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Home , 2018 World Series, Anthony Ranaudo, Ben Cherington, Ben Sheets, Bernie Carbo, Billy Ashley

The Red Sox Friday, April 3, 2020

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Here are the best ballplayers I’ve covered, position by position

Peter Abraham

My first game as a beat writer was Aug. 6, 2002. The Mets played the at Miller Park and I was there working for , a newspaper based in White Plains, N.Y.

Two future Hall of Famers, and , were in the lineup for the Mets that night. With Alomar on first base, Piazza homered off in the top of and the Mets went on to win the game, 5-1.

Looking up that box score led to this thought: Who are the best players I’ve covered in 18 years on the beat?

I had the Mets from 2002-05, the Yankees from 2006-09, and the Red Sox since 2010. For the purposes of this list, only players from those teams are eligible, and it’s based on how they played at the time I was covering the team.

Here is my list:

First base I covered one year of with the Mets when he was still good, and that was a lot of fun. But Teixeira had a .948 OPS for the Yankees in 2009 and finished second in the MVP voting for a champion. He also won a Gold Glove.

Mike Napoli had an outstanding 2013 season for the Sox. Adrian Gonzalez .321 with an .895 OPS in two seasons with the Sox.

Second base I’m glad I got to watch Dustin play when he was healthy and the best all-around player at this position. Pedroia routinely made impossible plays in the field and had an .811 OPS before crushed his knee.

I also covered Alomar and Robinson Cano. Alomar was at the end of his career and Cano at the beginning. Cano had Hall of Fame potential before leaving the Yankees and getting suspended for PEDs.

Third base On a day-to-day basis, I’ve never seen a more technically sound player than A-Rod. He rarely ran into outs or made mental mistakes in the field, and obviously he mashed at the plate. That’s why it’s so disappointing that he got involved in PEDs. What a waste.

I also covered and Adrian Beltre. It was only a year with Adrian, but he was so much fun to watch. If not for injuries, Wright would have been a Hall of Famer, and Beltre should make it on the first ballot. Beltre never took a play off. If only the Sox had kept him. He wanted to stay, too.

Shortstop For whatever reason, it became trendy to find ways to criticize Jeter. Here’s what I saw: an .847 OPS and an average of 153 games a year. Every good team I’ve been around had a player or two who made sure the focus was always on that day’s game. Jeter did that for the Yankees, finding ways to tamp down whatever foolishness was going on around him.

Xander Bogaerts is seven seasons into his career and only recently has come to understand how good he can be.

Center field Covering Damon with the Yankees was interesting because he clearly enjoyed blending into a team loaded with stars. Damon had an .821 OPS in four seasons in New York and averaged 103 runs.

Damon is underrated historically. He finished his career with 1,668 runs, 2,769 hits, 866 extra-base hits, and 408 stolen bases. Only seven other players — , , , , , , and — have done that, and all are in the Hall of Fame outside of Bonds.

Right field It’s an easy call with Betts, who is on a Hall of Fame path after starting his career as a . Trading him will be a mistake that lingers through history.

Left field Part of this is that I haven’t covered many great left fielders. But people forget how good Matsui was. He had an .852 OPS with the Yankees and four 100-RBI seasons. Matsui also worked around the language barrier to be one of the best clubhouse presences I’ve seen and was a genuinely funny guy to be around.

Catcher Mike Piazza You know he was a great hitter. But he was a better than people give him credit for. He knew how to call a game and he was sound defensively. He liked to talk about heavy metal and politics. I’m quite sure Mike will be the only player I’ll ever have a serious discussion with about the viability of a third political party in America.

Designated hitter Papi hit .292/.383/.561 in the time I covered him, and that was the end of his career. His final season was a lesson in how to go on top. He also was much more of a student of hitting than people realize, putting in a lot of time studying and working on his swing.

Starting pitchers Pedro Martinez, , , , Hard to argue with four Hall of Famers and The Rocket. I was fortunate to cover Martinez when he joined the Mets, and I learned a lot about pitching from him. He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever been around. Not baseball players, people.

Johnson and Clemens were larger-than-life characters. Glavine and Mussina were guys who maximized their talent. Mussina was always funny to be around. He is the most normal person for somebody who was such a great player.

Relief He was the best at what he did and I doubt anybody will ever be better. For a beat writer, Rivera made the job easier by eliminating ninth-inning drama.

That’s what made April 15, 2007, such a shock.

The Yankees took a 4-2 lead into the ninth inning at Oakland. Rivera got two quick outs before Todd Walker singled and walked to end a nine-pitch at-bat. then hit an 0-and-2 pitch off the left-field foul pole to win the game.

Manager In order, I’ve covered , , , Torre, , , Valentine again, , , and now .

I didn’t see Francona at his best, given the 2011 collapse, so the nod goes to Torre. He was the right person at the right time for the Yankees.

It’s hard not to wonder how good Cora would have been (and perhaps still could be) if not for the cheating scandal that cost him his job. I don’t think 2018 was some fluke. Cora had been preparing to manage for years and skillfully blended analytics with old-school sensibilities.

If A-Rod can transition from disgraced pariah to “,” Cora can manage again.

On what would have been , sounds of silence at

Stan Grossfeld

To some, the best sound of Opening Days past at Fenway Park was always the rumbling good vibrations of the metal gates being hoisted up, revealing so many joyous faces on kids who were playing hooky, decked out in their best Red Sox gear, including their baseball gloves.

The grownups greeted each other by saying, “Happy New Year,” as they entered the ancient ballpark on this holiest of baseball days.

The faces never really changed much. Fans were greeted by the same, slightly grayer ushers who were there when Pedro Martinez fanned five of the six hitters he faced in the 1999 All-Star Game. Aramark employees huddled under the bleachers, amazed that people would drink ice-cold beer on 45-degree days.

The players would line up along the foul lines, framing the giant American flag on the and providing a quintessential Norman Rockwell moment.

The great American philosopher once put it all into perspective: “A home opener is always exciting, no matter if it’s home or on the road."

We will still have our Opening Day when this coronavirus runs its course, but on Thursday, the day scheduled for the 2020 opener, Fenway is like a ghost town, the ballpark and all the bars and souvenir shops around it locked up tight instead of anticipating a 2:05 p.m. start against the .

People in respiratory masks make their way down Jersey Street, waving off reporters. Parking is free instead of a costing you a second mortgage, and there is no traffic.

It seems longer, but it was just one year ago that the Red Sox received their rings. That was the highlight of last season. Then in the offseason, the Sox lost their and their biggest star, and they still have an MLB investigation hanging over their heads.

