major- and minor-league managers, coaches, scouts, trainers, and other staff members, about 9,000 in people in all across baseball.

“Our clubs rely heavily on revenue from tickets/concessions, broadcasting/media, licensing, and sponsorships to pay salaries,” Manfred wrote in an e-mail to teams, a copy of which was obtained by the .

“In the absence of games, these revenue streams will be lost or substantially reduced, and clubs will not have sufficient funds to meet their financial obligations.”

The Red Sox have declined that option for at least the next six weeks. Based on the team’s 2020 media guide, the Sox have approximately 400 full-time employees, including baseball operations.

Various outlets have reported that the Astros, Blue Jays, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Giants, Mariners, Marlins, Phillies, Reds, Rockies, Royals, Tigers, Twins, and White Sox also will continue to pay at least their baseball operations employees.

Most of the others are expected to make that commitment in the coming days.

Some small-market teams could resort to cost-cutting measures as baseball, like so many other businesses, deals with a lack of revenue due to the game being shut down.

These decisions do not affect any major league players, who are represented by the MLB Players Association. Players are being paid partial salaries, based on service time, out of a pool of $170 million. That agreement runs through May 24. Subsequent salaries will be determined based on how many games are played. MLB is expected to seek additional cuts if games are played without fans.

Because the pandemic was labeled a national emergency by the federal government, provisions in the uniform player and employee contracts allow for the commissioner to approve unilateral pay cuts.

Provisions have been made to pay minor league players a portion of their salaries. The Red Sox are among the teams who have set aside funds to aid game-day staffers at .

According to and ESPN, MLB is paying its employees through May 31. Manfred and other senior staffers have taken an average pay cut of 35 percent.

* The

Red Sox agree to pay front office staff through May 31

Jason Mastrodonato

While MLB was reportedly set to allow teams to furlough or reduce the pay of uniformed employees effective May 1, the Red Sox are one of the teams that will guarantee full salary and benefits through May 31.

This will affect all full-time front office staff members, not just those in baseball operations. That includes coaches, scouts and anyone under uniformed employee contracts.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred informed his own league staff that he and other senior employees would take a paycut and see an average salary reduction of 35 percent, though they would be paid through at least May 31, according to ESPN.

The Athletic reported that Manfred also informed teams on Monday that they could furlough managers, coaches, trainers, scouts and any uniformed employee contacts as of May 1.

“Our clubs rely heavily on revenue from tickets/concessions, broadcasting/media, licensing and sponsorships to pay salaries,” Manfred wrote in an email that was obtained and reported by The Associated Press. “In the absence of games, these revenue streams will be lost or substantially reduced, and clubs will not have sufficient funds to meet their financial obligations.”

The Red Sox, Braves, Phillies, Giants, Marlins, White Sox and Reds have committed to paying their full- time front office staff through May 31.

Derek Jeter, chief executive officer and co-owner of the Marlins, has reportedly forgone his salary entirely and given pay cuts to members of the executive organization team.

MLB is still working on a plan that could begin play using facilities in . As of last week, the idea was approved by the nation’s leading infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, so long as the players stayed in hotel rooms and were insulated from the outside world.

Red Sox interim said he did not think the plan was feasible enough for him to start looking into the details, but he does believe the 2020 season will take place in some form.

* MassLive.com

Coronavirus: will pay baseball operations employees through May 31 (report)

Chris Cotillo

The Red Sox have committed to pay their baseball operations employees through at least May 31, according to a report from ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

Multiple teams throughout baseball have made similar commitments as they face tough financial decisions necessitated by the ongoing coronavirus crisis. With the start of the MLB season indefinitely delayedd, teams are losing cash flow and having to make decisions about how to allocate resources in the coming months.

As part of the temporary labor agreement reached between teams and players last month, ’s owners committed a $170 million cash advance to be split among its players for April and May but offered no guarantees past May 31. If there is a baseball season, players will be paid prorated salaries depending on how many games are played though it’s unclear how non-uniform personnel will be compensated.

According to Passan, teams are considering the possibility of furloughing lower-level employees who could be made whole by unemployment benefits. Over the next six weeks, teams will likely consider a wide range of different options regarding how to compensate their baseball operations employees.

Boston Red Sox’s odds 15th best in MLB, third in AL East for uncertain 2020 season

Christopher Smith

The Red Sox traded stars and to the Dodgers. They lost ace for 2020 when he underwent surgery.

But www.BetOnline.ag still has Boston finishing with a winning percentage over .500 if the 2020 season is played. MLB suspended its season definitely in March because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The Red Sox’s winning percentage odds are set at .520, 14th in the majors and third in the AL East. The 2019 Red Sox finished with a .519 winning percentage.

Winning Percentage odds, per BetOnline:

Dodgers .625

Yankees .625

Astros .585

Twins .570

Braves .560

Rays .560

Nationals .560

Athletics .555

Cardinals .540

Indians .535

Mets .535

Cubs .530

Angels .530

Phillies .525

Red Sox .520

White Sox .520

Reds .520

Diamondbacks .515

Brewers .515

Padres .515

Rangers .490

Blue Jays .465

Rockies .455

Pirates .425

Giants .425

Mariners .415

Royals .405

Marlins .400

Tigers .350

Orioles .350

Ben Cherington’s advice to Boston Red Sox’s ? ‘Manage the inevitable scrutiny,’ view it positively

Christopher Smith

Former Red Sox GM received plenty of scrutiny when the 2014 and ’15 teams he constructed lost 175 games combined and finished last in the AL East standings both years.