But the ongoing pandemic has rendered all of that trivial. We used to worry about pitching; now we worry about sneezing and finding toilet paper.

The game of baseball is just one thing on a long list of what is missing this day at the oldest big league ballpark in America. No smell of grilling sausages and onions on Lansdowne Street, no Big League Brian on stilts, no F15 flyover, no “,” no “,” no RemDawg, no , no Eck talking about “cheese,” no Lynne Smith Fenway hat selfies, no little kid’s face as he gets his first . No nada.

Even the statue of the "Teammates” outside the bleachers seems a tad off. What is it?

Messrs. Williams, Doerr, Pesky, and DiMaggio never had to practice social distancing.

Will baseball be coming soon to Fenway? Nobody knows for sure.

Will baseball be coming soon to Fenway? Nobody knows for sure. STAN GROSSFELD/ GLOBE STAFF Now when people talk about flattening the curve, they are not talking about hitting in the bottom of the ninth inning. They are desperately trying to lives.

But someday, hopefully soon, we will hear “play ball” again instead of “wash your hands.”

Boston will pull together and survive because “” isn’t just a slogan adopted by the Red Sox. It’s a way of life.

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A SILENT SPRING: Normally boisterous Fenway Park is sealed shut on what was Opening Day

Bill Koch

BOSTON — Fenway Park sat empty on Thursday.

The gray skies overhead found few people to threaten. The surrounding thoroughfares, normally bustling with activity on the day of the Red Sox home opener, were largely abandoned.

A stray jogger or two and the occasional essential worker made their way down Brookline Avenue or Jersey Street. The scheduled 2:05 p.m. first pitch between Boston and the White Sox had been postponed for weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic. Baseball ultimately might not have a starting for the 2020 season.

Such grim circumstances didn’t deter the occupants of a blue sedan pulling up to the curb on Lansdowne Street early in the afternoon. Jeff Bray and his son, Kyle, hopped out of the car to snap a photo in the shadows of the Green Monster. They’ve repeated this ritual every year since the 2004 home opener against the Blue Jays, the season in which the Red Sox finally ended their 86-year wait for a World Series title.

“It’s a little cool for an Opening Day,” Jeff said. “There have been worse. There have been a lot better, too.”

The two men made the short drive from Winchester, a suburban town about eight miles north of the city. Both noted the absence of traffic on the roads, with Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker urging residents to stay home, if possible. There was only a moment or two of lingering after the shutter clicked on Jeff’s cell phone.

“It was always the one day of the year I got to leave school early,” Kyle said. “I would wear my Red Sox jersey to school every day and, ‘Ha ha — I get to leave early.’ ”

Kyle gestured toward imaginary classmates, a devilish grin on his face. He and his father wore matching Boston home jerseys — both No. 41, in honor of Red Sox left-hander — over red hooded sweatshirts. They were dressed to withstand the cool breeze that whips sharply off the Charles River in the months prior to summer.

“This is the first time since 2004 that we haven’t been sitting in our seats,” Jeff said.

They weren’t alone in that respect.

Aside from a restaurant or two offering takeout service, businesses in the area were largely closed. Metal grates were pulled down and latched outside the glass doors of the Red Sox Team Store. Tables and chairs normally spread on the sidewalks in front of the Cask ’n Flagon or Game On were nowhere to be found.

“It’s hard to think that baseball is not still going on,” Jeff said.

Jeff made reference to a famous passage from the 1989 drama, “,” to further his point. The novelist, Terence Mann, a character played by the deep-voiced James Earl Jones, delivers an impassioned soliloquy late in the film about the timelessness of the sport. The daily routine baseball offers has helped the country pass the summer months for more than a century.

“America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers,” Jones said. “It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.”

Electronic billboards now carry public service announcements about the need to frequently wash hands, maintain a safe social distance and self-quarantine at any sign of illness. The possible return of baseball and any other sport are secondary considerations at best. Kyle, a journalism student at nearby Emerson College, has been taking online classes for the last three weeks.

Any return to something approaching normalcy doesn’t appear to be close. The CDC reported more than 213,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus as of Thursday afternoon, including more than 7,700 in Massachusetts. has postponed the start of the season until at least the middle of May.

“It’s one of those things where I always knew we were going to the game together,” Kyle said. “If we were going to miss Opening Day, I would have thought it would be for school or work.

“But we’re still together.”

* MassLive.com

Boston Red Sox Opening Day at Fenway Park 2020: photo, video from an empty park Thursday during coronavirus outbreak

Christopher Smith

Opening Day at Fenway Park was scheduled for 2:05 p.m. Thursday (today). But MLB suspended its season indefinitely last month because of the coronavirus pandemic.

If the MLB season eventually restarts, it reportedly likely will happen with no fans in the stands.

The Red Sox would have opened a six-game homestand with three games against the Chicago White Sox on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. They then would have welcomed the for a three- game series Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Billie Weiss, the Red Sox senior manager of photography, documented Opening Day despite no game.

The Red Sox also tweeted a video of Fenway Park.

Red Sox NESN broadcasters , , Guerin Austin, others make Opening Day at Fenway stay home video

Christopher Smith

The Red Sox NESN broadcast team is staying home with Opening Day at Fenway Park postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. And they are encouraging everyone else to do same.

NESN posted a video on with the broadcast team — Jerry Remy, Dennis Eckersley, Guerin Austin, Dave O’Brien, , , , Tom Caron, Lenny DiNardo and Adam Pellerin — asking fans to stay home.

“So very strange for all of us to be staying home on what would have been Opening Day,” O’Brien said.

Opening Day at Fenway Park was scheduled for 2:05 p.m. Thursday (today). But MLB suspended its season indefinitely last month because of the coronavirus outbreak.

“We’d love to be at Fenway Park celebrating baseball but we can’t be,” Remy said. “And we just ask you to be vigilant in what you’re doing.”

“Staying home means putting your team above yourself,” Delcarmen said.

“We’re all in this together so please stay home, stay safe,” Caron added.

Boston Red Sox, tallest to shortest: Slim Harriss slimmer than Chris Sale; Dustin Pedroia 5 inches on Frank Morrissey; Tony Clark as tall as Jayson Tatum

Christopher Smith

Chris Sale (6-foot-6, 183 pounds) is the tallest player on the 2020 Boston Red Sox, but he’s also one of the six lightest. Only Phillips Valdez, Ryan Weber, , Tzu-Wei Lin and Dustin Pedroia weigh less than him.

But Sale — who’s nicknamed “Stickman” — isn’t listed as the slimmest 6-foot-6 pitcher in Red Sox history.

MassLive.com examined the 2020 media guide and every Red Sox roster from 1901-2019 (via Basebll- Reference) to identify the tallest, shortest and slimmest players in franchise history.

Slim Harriss (William Jennings Bryan Harriss) stayed true to his nickname. Listed at 6-foot-6, 180 pounds, he’s the same height as Sale but three pounds less.

Harriss, a right-hander, pitched in the major leagues from 1920-28. He spent his final three seasons with the Red Sox, going 28-42 with a 4.37 ERA, 3.64 FIP and 21 complete games in 92 outings (60 starts).

The righty certainly wasn’t a power pitcher like Sale. He struck out just 148 batters in 459 (2.9 K/9) for Boston.

Some fast facts:

~ Sale is Boston’s tallest Red Sox player (6-6, 183), but seven — Tacko Fall (7-5, 311), Vincent Poirier (7-0, 235), Enes Kanter (6-10, 250), Daniel Theis (6-8, 245), Robert Williams (6-8, 237), Jayson Tatum (6-8, 210), Gordon Hayward (6-7, 225) — are taller than him.

~ Only five players on the 40-man roster — Phillips Valdez (6-3, 165), Ryan Weber (6-1, 175), Andrew Benintendi (5-9, 180), Tzu-Wei Lin (5-9, 180) and Dustin Pedroia (5-9, 170) — weigh less than Sale.

~ Valdez (6-3, 165) — who the Red Sox claimed off waivers from the Mariners in February — is listed as the lightest member of the 40-man roster.

~ Jim Dorsey (6-7, 190 pounds), Toby Borland (6-6, 186 pounds), Bill Butland (6-5, 185) and Garry Roggenburk (6-6, 195 pounds) also had slim frames like Sale and Harriss.

Butland posted a 3.88 ERA in 32 outings (15 starts) for Boston in four seasons (1940-42, 1946-47). Roggenburk pitched in 12 games for the Red Sox over parts of three seasons (1966, 1968-69). Dorsey pitched in two games for Boston in 1984-85. Borland made three relief appearances for Boston in 1997.

~ Right-handed pitcher Frank Morrissey (5-4, 140 pounds) is listed as the shortest player in Red Sox history, per Baseball-Reference rosters. He’s listed five inches shorter and 30 pounds less than Dustin Pedroia. Morrissey made just one appearance for Boston. He allowed one in 4 ⅓ innings (one run) in a game in 1901.

~ Cliff Brady, Slim Harriss’ teammate in 1920, was listed at 5-foot-5, 140 pounds. He appeared in 53 games and batted .228.

~ The Red Sox had several players who stood at 5-foot-6 and 5-foot-7 from 1901-46. Dom Dallessandro, Eddie Foster, Charlie French, Harry Gleason, , Mike Herrera, Nemo Leibold, Gene Rye, Bill Swanson and Herb Welch stood at 5-foot-6.

Neal Ball, Jimmy Barrett, Skinny Graham, , Walter Lonergan, Eddie Lake, Amby McConnell, Marv Olson, Freddy Parent, Frankie Pytlak, Braggo Roth, Kip Selbach and Rabbit Warstler were 5-7.

Haney also managed the champion Milwaukee Braves. Lonergan was a Boston, Mass., native. He graduated from Brighton High and played for the Red Sox in 1911.

~ Tony Clark, who played for Boston in 2002 and now serves as the executive director of the MLB Players Association, is the same size as Celtics star Jayson Tatum. Clark (6-foot-8). He joins Doug Fister, , Nate Minchey, Steve Ellsworth, Mike Smithson and as tallest Red Sox players of all- time.

~ Ellsworth (6-8) and Smithson (6-8) both played on the 1988 Red Sox. (6-7) and (6-7) were on the 2014 Red Sox. Doug Fister (6-8) and Kyle Martin (6-7) both pitched for the Red Sox in 2017.

~ Miller, Ranaudo, Martin, , Peter Hoy, Jim Dorsey, Rich Gale and all were listed at 6-foot-7. Hoy serves as head at St. Lawrence.

~ Hall of Famer (5-9) tied with three others — including and Dom DiMaggio — for shortest player on the 1952 Red Sox.

~ Hall of Famer (5-foot-9) was the shortest player on the 1971 team.

~ Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins (6-foot-5) was tied for tallest Red Sox player in 1976-77. Hall of Famer (6-foot-5) was tied for the tallest Red Sox player in 1990.

~ Hall of Famer (6-2) was tied for the tallest player four times in the team’s first decade of existence and Hall of Famer (6-2) was tied for tallest on the champions.

~ and are listed as the same height and separated by one pound.

~ Tzu-Wei Lin and Andrew Benintendi are listed at the same size (5-9, 180).

Kyle Hart (6-5, 200) is the tallest player on Boston’s 2020 40-man roster who has yet to make his MLB debut. He was roommates with Cubs’ Kyle Schwarber at Indiana University

Martin Perez, Kevin Pillar and Matt Hall are the same size (6-0, 200). So is Jonathan Lucroy who should make the 40-man roster.

Tallest, shortest Red Sox players by decade: 2010-19: Doug Fister (6-8); (5-8)

2000-09: Tony Clark, Kyle Snyder (6-8); Donnie Sadler (5-6)

1990-1999: Nate Minchey (6-8); Donnie Sadler, Chad Fonville (5-6)

1980-1989: Steve Ellsworth, Mike Smithson (6-8); Jody Reed, , Spike Owen, Chico Walker, Jerry Remy, (5-9)

1970-79: Boby Veale (6-6); Jerry Remy, , Sam Bowen, Ramon Aviles, , Luis Aparicio, , (5-9),

1960-69: Gene Conley (6-8); Dick Schofield, Luis Alvarado, Floyd Robinson, Bill Short, Hal Kolstad

1950-59: Don Gile, Frank Sullivan (6-6); (5-8)

1940-49: , Bill Butland, Pinky Woods (6-5); Eddie Lake, Frankie Pytlak (5-7)

1930-39: Hy Vandenberg, Joe Mulligan, Bob Weiland (6-4); Dom Dallessandro (5-6)

1920-29: Slim Harriss (6-6); Cliff Brady (5-5)

1910-19: Ben Hunt (6-5); Charlie French, Bill Swanson (5-6)

1901-1909: Larry McLean (6-5); Frank Morrissey (5-4)