Still, he won one (2013) and most of the champion Red Sox’s young core was drafted and developed during Cherington’s tenure both as assistant GM and general manager. Reflecting back, he did a much better job as GM than it appeared when ownership replaced him with in August 2015.

He thinks the scrutiny he received from the Boston media was fair.

“We lost too many games. And in a place like that, if you lose too many games two years in a row, there’s going to be scrutiny and there’s going to be changes," Cherington said back at spring training media day. "I don’t look back on it as an unfair experience.”

The Pirates hired Cherington as their new GM in November. Some Boston media members mentioned Cherington as a potential nice fit to return to Boston before principal owner John Henry selected Chaim Bloom as chief baseball officer.

“I never really thought about that,” Cherington said. “But I don’t feel like my experience there was unfair. I think I learned a lot from it. I hope I learned a lot from it. Hopefully, I continue to learn all the time.”

MassLive.com asked Cherington for advice he’d give Bloom as the 37-year-old enters his first regular season in Boston.

“To remind himself and ask others to remind him and each other every day just about who they are, how they really want to do the job and what that looks like every day," Cherington said. "And to help each other manage the inevitable scrutiny that comes with that job anywhere but certainly in a place like that. The scrutiny is a good thing because it drives the interest and holds the team to the highest level of accountability.

“So I’m saying that in the positive sense,” Cherington added. “But operating within it, you’ve got to be able to manage that. It’s your name. You’ve got to be able to work with a group of people just to be the best version of yourself every day. So that’s what I would tell him.”

Cherington delivered a World Series in 2013, then experienced a difficult rebuild in 2014-15 that eventually led the Red Sox to three straight AL East titles after his departure.

He acquired , Eduardo Rodriguez, , , Sandy Leon and .

Rafael Devers, , Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr., , , , Christian Vazquez, and were among the players drafted/signed and developed during Cherington’s tenure as Red Sox assistant GM and general manager.

Cherington learned from mistakes as Red Sox GM and hopes to improve in those areas in Pittsburgh.

“It’s really to try to control my interactions with people,” Cherington said. “The amount I’m listening. The amount of information we’re taking in and absorbing and try to control the pace at which we make decisions. I think there were probably ... times early on in Boston where I didn’t control that pace well enough. We made decisions too quickly or maybe didn’t get as many inputs as needed.”

Dombrowski received criticism for trading too many prospects. Cherington received criticism for holding onto too many prospects.

He could have sold high on Henry Owens and Blake Swihart when ranked Owens a top 100 prospect from 2013-15 and Swihart a top 100 prospect in 2012, 2014-15. Owens, who Boston eventually designated for assignment in December 2017, pitched in the independent American Association during 2019.

Bloom must strike the right balance as he looks to maintain a strong farm system and sustain success at the major league level longterm. Evaluating your own organizational talent arguably is the most important part of professional scouting.

"Every team in theory should be most precise or closest to precise on its own players because you have access to more information," Cherington said. "There's some information that every team has access to. But we have more information on our own players, Pirates minor league players, than any other team. We do. We should. So that ought to give us a chance to be more accurate. And so it is really important. Even when that happens, players are human beings and human beings change. Some human beings just improve a lot more than others. So it's still hard. You're going to make mistakes.

“The rate at which we’re right on our own players should always be higher in theory than other teams. I don’t know if that’s specific to the tech or data. I think that’s probably always been the case. And some of the tech and data that’s available helps us with other teams, too."

Cherington spent from 1999-2015 in Boston, arriving before Epstein and the Henry ownership group.

“It’s a unique place to go to work every day," Cherington said. "That part (about leaving) was strange. Everyone experiences change in life, right? Everyone’s got things in life that happen that are either unexpected or you just don’t want to have happen. Adversity happens and you’ve got to move on or learn and get to the next thing.”

* RedSox.com

Red Sox's Top 5 : Browne's take

Ian Browne

No one loves a good debate quite like baseball fans, and with that in mind, we asked each of our beat reporters to rank the top five players by position in the history of their franchise, based on their career while playing for that club. These rankings are for fun and debate purposes only … if you don’t agree with the order, participate in the poll to vote for your favorite at this position.

Here is Ian Browne’s ranking of the top 5 shortstops in Red Sox history. Next week: Left field.

1) , 1996-04 Key fact: His .372 average in 2000 is fourth best in club history, and tops for right-handed hitters.

Though Garciaparra didn’t wind up having the Hall of Fame career he was once on pace for, his greatness from 1997-2003 vaults him to the top spot in Red Sox history at , even if Xander Bogaerts might one day pass him. Garciaparra’s impact was immediate, as he won the Rookie of the Year Award in ’97 on the strength of 209 hits, 44 doubles, 11 triples, 30 homers and 22 stolen bases. Early in his career, Garciaparra was also electrifying in the field, often displaying his athleticism with leaping catches of line drives.