2020 Red Sox 40-man roster from tallest to shortest Chris Sale 6-6, 183

Josh Taylor 6-5, 245

Brandon Workman 6-5, 235

Kyle Hart 6-5, 200

Heath Hembree 6-4, 220

Austin Brice 6-4, 238

Bobby Dalbec 6-4, 227

Colten Brewer 6-4, 222

Matt Barnes, 6-4, 208

Chris Mazza 6-4, 190

C.J. Chatham 6-4, 185

Mitch Moreland 6-3, 245

J.D. Martinez 6-3, 230

Jeffrey Springs, 6-3, 218

Phillips Valdez 6-3, 165

Darwinzon Hernandez 6-2, 255

Mike Shawaryn 6-2, 240

Josh Osich 6-2, 235

Eduardo Rodriguez 6-2, 231

Xander Bogaerts 6-2, 218

Nathan Eovaldi 6-2, 217

Yoan Aybar 6-2, 210

Kevin Plawecki 6-2, 208

Marcus Wilson 6-2, 198

Collin McHugh 6-2, 191

Ryan Weber 6-1, 175

Rafael Devers 6-0, 240

Ryan Brasier 6-0, 227

Jose Peraza 6-0, 210

Kevin Pillar 6-0, 200

Martin Perez 6-0, 200

Matt Hall 6-0, 200

Alex Verdugo 6-0, 192

Michael Chavis 5-10, 210

Jackie Bradley Jr. 5-10, 196

Marcus Walden 5-10, 198

Christian Vazquez, 5-9, 205

Andrew Benintendi 5-9, 180

Tzu-Wei Lin 5-9, 180

Dustin Pedroia 5-9, 170

* The media guide includes weights from players’ physical examinations. Heights aren’t measured during physicals. The Red Sox use heights from previous media guides.

Red Sox gave my family hope in a tough time, I can’t wait for sports to do that again

Matt Vautour

I haven’t watched sports TV much in the past three weeks. The networks are filling their vacant air time with some of the greatest games ever, but the ones that would interest me I mostly remember well enough already.

But I’ll be tuned into NESN on Friday night at 7 to watch the replay of of the 2013 World Series. I don’t remember much about the game itself when the Boston Red Sox finished off the St. Louis Cardinals to capture their third title in nine years. I was tired, the sound was off and the screen was small that time. But I remember the feeling I had.

I imagine sports are special at all hospitals. Having the game on TV is a rare moment for patients and their families to do exactly the same thing they’d be doing at home. But there’s added magic at a children’s hospital. My wife, newborn son and I were on day 65 at Boston Children’s Hospital, just a stop away from Fenway on the Green Line on Oct. 30, 2013.

Joey was born in late August with a collection of medical complications that required multiple surgeries. It was unclear how long he’d need to be hospitalized so we alternated between living in mini dorm rooms on- site, patient housing nearby and simply sleeping in chairs or couches when he was in rooms that could accommodate it.

Baseball at night and football on Sunday afternoons on the miniature televisions were reminders of normalcy and the time passing outside. That Red Sox postseason was special. Nurses wore Big Papi T- shirts along with their scrubs and suddenly there was a collection of helium-filled baseball balloons hovering outside the first-floor gift shop.

Kids moving through the hallways in hospital johnnies had blue hats with red B’s on their heads. Cracker Jacks even showed up one day in the cafeteria.

The walls, which were decorated for Halloween, suddenly had Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz and pictures next to jack-o'-lanterns and skeletons. There’s a sense of community inside those walls. Strangers understand each other in ways few others can. Baseball was a relief for all of us.

Patients and medical professionals were bonded a little tighter, too. It was something to talk about that wasn’t related to medicine dosage or oxygen stats. Nurses and doctors occasionally poked their heads into our room or look through the window, squinting to catch a glimpse of the score and the inning. They’d linger for a split second longer when the game was in a tight spot to see if could strand the runner on third base and get out of the inning.

The night of Game 6, Joey was recovering in the Cardiac ICU from his second open heart surgery days before. He’d had a good day and was in the midst of an uneventful night.

I’m told from the other side of the hospital you could see the fireworks and if you walked outside the front entrance you could hear the din of nearby celebration when the Red Sox won. Being careful not to disconnect the wires and tubes attached to him, my wife and I simply held our nine-week-old little boy up next to the screen, wearing a little white baby hat with Red Sox logos that someone had sent us. We wanted to capture the moment. He didn’t wake up.

On a very micro and personal level, the last three weeks have felt a little like those 70 days and not just because of the constant hand-washing. Obviously, we weren’t isolated at home the way we are now, but our lives and our careers were on hold without knowing exactly when things will go back to normal. Time feels out of whack in the same way it did then. Sometimes two days seems like a week, and sometimes three weeks ago feels like yesterday. Like then, we’re hoping smart people in the medical field will make good decisions that will land us all as safely as possible on the other side. But it’s hard to know just how far in the future that other side is.

I think often of the wonderful nurses and doctors who ushered us from scary moments to happy ones. I hope they’re safe now in a scary time for medical personnel. Whoever is unlucky enough to need their care is lucky to have them providing it right now.

But watching that game will be a reminder of how we miss sports right now. Canceling and postponing was the right call, of course. But that series was an example of how sports bring us together. That Red Sox team became a rallying point for the region after the Boston Marathon bombing, and it offered my family some relief during those 70 stressful days in the hospital. The Red Sox and all sports will be part of the world’s healing again, hopefully before long.

Six days after that World Series win, Joey came home from the hospital. Six years later, he’s started to be interested in baseball himself. Friday night, maybe I’ll wake him up to see the end.

* RedSox.com

Backyard baseball: Chavis returns to roots

Ian Browne

BOSTON -- Red Sox is the definition of a cage rat.

For as long as he can remember, his hobby when he isn’t actually playing baseball is to take endless swings in the cage.

In these times of social distancing and most nonessential businesses being closed during the coronavirus pandemic, Chavis has found a fun way to improvise.

He is playing the game of his youth -- Wiffle ball -- and playing it a lot.

Last week, Chavis posted an Instagram video that got more than 32,000 views of him hitting a mammoth homer off his girlfriend Sarah, who features an arsenal heavy on cutters.

“She’s a lefty who throws a natural cutter all day,” Chavis said. “Even with a normal baseball, she just naturally throws a cutter. She’s been awesome down here too because she’s the one I’ll play catch with.”

After the plastic ball landed on a sidewalk across the street from the yard he was hitting at in Fort Myers, Fla., Chavis went into a full trot, raising his right arm in triumph as he got to each base. His brother Fuzzy can be heard cheering in the background.

“My brother is the one who was taking the video so it’s pretty much just us as a trio going around doing stuff,” Chavis said.

Chavis has always been a person who looks for the positives in everything. That mentality has helped him during these trying times.

Is there a certain message he was sending by posting the fun Wiffle ball video on social media?