“He was a pleasure to watch,” said Red Sox NESN analyst . “He was so unique. I thought he was a very good defensive player. Some people criticized him for some of his defense, but I thought he was very good. Offensively he was a stud.”

Garciaparra was at his peak from 1999-2000 when he won back-to-back AL batting titles. What made Garciaparra such a tough out -- other than his fast hands and brilliant hand-eye coordination -- is that he could rip pitches that were well out of the . He went up there hacking and always seemed to the ball on the barrel. The Red Sox made the controversial decision to trade Garciaparra at the Trade Deadline in '04 at a time when he was injury prone and seeming to lose some of his love for playing in Boston. Garciaparra understandably became disenchanted with the club in December '03 when the Red Sox tried to acquire to take his place.

“Unfortunately he never seemed comfortable in this setting and it’s too bad. I don’t think he got to enjoy the experience of being here as much as he should have, because people loved him,” said Remy. “They adored him. He’s one of the best that I’ve ever seen play that position for the Red Sox. I can’t think of anybody else off-hand who was better.”

2) , 1936-45 Key fact: Was player-manager for the Red Sox for 10 seasons and stayed on as manager for two years after he stopped playing.

Perhaps lost in the shadow of teammates like and , Cronin was a force in the middle of the batting order for the Red Sox in the late 1930s and early ‘40s. In ’38, he ripped 51 doubles and had an OPS+ of 135. While Williams hit .406 in ’41, Cronin was also excellent that season, producing a .914 OPS.

In four consecutive seasons (1938-41), Cronin ranked in the AL Top 10 in offensive WAR. Cronin had over 100 RBIs in three of his seasons with the Red Sox and was also a force in his years with the Senators. He was an All-Star five times for Boston and was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in '56. The Red Sox retired his No. 4 in '84.

On June 17, 1943, Cronin became player to hit pinch-hit homers in both games of a doubleheader.

3) Xander Bogaerts, 2013-present Key fact: His offensive WAR of 25.5 from 2015-19 ranks first among MLB shortstops

The popular shortstop with the sweet swing has a contract with the Red Sox through 2025. This means he will have a strong chance to eventually vault to the top spot among Boston shortstops.

“I’d put him right at the top of the totem pole. I’d have to put Nomar first, probably, but Bogaerts will pass him,” said Remy.

Just 27 years old, Bogaerts has already won two World Series rings. , and are the only Sox players to accumulate more Silver Slugger Awards than the three Bogaerts already has in his possession.

He hits for average and power and can smash the ball to all fields with a fluid swing. As a bigger-bodied shortstop, Bogaerts finds a way to get the job done. Most excitingly, it’s possible we’ve yet to see the best of Bogaerts, though 2019 (.309/.384/.555, 52 doubles, 33 homers and 117 RBIs) was pretty special.

“Bogaerts is very special,” said Remy. “He can do everything. I love his style of hitting. He’s not a launch and lift guy. He basically tries to hit line drives. He now has the ability to play with the whole ballpark line to line with his offense which makes him, to me, an outstanding hitter. To top it all, he’s just a tremendous person.”

4) , 1942-52 Key fact: First Major League player to have over 200 hits in his first three Major League seasons.

Pesky was a hitting machine and an efficient table-setter for some great Red Sox teams that included Williams and . In his rookie year of 1942, he had 205 hits and finished third in the AL MVP Award voting. Pesky likely would have ranked higher on this list had he not missed three consecutive seasons (’43-45) due to World War II.

He certainly didn’t miss a beat upon his return to the baseball field, ripping 208 hits and 43 doubles for the 1946 team that won 104 games in the regular season. The shortstop got on base at a .401 clip in his time with the Sox and hit .313.

After his playing career was over, Pesky worked in countless roles for the Red Sox and is regarded as perhaps the most enthusiastic ambassador in team history. The Red Sox retired his No. 6 in 2008. One of the indelible images from Boston winning it all in '04 was the joy the players took in celebrating the accomplishment with Pesky, who was in tears. Boggs and both gave Pesky credit in their Hall of Fame speeches because of how much work he put in with them as an instructor.

5) , 1965-76 Key fact: Belted 40 homers in 1969 -- still a team record for a shortstop

The right-handed hitter spent his entire career in Boston, playing on the beloved Impossible Dream team of 1967 and the thrilling ’75 AL pennant winners. Petrocelli’s finest season was ’69, when he had a .992 OPS and an OPS+ of 168.

Count Petrocelli among those who benefited greatly from the . His career OPS was .843 at home compared to a pedestrian .667 on the road. He hit 134 homers at home and 76 on the road.

“He was another perfect Fenway Park hitter, because he was a dead pull hitter,” said Remy. “He was able to take advantage of left field at Fenway. He was a tough guy. He was very involved in the brawls they had with the Yankees. I remember one time he went after [Joe] Pepitone at . But he is a great guy, one of the best guys I’ve ever met.”

Honorable mentions It was agonizingly tough keeping out of the top five. Though he played just five years for the Sox (1948-52), Stephens was an utter force, topping 135 RBIs in three straight seasons. He ripped 39 homers in ’49, just one shy of Pesky’s team record for a shortstop. He had an .856 OPS with Boston. … was an offensive-minded shortstop from '92-96 before moving to other infield positions in ’97 to make room for Garciaparra. Valentin played 10 of his 11 seasons for the Sox and had a sturdy .821 OPS. … is one of the most fiery players in the history of the Red Sox. He was the starting shortstop for the ’75 squad that lost to the Big Red Machine in a classic World Series. Burleson had a rocket arm and was with the club from '74-80, making the All-Star team three times.

Yaz, Rocket star in Sox's Dream Bracket win

Ian Browne

BOSTON -- Ever wonder what it'd be like to see all the greatest Red Sox players of all time in the same lineup?

We are starting to see what that could look like via a Dream Bracket simulation -- by MLB in conjunction with Out of the Park Baseball.

The MLB Dream Bracket is a 32-team best-of-seven simulation featuring all-time teams for each of the 30 current Major League franchises, as well as teams consisting of Negro Leagues Stars and 25 & Under Stars. The 26-man rosters for each of the teams, compiled by the MLB.com beat reporters, consist of 15 hitters and 11 .

For the simulation, players are rated using the average of their three best seasons on a single team. Rosters were constructed with balanced depth to specifically compete in a simulated regulation game.

So far, it is going well for the Red Sox, who survived a valiant effort by the Rangers in the first round and prevailed in seven games.

In real life, the 2004 Red Sox are the only team in history to come back from a 3-0 deficit in a postseason series. In this simulation, the Rangers nearly turned the trick against the all-time Red Sox greats, winning Games 4, 5 and 6 to force Game 7.

With Game 7 at Fenway Park locked in a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the eighth, belted a to right against to lift the Sox to a 6-2 win. It would have been a sizable upset if had prevailed. The Red Sox are seeded No. 3 in the 16-team American League bracket, while the Rangers are No. 14.

Jimmie Foxx was the star of the series for the Sox, slashing .440/.548/.840 with three homers and six RBIs. went 2-0 with a 2.51 ERA.

The Sox will face the Blue Jays in the next round. Toronto prevailed in five games over the Twins in its first-round series.

Here is a game-by-game breakdown of how the Red Sox-Rangers series went down:

Game 1: Red Sox 3, Rangers 1

A tight pitchers’ duel between Pedro Martinez and was tied, 1-1, going into the bottom of the sixth. It was David Ortiz who came up with the game-winning blast -- a two-run shot to right on a 3-2 pitch by Hough with two outs. Foxx set up Ortiz with a two-out single. After setup man worked out of some trouble in the eighth, Jonathan Papelbon struck out two in a 1-2-3 ninth to end it. earned the win with 1 2/3 sparkling , including three , out of the ‘pen.

Game 2: Red Sox 15, Rangers 4

A matchup between all-time great pitchers was a mismatch on this night at Fenway. Boston’s gave up 10 hits, but just one run. All-time king , however, endured a pounding, as the Red Sox tagged him for eight hits and eight runs over four-plus innings. Boston turned the game into a blowout with a six-spot in the fifth that chased Ryan. A two-run by Foxx was the big blow. Wade Boggs had a monster game (3-for-5, two runs, 4 RBIs) in the leadoff spot. smashed two doubles and scored three runs.

Game 3: Red Sox 8, Rangers 3

The series shifted to Field in Arlington, but the misfortunes of the Rangers continued. Texas did get some early momentum on a two-run homer in the bottom of the first by Ruben Sierra off Clemens to break a scoreless tie. From there, it was all Red Sox, who broke it open with a five-run rally in the seventh that included a two-run double by . Nomar Garciaparra scored twice and had three hits, including a double. Big lefty (what curse?) recorded the final four outs to preserve the win for Clemens.

Game 4: Rangers 5, Red Sox 4

The Rangers prevented the indignity of being swept with a thrilling victory that was made possible by a two-out solo homer by Ivan Rodriguez to snap a tie in the bottom of the eighth. It was a 408-foot bullet to left-center on a 1-2 pitch. Pedroia and Mookie Betts both had three hits in a losing effort for the Sox.

Game 5: Rangers 4, Red Sox 2

There would be no celebrating for the Red Sox in enemy territory. Texas sent the series back to Boston on the strength of Hough’s , which limited Boston to two runs over seven innings. Hough struck out six and slightly outpitched Martinez, who struck out eight and allowed three earned runs in 7 2/3 innings. Adrián Beltré broke a 2-2 tie with a one-out, RBI single against Martinez. The Rangers tacked on an insurance run when Fisk made a throwing to second base trying to catch Beltré stealing. Foxx again came up big, ripping a two-run homer for Boston’s only runs.

Game 6: Rangers 9, Red Sox 6

Sensing they were on the cusp of history, the Rangers stormed into Fenway Park and put up a five-spot in the first , knocking out Young, who recorded just two outs. Ryan rode the early run support to victory, avenging his poor performance in Game 1 by allowing one earned run over five innings. At one point, the Rangers led, 8-2. Boston made a valiant comeback attempt and nearly got the deficit to 8-7 in the eighth, but Pedroia got thrown out at the plate by Juan Gonzalez after tagging from third on a lineout by Garciaparra. The stage was set for a dramatic Game 7.