“I guess it kind of was motivational. But it was moreso, just find something fun to do,” Chavis said. “I was literally just sitting at home and I was like, ‘What are some things when I was a kid? What would I do when I would go outside? What did I love playing?’

“And I was like, ‘Wiffle ball was absolutely my go to all the time.’ So I just went on Amazon so I ordered some Wiffle balls, I got some bases, I got a bat. I’m going to tape up the bat and everything. It’s going to be legit.”

Chavis knows the trappings people can fall into these days, and he’d like to prevent that for himself and others.

“The big thing for me is I’m trying to stay away from screens,” Chavis said. “I spend so much time on my phone, or watching TV or playing video games in daily life, I just wanted to change it up and just do something different.”

Though Chavis knows better than to join any crowds, he is doing his best to enjoy the weather.

“I spend the majority of my days outside right now. Right now, I’m taking a bike ride as I’m talking to you as something to do,” Chavis said. “I’ll probably play Wiffle ball later. I’ll go shoot. There’s a hoop around here. We have a golf cart we’ll take for a ride.

“Have you ever heard of an Aerobie? It’s like a Frisbee that doesn’t have a middle and you can throw it up to like 1,300 yards. It’s ridiculous. It’s so much fun. I got it for like six bucks at Target. So just doing stuff outside, trying to stay active. Not just to stay in shape but to have something to do.”

Chavis had still been able to take batting practice at until March 24, when a Red Sox Minor League player tested positive for COVID-19. Since then, the complex has been closed and will remain so for at least another week.

So Wiffle ball it is!

“Obviously I can’t just go to somewhere and hit off a pitching machine. Literally the Wiffle ball has kind of become a little bit of my baseball-swinging training,” said Chavis. “It sounds like a joke but you can throw and sliders and just some hand-eye coordination and swinging mechanics and it’s fun. I don’t really know what else I can do. That’s what I have. I’m just trying to make do with what I’ve got.”

* WEEI.com

The lesson Jonathan Arauz' situation should teach us

Rob Bradford

One week ago much was made of the agreement made between Major League Baseball and the Players' Association. And rightfully so.

Both sides were doing their best to get out ahead of these unpredictable next few months on a variety of levels, including pay structure and service time. But to think that it has all been figured out would be a mistake. For a reminder of that consider Jonathan Arauz's situation.

Arauz is currently the property of the Red Sox, having been selected in the from the Astros in the offseason. Under Rule 5 guidelines, Arauz would need to be kept on the active major league roster for the entire season in order to stay with Boston. If the Sox couldn't accomodate the infielder on 26-man roster than he would be returned to the Houston organization.

Now, this is where it gets tricky.

While we know that the agreement between MLB and the MLBPA states that players will be rewarded a full year of service time even if there is no season (or even if there is part of a season), according to team and league sources there has been no determination regarding what might happen to Rule 5 players if there is no season.

While this isn't going to make or break the Red Sox' title hopes it is a microcosm of the continued uncertainty for players and teams. There is still a ton to figure out.

Arauz showed some promise during his spring training stint with the Red Sox before running into some struggles in the final week of Grapefruit League play. The 21-year-old probably wasn't going to be a viable candidate to stick with the major league team if the roster stuck at 26 players. But if it does expand to 29, as is rumored if and when baseball does return, the infielder might be worth holding on to.

If there is no season, however, it might be a whole different ballgame.

If the Rule 5 picks are linked to the service time agreement then the Red Sox would be able to keep Arauz's rights for 2021, potentially allowing him to continue what would be a more palatable developmental path in the minor leagues. But there is still a chance such a scenario would simply lead to another spring training of trying out next March.

Just something to think about.

* NBC Sports Boston

Hindsight 2020: Remember when the Red Sox chose the wrong All-Star to build around?

John Tomase

The Red Sox have made plenty of shrewd acquisitions over the last 20 years, from signing David Ortiz to trading for to drafting Mookie Betts, with four World Series trophies as a result.

But given their volume of high-profile deals, it's inevitable that some will miss.

And so to kick off our Hindsight 2020 series from a front office perspective, we're going to break down one Red Sox move that would best be undone.

From an historical perspective, convincing Harry Frazee not to send Babe Ruth to the Yankees would probably be a good place to start, but that's too obvious. If we fast-forward to Christmas of 1980, then we'd encourage to show a little more urgency finding a post office with free agency beckoning for and . That's another easy one.

Bad free agent decisions usually stem from organizational breakdowns, which is why 's decision to sign Hanley Ramirez and in the 2014 offseason isn't the choice, nor is 's acquisition of or Matt Clement. Those were moves born of necessity after other player development and/or payroll mishaps.

No, today, we're going to consider an overlooked decision that nevertheless cost the franchise a Hall of Famer. Money wasn't the issue, nor was desperation. This came down to straight talent evaluation between a pair of All-Stars, and the Red Sox chose wrong.

So let's revisit the case of Adrian Beltre and the circumstances that led him to leave Boston after a one-and- done season that could've been so much more.

A 48-home run hitter and MVP runner-up with the Dodgers in 2004, Beltre signed a five-year, $64 million contract with the Mariners that left him spending his prime in exile, lost to the cavernous dimensions of Safeco Field.

He failed to make an All-Star team or top 26 homers in the Pacific Northwest, though he did win a pair of Gold Gloves. When he hit free agency before the 2010 season, agent sought a "pillow contract" that would allow Beltre to re-establish his value before returning to free agency a year later.

The Red Sox provided it with a one-year, $10 million offer. Beltre rewarded them, and then some, hitting .321, leading the league in doubles, making his first All-Star team, and winning a Silver Slugger. The Red Sox missed the playoffs anyway because of lousy pitching beyond 19-game winner and All-Star .

It wasn't Beltre's fault. He delivered not just on the field, but in the clubhouse, where his combination of professionalism, intensity, and self-deprecation made him widely respected, a reputation that would only grow in ensuing seasons. (There's a reason, a decade later, that believed Beltre would be just the man to mentor through early-career struggles.)

Beltre's contract was structured to guarantee he'd spend only one year in Boston, with a $5 million player option both sides knew he'd decline.

Boston faced decisions that offseason. Both Beltre and All-Star catcher Victor Martinez were free agents, and Epstein had his sights on the long-time object of his affection: All-Star Adrian Gonzalez.

At that point in their respective careers, few would've argued the 30-year-old Beltre represented a better bet than the 27-year-old Gonzalez, a former No. 1 overall pick who had already won a pair of Gold Gloves while blasting 40 homers in San Diego, no hitter's paradise.

With homegrown All-Star one year into a $41 million extension and capable of playing either corner, Epstein had a decision to make: Beltre at third or Gonzalez at first.

He didn't have to think long or hard. He had openly lusted after Gonzalez for years, and on Dec. 6, swung a deal with former protégé , sending a package of three prospects, including future All-Star , to San Diego.

Beltre was attending David Ortiz's charity golf tournament in the Dominican and didn't know the deal had been consummated until a couple of Boston reporters relayed the news. He grimaced, but his sadness proved short-lived. Within a month, the Rangers delivered a five-year, $80 million offer that might be the best free agent contract of the decade.

Over the next eight years, Beltre transformed himself into a Hall of Famer, making three All-Star teams, winning three Gold Gloves, and finishing in the top 10 of MVP voting for five straight years. He recorded his 3,000th hit in a Rangers uniform, and was a driving force behind four playoff berths, including a heartbreaking World Series loss to the Cardinals in 2011.

Meanwhile, Gonzalez immediately signed a $154 million extension and posted monster numbers, but nonetheless came to represent the unlikable, entitled and whiny 2011 team that collapsed down the stretch. A year later, Cherington blew up the roster by shipping Gonzalez, Crawford and to the Dodgers.

It's easy to wonder what might've been. Youkilis shifted to third from first base, where he had won a Gold Glove, and made an All-Star team, but injuries had already started taking their toll. A year later, he'd be traded after clashing with manager Bobby Valentine.

The 2011 collapse made Valentine's disastrous tenure possible, because it forced out both Epstein and manager Terry Francona. Could Beltre, one of the game's most respected leaders, had made a difference that September? Outside of Jacoby Ellsbury, the Red Sox wilted and desperately needed a steadying influence. At the very least, Beltre probably wouldn't have complained about inconvenient Sunday night travel while the season was going down the toilet.

If there's a saving grace, it's that Epstein and the front office recognized the deep 2011 draft as their final opportunity to spend with impunity before baseball imposed limits in the new CBA. They used the two compensatory picks they received for Beltre to take and Jackie Bradley Jr. as part of a haul that also yielded , Mookie Betts, and .

Bradley helped the team win a World Series in 2018, and he also earned a ring in 2013.

Gonzalez posted solid but unspectacular numbers in L.A. before hitting .237 in 54 games with the 2018 Mets. He hasn't played since, meaning his career is likely over at age 37.

Beltre also played his final game in 2018, but he departed to significantly more fanfare, retiring with 3,166 hits, 477 homers, 93.6 WAR ... and one giant what-might-have-been in Boston.

*

Distant Replay: Reliving one of MLB’s best-ever games — Carlton Fisk’s home run

Chad Jennings

Pick a game. That was the assignment. Now that we’re all isolated in our stay-at-home routines, it might be fun to share the experience of something familiar. So, pick a game, watch it and write about it.

I picked Game 6, 1975, the Carlton Fisk home run.

Of course, I knew all about it (though it turns out, I’d never made one particularly notable connection). I knew started, I knew hit the pinch-hit home run, and I’d seen video of Fisk waving that ball fair countless times. But I’d never seen it in its full context, start to finish. It happened four years before I was born.

Thanks to the internet, the entire NBC broadcast — minus commercials — is available on YouTube. And it opens with a spectacular shot of Luis Tiant Sr. in the crowd.

Pregame As the broadcast opens, we’re told the last World Series to be decided in six games was in 1959, a streak that’s about to continue. has play-by-play duties tonight, with former big leaguers and Joe Garagiola. Kubek says he’d talked to Reds hitters who seem unimpressed by Tiant’s . That’s the discussion as they show Tiant’s past five games in Boston: 45 , one , 33 and a 0.20 ERA.

Within an hour, the booth will be marveling at Tiant’s ability to put his fastball where he wants and get easy outs.

First inning Tiant works the outside part of the plate in the top of the first, and he gets through it — how cool is this? — with a diving catch by in left field, a tough catch by Carlton Fisk behind the plate, and a swinging against .

Meanwhile, the broadcast notes that third-base received a wire threatening his wife and daughter. He’s under FBI protection, and there are apparently agents in the stands behind third base just in case.

The Red Sox put two on with two outs for Fred Lynn. Kubek notes that Lynn’s been slumping but taking a lot of extra batting practice. The very next pitch is hit over the bullpen for a three-run homer. It’s 3-0 Red Sox after one.

Second inning The broadcasters out the cameraman on the roof in left field. They even show him up there with a handheld camera, and it doesn’t look safe. It’s the cameraman in the Green Monster at field level who will be semi-famous by the end of the night.

Tiant’s breaking ball makes Tony Perez look just awful. Or maybe it’s that he gave an especially exaggerated leg kick on the delivery.

“The man Tiant,” Garagiola says. “Forget his stuff and watch his delivery and you can see that if you knew what was coming, you still don’t know from where!”

With two outs and two strikes, we get our first “Louie! Louie! Louie!” chant from the crowd. He gets a routine fly ball and walks off.

The bottom of the second opens with a conversation about as a breakout star of the series. Reds manager apparently told someone Evans was better than he’d expected, or better than he’d heard.

But I’m more distracted by Tiant hitting in a World Series game at Fenway Park. I didn’t know there was no DH in the World Series from 1973 through 1975.

Third inning Broadcasters now saying that Tiant’s showing a good fastball, and throwing lots of them. Then, there’s this exchange.

Kubek: “You think he throws a Cuban palmball?” Garagiola: “I don’t know, Tony, if he loads one or not. I don’t think he needs it.” At this point, the booth is in agreement that what they’d really like to see is a scouting report that shows exactly which pitches Tiant throws. Just wait a few decades, you’ll be able to find how many times his spins.

In the bottom of the third, the Reds are already into their bullpen, bringing in lefty , who throws a screwball. Norman, apparently, has been among the pitchers complaining about not getting to pitch enough this series.

After a and a couple of popups, the Reds intentionally walk Fisk to face Lynn with two outs. The broadcasters are in universal agreement with the move, and whether they know it or not, the numbers are in their favor. Lynn had a 1.040 OPS against right-handers that season, but a .764 against lefties. Doesn’t matter when Norman walks him — Lynn had walked only eight times against a lefty during the season — and so finishes warming in the bullpen, puts on a jacket and rides the bullpen cart into the game to strike out with the bases loaded. The jacket clearly worked.

Fourth inning Can’t tell which broadcaster says it, but here’s the question wondered aloud: “Is it too early to say yet, the game’s never over until the last out with the wind blowing out at Fenway and in town?”

You’re onto something, boys.