Game 7: Red Sox 6, Rangers 2

Though it’s sometimes hard for a Game 7 to live up to the hype, this one definitely did. The upstart Rangers took a 2-0 lead off Clemens in the third. The Boston bats got shut out by Kevin Brown until the seventh, when hit a to score Yastrzemski, who came in as a pinch runner after Ortiz’s double earlier in the inning. A double by Williams in the eighth tied it up. Meanwhile, that pinch- running decision by manager an inning earlier might have won the series for the Red Sox. It was Yaz who came up again in the eighth and smashed that mammoth grand slam (estimated at 438 feet) on a 1-2 pitch by Rogers. Papelbon, who didn’t give up a run in the series, finished off Texas with a 1-2-3 ninth, vaulting the Sox into the next round.

* WEEI.com

The Monday Baseball Column: Living vicariously through Ron Roenicke's nephew

Rob Bradford

Josh Roenicke sure could have used one of those holiday get-togethers with his uncle Ron the last couple of weeks.

"We always talked baseball my whole life growing up," said the 37-year-old , referencing the Red Sox interim manager. "But I wasn’t really worried about absorbing information. It was through one year, out the other, let’s go outside now. He is a little more on the quiet side than we are, but when he talks you listen because he has a great mind for baseball. … He’s great to talk baseball with. Everyone I know who played for him says the same thing: He’s quiet but when he talks it’s time to listen."

Those were the days ... going outside.

For Josh -- a pitcher who has 190 major league appearances under his belt -- not being able to casually talk baseball face-to-face with anyone for the first couple weeks of April was one thing, but being confined to a 12-by-20-foot room without the ability to even stray into the hallway was next-level uncomfortable. This was the price Roenicke had to pay in order to live his normal life again. The mandated quarantine was worth it because now he doing something his friends and family (Ron included) are currently only dreaming of - getting to play baseball again.

"Hallelujah," said Roenicke while summing up his current opportunity while appearing on the Bradfo Sho podcast from his apartment in Taiwan.

Roenicke plays for one of the five teams in the Chinese League - the Uni-President Lions: a club he has pitched for in each of the last three seasons. It is THE corner of the baseball world that is back in business.

"You have to be here. You would have no idea anything is going on here," he noted, explaining one of the unexpected obstacles was his "quarantine beard" continuing to push up on his surgical mask. "There have been 399 cases in the whole country, six deaths out of 24 million people. It’s everyday life here right now. There is nothing abnormal except when we go to the stadium they take our temperature getting on the bus and going into the stadium. Besides that, the rest of the world out there is living life like they would regardless of what is going on."

All eyes are on the CPBL, which Roenicke feels and understands. Will this work? These will be the first baseball players to find out.

The journey for the pitcher had been long enough for the California native, having gone to UCLA as a quarterback only to find himself doing drills as a wide receiver with current Patriot Matthew Slater due to the presence of another NFLer, Matt Moore. Ultimately, a demotion to the Bruins' practice squad gave Roenicke the sign he needed: Baseball was going to be his thing.

A 10th-round selection by the Reds in the 2006 Draft ultimately led to a big league debut two years later. After that came three more organizations (Toronto, Colorado, Minnesota) before ultimately landing in Taiwan. It was, in a nutshell, different. The food. The language. And certainly the baseball.

"They can hit. There are a lot of guys who can swing it. But the local arms aren’t even close velocity-wise and stuff. And the defense, it’s frustrating at times, which I don’t understand," Roenicke explained. "I heard about it and then you see it first-hand and it doesn’t make sense. Just the instincts, anticipation and routine stuff that’s hard on pitchers."

But different took on a whole new meaning in the last couple of months.

It started when Roenicke ventured home to Sarasota, Fla. to attend the birth of his fourth child. At that point, the folks in Taiwan were in the beginning stages of dealing with the coronavirus outbreak the back- and-forth to take place. But then he got the text that things had amped up, making the idea of isolation in a room across the world without his family very unappetizing. So an effort was made to possibly get back into -A or even play in Mexico. No luck.

"I was like, yeah, it sounds miserable, but what am I going to do. I’m already home," he reflected.

So it was back to Taiwan. It turns out that it wasn't such a bad thing.

Sure, there was the quarantine, which has been followed up by seven days of having to constantly wear a mask when out and about. There is no chewing tobacco and no sunflower seeds allowed, preventing excess spitting. And the baseball-playing environment has certainly been odd, with fans being replaced by cardboard cutouts and robots.

"It’s definitely quieter," Roenicke said. "But they still have the cheerleaders out there and they are still playing their music for the dances, which is obnoxious because there are no fans. You play that for the fans so they can dance along. So we’re in the and the speaker is blaring behind us and we're saying, ‘What is the point in that when there is no fans for the cheerleaders?’"

But the paychecks are clearing and baseball is being played, with the regular season games having started April 12. This is the only game in town, and at least one Roenicke is smack-dab in the middle of it.

"From the very beginning it’s been normal baseball," Josh said. "I’m very fortunate and blessed to be here in this moment."

* The Athletic

When the K-card guy almost missed Roger Clemens’ 20-K game — almost

Steve Buckley

It was chilly on that April night in 1986, and windy, too. That’s part of the reason Rich Barnett, a 25-year- old Brandeis University graduate, decided not to make the trip to Fenway Park from his Newton home to watch Red Sox right-hander Roger Clemens pitch against the .

The other reason? His brother, Bob, was away at Johns Hopkins, and their friend Rick Kaplan was hitting the books at Michigan. The three of them, sometimes joined by their pal Martin Alintuck, had taken it upon themselves to attach homemade “K” signs on the back wall of the bleachers for each strikeout registered by the Rocket, and people were beginning to take notice. Their work would get mentioned on the radio and television now and then or earn a blurb in one of the newspapers.

But while Clemens was backed that night by an outfield trio of Jim Rice, and Dwight Evans, he was without a beyond-the-outfield trio of Rich Barnett, Bob Barnett and Rick Kaplan.

The three college dudes from Newton had no way of knowing history was about to happen at the old ballyard. The night was a mixing bowl of Clemens’ immense pitching prowess, a not-much-to-write-home- about lineup of free-swinging Seattle batsmen and the kind of raw, windy conditions that sometimes turn a hitter’s hands into a pile of peanut shells. Put it all together and there was a good chance the 13,414 fans who showed up were going to see a lot of swings and misses. What nobody could have forecast was that Clemens would register a major-league record 20 strikeouts in Boston’s 3-1 victory. It’s a mark that has since been matched three times, including by Clemens himself in 1996, but not surpassed. Even in the metrics-obsessed 21st century, with hitters encouraged to use their launch-angled swings to aim for the fences and beyond, and without a care in the world about striking out, no pitcher has amassed 21 Ks in nine innings.

And yet Rich Barnett was at home on the night of April 29, 1986, stretched out in his bedroom as the Red Sox took the field to play the opener of a three-game series against the Mariners.

It would be incorrect to state that Barnett’s sole focus was Clemens. Ever the hardcore, multitasking Boston sports fan, he was shifting back and forth from the Red Sox to the Celtics, who were playing the Atlanta Hawks in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals at the old Garden. He’d switch from one game to the other and back again, using various commercials, timeouts and other stoppages of play to help govern his choices. But when Clemens began racking up the Ks — all this happening while those K cards were racked up out in the garage — Barnett began to wonder if perhaps he’d made a terrible mistake.

Clemens struck out the side in the first inning. He had two more strikeouts in the second inning, and he punched out in the third. In the fourth, after Clemens gave up a leadoff single to his former teammate Spike Owen, he struck out the side, one of them being after the beefy Seattle DH was given a second life thanks to Red Sox misplaying a foul pop fly.

The Rocket struck out the side in the fifth, all looking, and then he struck out Henderson leading off the sixth. When he punched out the next batter, veteran , it was his eighth K in a row.

And not a single K card had been displayed on the back wall of the right-field bleachers. It didn’t go unnoticed in the NESN booth.

“I know one thing: The guy that hangs up all the Ks here, no matter whether he sits in the bleachers or down left field, he is really, really going to hate himself tomorrow,” color analyst Bob Montgomery said during Henderson’s sixth-inning at-bat.

“Missed the boat,” said , the iconic Red Sox play-by-play man who’d been behind the mic since 1961.

“He is not here tonight,” Montgomery said.

Monty was a little off with his timing when he said the guy who hangs the Ks would be hating himself in the morning. Barnett was hating himself right now.

Which is why he decided to do something about it. Having recognized history was unfolding exactly 6.1 miles from his house on Theodore Road in Newton, he hatched a plan that required precision timing, a transportation schematic, a helping hand from his mother and, vitally, a good enough BS story to convince the Fenway security guards to abandon protocol and let him pass through the gates without a ticket and with only a few innings remaining in the game.

He went out to the garage and gathered up the K cards. His mom, Adelle, dashed him off to in the family station wagon. Having arrived at Fenway, Barnett played a game of show-and-tell when he encountered the ballpark gendarmes: He produced the K cards and made it clear that Clemens’ bid for history required his presence.

They agreed.

They waved him through.

There remained another hurdle: He couldn’t get into the bleachers. These were the days when fans were not permitted to wander aimlessly around the park, meaning that if you were holding a ticket to the grandstand, box seats or the old skyboxes, you couldn’t get out to the bleachers. And if you were in possession of a bleacher ticket, you had to stay there and like it. (This is why so many steerage passengers perished on the Titanic, which went to the bottom of the ocean on April 15, 1912, a week before Fenway Park opened. First-class passengers got lifeboats; steerage passengers got locked gates.)

Barnett had to do some extra convincing this time, but finally an usher waved him into Fenway steerage. It was the bottom of the seventh inning.

And just like that, K cards began to appear on the back wall of the bleachers, hastily, one after the other, in a nice, neat row that was impossible not to notice.

The game had been a scoreless tie through six innings, with Seattle right-hander pitching a fine game only without the bucketload of strikeouts. Then, in the top of the seventh, Gorman Thomas quieted Fenway when he walloped a 1-2 Clemens into the center-field bleachers. The lead didn’t last long: Dwight Evans hit a three-run in the bottom of the inning, right around the time Barnett was playing catch-up with the K cards.

So now Clemens had it all going for him. He had the lead, he had the crowd and he had Rich Barnett matching the Rocket, K cards for Ks.

With the Rocket warming up for the eighth inning, those K cards caught NESN’s attention.