But, hey, look! It’s wearing the most-stereotypical ’70s attire you could possibly see at a baseball game. Awesome.

With two outs in the top of the fourth, the broadcasters are still marveling at Tiant’s ever-changing delivery, and that he’s working so consistently away: “You couldn’t hit him with seven bats when he makes pitches like that.”

Tiant gets out of a small jam, then the Red Sox waste a scoring opportunity with runners at second and third and one out in the top of the fourth. Tiant had tried to lay down a sacrifice and popped it up so badly it actually worked to advance the runners, but and Denny Doyle can’t get the ball out of the . Second wasted opportunity in as many innings for the Red Sox. We would have heard about that a lot if things had ended differently.

Top fifth After a quick out, Tiant seems to be really cruising. Of course, I know how this inning goes, so the Jaws theme song might as well be playing as Ed Armbrister — with his .454 OPS in the regular season — draws a walk on five pitches.

The broadcast notes Tiant is up to 40 consecutive innings without an earned run at Fenway Park, but he’s about to run the gantlet of this lineup, starting with . He’s 34 years old, just made his ninth All-Star team, and he will be an All-Star the next seven years in a row. And then again three years after that. I’m 40 years old, and it occurs to me that these are the elite players I just missed in my baseball fandom. I remember Evans pretty well — he played until I was 11 — but I honestly remember Fisk mostly as a member of the White Sox. I saw Rose and Lynn, but not like this. It’s great to see them in their proper context.

Speaking of which, Ken Griffey Sr. — the Sr. is always required for my generation — just hit his sharp double off the 379 marker in left , and Lynn is down in a heap. He slammed into the wall, and the broadcasters are talking about his background as a tough football player while wondering if he hit his head or only his back.

“The crowd is just stunned,” Garagiola says. “They’re all standing. A big hush over the ballpark. You just don’t know.” Stockton’s not sure he’s ever heard Fenway Park like this. But after a couple of minutes, Lynn is up and stretching and staying in the game.

And speaking of players I’m a little too young to fully appreciate, Johnny Bench (retired when I was 4) just drove in the tying run with a two-out single off the Green Monster, which Yastrzemski (also retired when I was 4) played perfectly off the wall. I mean, perfectly. I’ve heard people talk about the way Yaz played The Wall, but I think that’s the first time I’ve seen it outside of a two-second highlight.

It’s 3-3.

Top sixth With two outs Tiant allows back-to-back singles — one of them botched by the Red Sox infield — to bring up Rose with the go-ahead run in .

There seems to be absolutely no thought of going to the bullpen here. Broadcasters don’t mention it. doesn’t peek his head out of the . Tiant has allowed six of the past 10 Reds batters to reach base, and Rose is 2-for-3, but this is Tiant, and this is 1975, and so here were go.

Rick Burleson fields a ground ball, takes it himself, and makes up for his previous mistake get the Red Sox out of the jam.

Bottom sixth Pedro Borbon enters as the fifth pitcher for Cincinnati, and the broadcasters are discussing whether Sparky Anderson “has made the obsolete” with his aggressive bullpen management. Try not to watch playoff games in 40 years, fellas. You’re not going to like it.

Anyway, Borbon walks a batter and leaves him stranded.

Top seventh Six pitches in, the Reds have runners at first and second with nobody out, Bench and Perez coming to the plate, and Tiant still on the mound for the Red Sox. The broadcast booth is in universal agreement that Tiant hasn’t lost anything on his pitches, and the Reds have simply hit some good ones. is getting loose in the bullpen as Johnson goes to the mound, but again, he sticks with Tiant.

It almost works.

Tiant gets Bench and Perez on a total of three pitches, though Griffey moves to third, and is up next. Fisk, Burleson and Tiant talk about it on the mound — they’re apparently going to let Morgan steal second base if he wants it — and with Morgan free to run on the pitch, he scores easily when Foster hits a booming double to center field. Those missed opportunities in the early innings loom large with the Reds suddenly leading 5-3.

Bottom seventh/top eighth The broadcast booth has been talking about the stunned Fenway crowd for about a half-inning by the time Cesar Geronimo led off the eighth inning and smoked the first pitch, keeping it just fair for a home run.

“Cincinnati getting a little bit to a world’s championship,” we’re told, as Johnson finally walks to the mound to take Tiant out of the game. “The Reds just six outs away.”

It occurs to me that I can’t recall a single mention of how long it’s been since the Red Sox won a championship. Was 57 years not considered a big deal?

Huge ovation for Tiant, who leaves with the score 6-3, having thrown complete games in each of his previous three starts during this postseason. He wasn’t supposed to start this game in the first place, but days of rain bought some time and made him available. The analysis in the booth: “They came to see Tiant, Red Sox fans that is.”

They’re about to see something else. Unless they skipped the game to go see about a girl.

Roger Moret gets through the rest of the inning, and here we go into history.

Bottom eighth Lynn leads off the eighth, and he hasn’t looked right since slamming into the wall in the fifth. The cameras keep showing him stretching and squirming in the . He seems to be walking with a bit of a limp. But he hits this first pitch sharply back to the mound and beats out an infield single. Then Petrocelli walks.

The Reds, ever aggressive with their bullpen, bring in a fresh reliever, and gets two quick outs against Evans and Burleson to set up the second-most-famous at-bat of this game.

As pinch hitter Bernie Carbo steps the plate, the chyron shows he’s 1-for-2 in the World Series. That one hit was a Game 3 home run, exactly a week earlier, also as a pinch hitter. The broadcasters note that he was a first-round draft pick of the Reds back in 1965 — “You’ve heard it before, but that’s the irony of this game” — and he wound up traded to the Cardinals and then to the Red Sox.

“Most teams this year, they try to pitch him inside,” Stockton says. “They try to jam Carbo. In fact, he hit that home run, as you mentioned, Joe, but the other time he was retired, he also hit the ball solidly to left field.”

Sure enough, two of the first three pitches are inside to Carbo. He swings through a fastball up, then fouls one off, then fouls another, and the count is 2-2 when Eastwick leaves a pitch where Carbo can handle it.

“Deep center field! Way back! Way back! We’re tied up!”

Carbo’s raising both arms as he crosses home plate and runs into the dugout to be positively engulfed by teammates. Decades later, Carbo would admit being so deep into drug addiction at the time, he couldn’t even celebrate all that happened next. He told ESPN in 2010 that he had no memory of his second at-bat in Game 6 — he struck out in the 10th — and said he arrived at Game 7 too wasted to properly shag fly balls during batting practice. His heroic home run was a highlight of his career, coming at a low point in his life. From ESPN:

It was the greatest pinch-hit home run in Red Sox World Series history, yet Carbo says he couldn’t savor the signature moment of his 12-year major league career because getting high was what his life had become all about.