“There are the Ks, out in right field. All of a sudden they appeared,” Martin said.

“That guy must have been listening or watching or something and got here,” Montgomery said.

Martin: “Boy, they got strung up there in a hurry.”

Montgomery: “He wasn’t here in the fifth, when he got his 10th, because I looked again then. So …”

Martin: “Well, he’s got 16 now, and he is within a shot of a major-league record, which is 19.”

Clemens moved ever closer to that record when he struck out Ivan Calderon, and NESN alertly switched to a shot of Barnett as he posted K card No. 17 and then high-fived a nearby fan.

When Clemens struck out Henderson for strikeout No. 18, surpassing the franchise record of 17 held by , NESN got a little artsy: The center-field camera gave viewers a tight shot of a group of cheering bleacher fans and then slowly pulled back, the K cards appearing propitiously in the background.

Absent from the drama for most of the evening, the K cards were now major players in NESN’s telecast. After pinch-hitter Al Cowens flied out to center to end the eighth, the network again cut to Barnett’s handiwork and then did a slow dissolve to a commercial. Fancy.

On to the ninth inning and another NESN shot of Barnett and his K cards.

“There they are, in right field,” Martin said. “The Ks are up — 18 of them. And this crowd is pumped up and hanging around to see what happens in the ninth.”

What happened is Clemens got Owen to wave awkwardly at a high fastball on a 3-2 count for strikeout No. 19, tying the major-league record. Up to the plate came Bradley, an aggressive right-handed batter who was coming off a 1985 season in which he’d hit .300 with 26 home runs, but with 129 strikeouts. He’d already faced Clemens three times, and he had struck out three times.

The count went to 2-2, everyone standing, everyone cheering. Clemens froze Bradley with a fastball on the inside corner, and home-plate applied the appropriate flare as he turned and extended his left arm in the direction of the Red Sox dugout and pulled back his right arm as though revving up a motorboat.

Strikeout No. 20.

With batting, another NESN shot of the K cards appeared, with K sign No. 20 sitting by itself above the 19 others.

And then the game ended, unspectacularly. Phelps hit a routine bouncer to shortstop Ed Romero, who made a routine throw to first, and Clemens raised his arms as catcher Rich German rushed out to greet him. Now the place was really jumping, which was surprising when you consider there were more than 20,000 empty seats.

Just as Sean McDonough was beginning a postgame on-field interview with Clemens, there appeared a final, triumphant shot of Rich Barnett standing under K card No. 7, talking to another fan. He wasn’t even wearing a jacket.

None of the Ks were posted backward, even though eight of Clemens’ 20 strikeouts were punchouts.

But no matter. On a night when history beckoned, Rich Barnett answered the call.

Thirty-four years later, and with no games being played because of the coronavirus pandemic, media outlets throughout the nation have been looking for ways to satisfy sports fans, such as looking back on some of the big games from back in the day. It was in that spirit on April 10 that The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey filed a “Distant Replay” on Clemens’ 20-strikeout game from 1986.

In the comments section below the article, there appeared a submission from a Richard B.:

“Thank you for the story, Jen. I was the K guy who arrived at the end of the 7th and put the Ks up on the back bleacher wall.”

Richard B. — that’s our guy, Rich Barnett — explained how he “started to lose my mind that I was missing this,” and how he got a ride to Fenway “so I didn’t have to take time to find parking,” and how “a rush of fans came up to assist” as he was racing to hang Ks on the wall.

Below Barnett’s post was an offering from an Edward Y.: “That is so cool!”

We agree. That is so cool.

So cool that we decided to reach out to Rich Barnett. If Roger Clemens’ 20-strikeout game against the Seattle Mariners is a story from back in the day, this is a backstory from back in the day.

“I still get very nostalgic about that game,” said Barnett, 59, owner of Holliston-based Scanner Master, a scanner radio communications firm. “It’s one of the big thrills of my life. It’s a game that still gets talked about every year, particularly this time of year. NESN always plays the game around that date.”

Roger Clemens Clemens after the final out. (Mike Kullen / AP) As Barnett recalls, he and his brother, Bob, along with Rick Kaplan, had been posting K cards for Clemens’ starts since 1984, when the Rocket arrived in the big leagues. Around that same time in New York, a group of diehard Mets fans was posting K cards at each time took the mound. In the book “The Amazins: Celebrating 50 Years of History,” a photograph from August 1984 shows Mets fans Dennis Scalzitti and Leo Avolio posing with Gooden at Shea Stadium. Avolio is holding a K card.

Determining which set of fans was the first to post K cards isn’t the objective of this story. What matters is they were both willing to do just about anything to show their support for Gooden and Clemens. The Mets loyalists traveled to Candlestick Park in San Francisco for Gooden’s May 30, 1985, start against the Giants. And Doc didn’t disappoint, registering 14 strikeouts in a complete-game 2-1 victory. With the Sox loyalists, it was Rich Barnett racing to Fenway Park to post the group’s K cards as Clemens was making it to third base in his date with history.

Barnett was already preparing to rush over to Fenway when Ned Martin and Bob Montgomery were talking about the absent K cards. And now Barnett’s brother was calling from Baltimore, imploring Rich to get over there.

This is where we get to the backstory of the backstory of this story from back in the day.

“It might not have happened if I had driven there on my own,” Barnett said. “I’d have had to find a place to park and then pay for parking, which I didn’t really want to do, and then walk to the park, and by then the game might have been over by the time I got there.

“So I asked my mother to drive me down. It sounds like I’m a little kid, asking Mom to drive me somewhere, but at the time it made sense.”

Getting past the first security guard, Barnett said, was easy.

As for getting from the grandstands to the bleachers, there is another backstory of the backstory of this story from back in the day.

“I told him who I was and why I needed to get out there, and he wasn’t buying it,” Barnett said. “So I had to try something else.”

What did he try?

“I slipped him 10 bucks, and he let me in,” Barnett said. “I ran up the stands to the bleachers, and people were yelling, ‘It’s the K-guy,’ and, ‘Where you been?!’ I got a little ovation. It felt pretty good.

“As I was putting the K cards up, people were rushing up to help me. There was a lot of support for me.”

Barnett has a simple explanation as to why none of the K signs were posted backward to indicate a called third strike.

“The way everything was happening, and with the rush to get to the ballpark, I didn’t know which strikeouts were swinging and which ones were called,” he said. “I hope people don’t think I didn’t know the difference. I do know the difference between a swinging strike and a called strike and what a backwards K means. It was because of the situation, that’s all.”

Barnett also has a postgame backstory of the backstory of this story from back in the day: That fan he is shown talking to as Sean McDonough is beginning his interview with Clemens? The guy was trying to steal one of Barnett’s K cards.

“He got pretty belligerent,” he said. “He was just going to take some of them. I told him that wasn’t going to happen.”

Barnett might have been better off giving the guy one of the K cards. For as the Barnett brothers and Rick Kaplan and Martin Alintuck moved on with their lives, it became harder and harder to perform the K-card ritual. But, oh, how they tried. Alintuck went so far as to fashion K cards in the shape of oil cans for when Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd was on the mound, and that had a nice little run, but, well, you know how it goes: Marriages, kids, jobs …

“We continued doing it for at least a couple of years,” Barnett said. “We had a lot of fun. But there was also a time when a guy got very upset because we had put up three K cards after Clemens had his third strikeout. K, K, K. The guy was, ‘Hey, that’s racist,” trying to make a scene and a stink. And I’m like, ‘Seriously, you think that’s what it means?'”

They survived that incident. But when the marketing people from Red Sox radio station WEEI began printing their own K cards and handing them out to fans as they entered the park, that’s when the original crew decided it might be time to close the show and move on.

“People were putting them up, no matter who was pitching,” said Barnett, who is married and has two grown sons. “It kind of diluted the whole thing. I was a little annoyed with that. I thought they should have contacted me about it.

“But I’ll always be happy with what we did. And I’m happy that I contributed a tiny piece to what Roger Clemens did that night.”

It was so much more than a tiny piece.

In 1998, when Pedro Martínez joined the Red Sox, a couple of high school students from Wayland named Kirk Carapezza and Ryan McCarthy decided to resurrect the K-card ritual. They were in the bleachers for Martínez’s first Fenway start on April 11, 1997, against the Seattle Mariners, and as Carapezza remembers, “He was striking out guys; people were waving Dominican flags. It was very exciting. And it had us remembering how those guys would put up K cards when Roger Clemens pitched. That inspired us to pick up the tradition and continue where they left off.”

Martínez “only” struck out 12 Mariners in that game. They returned for the right-hander’s next start, April 17 against the at Fenway, only this time they were toting “27 stenciled, blood-red K cards,” as Carapezza put it.

Martínez registered another 12 strikeouts that night, with Carapezza, McCarthy and some other friends posting their freshly minted K cards.

Known as the “K-Men,” the group traveled to Yankee Stadium on Sept. 10, 1999, and dared to post K cards for what turned out to be one of the greatest games of Martínez’s career: He fanned 17 Yankees in Boston’s 3-1 victory. The K-Men even survived the wrath of an angry Yankees fan who charged down to their seats in the front row of the upper deck and heaved some of their K cards over the railing and into the abyss of the box seats below.

The K-Men are still active. Carapezza, now 38, is a reporter for WGBH radio, covering higher education, and is married with two young daughters. He doesn’t get to as many games as he did in the Pedro Martínez heyday, but there’s a rotating group of some 10 members to make sure those handmade, two- by three-foot K cards are a presence at Fenway Park. The back wall where Barnett hung his cards is long gone, so the K- Men now operate on the fence in straightaway center field.

Red Sox K cards The K cards on display at Fenway for a Chris Sale start in 2019. (Omar Rawlings / Getty Images) And if that isn’t enough evidence to illustrate that Rich Barnett did so much more than “contribute a tiny piece” to Clemens’ 20-strikeout game against the Seattle Mariners, consider what Clemens himself has to say about it:

“That is great that you were able to track down the K card guy, Rich Barnett!” Clemens said via email. “From watching the rebroadcast of the game, I believe at one point our Red Sox announcers toward the middle of the game made the comment that the ‘K’ guy is going to be upset that he isn’t in attendance. Well, next thing you know there he is in the bleachers popping those ‘K’ cards on the wall. And he had enough of them!

“Please tell him thanks for making a special evening even more special.”