“I was taking mescaline. I was taking cocaine, crystal meth, smoking dope and taking pills and drinking,” Carbo says.

In the hours after the clubhouse celebration of Game 6, Carbo says, “I was very depressed.”

Upon showing a replay of Carbo seeing his home run leave the yard, the broadcast booth remarks: “There’s a lot of little boy jumping out of Carbo.” They’ll more famously revisit that line in a few innings.

Top ninth Carbo’s staying in the game to play left field, Yastrzemski has moved to first base, and here’s Drago to pitch. He’s going to be the unsung hero of this game. In the shadow of one of the most famous home runs in baseball history, and one of the great pinch-hit home runs in franchise history, a long reliever going three scoreless innings isn’t going to generate much buzz. Even when it comes against one of the most celebrated lineups we’ve ever seen.

Drago, though, was used to it. His SABR biography opens with a story of being recognized as a Red Sox player while at the counter of a Boston convenience store during that 1975 season. The clerk asked Drago his name, and after hearing the answer responded: “Oh yeah, Drago Segui.”

So, Drago’s out there in the ninth, retiring three straight Hall of Famers in a tied, do-or-die, World Series game, and nobody cares.

Bottom ninth I look away for five seconds and Yastrzemski is bunting! Doyle led off the ninth with a walk, and with Fisk and Lynn due up, the Red Sox play for one run — which makes sense — and decide to sacrifice the second-best player in franchise history. I’m not saying it’s wrong, Stockton’s certain Yaz hasn’t bunted all year, and it’s something to see. After two fouls balls, though, he’s swinging away and lines a single that moves the winning run to third base with no outs.

Obviously, you and I know this isn’t going to work out for the Red Sox, but man, what a moment. Fenway Park is going crazy, certain it’s about to see the end of one of the great Red Sox wins in franchise history. I mean, it’s going to happen, but not before these fans get punched in the gut one last time.

The Reds intentionally walk Fisk to load the bases — Fisk’s next at-bat will be the big one — before Lynn hits a fly ball too shallow to score Doyle. Nice throw by Foster along the line in left field, better tag by Bench at the plate, and there’s no tradition in baseball quite as tried and true as questioning the third-base coach. Even when the third base coach is .

Top 10th begin with Stockton weighing the pros and cons of sending the runner from third with one out in the ninth, then he sets the scene in a way that made me laugh out loud.

“George Foster,” he says, “who doubled home the two runs that put the Reds in front in the seventh inning, will lead it off here in the 10th against Drago, who retired the Reds in order in the ninth. And Foster, as he’s done all series long, steps out of the box.”

Pace of play, man. Not just a modern baseball talking point. Stockton was far more diplomatic about it than would be many decades later.

Foster eventually stays in the box — after stepping out a second time in a one-pitch at-bat — and Drago gets him out before pitching around a single and a to keep the game tied.

Bottom 10th/11th I wish I were kidding, but I honestly didn’t know the Evans catch happened in this game.

At this point, I thought we were just grinding through some extra innings before the big home run in the 12th. It was all background noise, really. The fans go nuts when Carbo comes to the plate again in the 10th (but this time he strikes out). Fisk goes nuts when home plate umpire Satch Davidson says Rose was hit by a pitch in the 11th (then Fisk makes a nice play to throw out Rose on a attempt). The highlight for me was the broadcast announcement that “The Tonight Show” will not be seen due to the length of the game (but don’t worry, Tom Snyder’s show will air a half hour after the final out).

Then I recognized the fly ball.

Or, more accurately, I recognized the camera shot of Evans racing toward the right field fence, the leap at the wall, and the immediate throw to double up Griffey at first base.

“Well hit, right field, deep. Evans is going back, back, near the wall. And … Oh! What a catch he made! What a catch by Dwight Evans! And it’s a ! Griffey didn’t know what happened as Evans made a spectacular catch and take a look at this!”

The replay is a useful angle showing exactly how much room was between Evans and the wall, but it will not be the best replay angle of the night.

Top 12th Knowing what’s coming, there’s temptation to fast forward through this half of the inning, but patience is rewarded right away with a tumbling catch by Fisk, near the screen behind home plate, for the first out.

“That’s a tough play,” Garagiola says, leaning on nine years of big league catching experience. “I tell ya, I appreciate it, I guess, more than most people because I could never make the play, that’s why. If you can’t do it, you appreciate somebody who can.”

The rest of the inning almost gets away from new Red Sox pitcher . Perez singles. Then Foster does the same. There’s no one warming in the bullpen.

“Those last two base hits,” Garagiola says, “Great examples of a fella making the pitch he wants to make, and a good hitter hitting it.”

Wise gets the seventh and eighth hitters, Concepcion and Geronimo, to end the inning with those two runners stranded.

Bottom 12th Coming out of the commercial break, the chosen camera angle is an overhead shot from high behind home plate. It pans across the field, showing Fisk twirling his bat while he watches throw his warmup pitches. Stockton is telling the television audience this is the second extra-inning game of the series. He’s explaining that Darcy has been very good through two hitless innings so far. He’s announcing that it will be Fisk, Lynn and Petrocelli coming to the plate this inning.

He’s wrong about that last part.

The overhead shot cuts to a shot of Darcy throwing his final two warmups, and he looks like a dad playing catch on a Saturday. Maybe it’s knowing what’s coming, but when the next shot is of Fisk walking to the plate, then tugging at his jersey, then digging into the box and stretching, lifting the bat over his head — the matchup just looks so unfair. Here’s the great Carlton Fisk, against a 25-year-old kid from just doing his best. Darcy will pitch 11 more games in the majors. Fisk will hit 305 more home runs and have his plaque in Cooperstown. We know all this today. We know what’s about to happen.

The first pitch is high. The second pitch is low.

“There is goes! It’s a long drive. If it stays fair … home run!”

The organist’s Hallelujah Chorus can be heard on the broadcast as Fisk plows his way through fans who have run onto the field. There’s some guy in a green jacket in the dogpile at home plate. A kid on top of the dugout manages to touch Fisk’s hair as he disappears toward the clubhouse. Stockton lets the moment speak for itself before finally speaking again.

“We will have a seventh game in this . Carlton Fisk becomes the first player in this series to hit one over the wall into the net. Red Sox win it 7 to 6 in 12 innings.”

The broadcast shows Fisk, momentarily frozen in the air, leaping with both arms held high.

“And Carlton Fisk had a lot of little boy in him right there, Joe.”

After a couple of replays — Fisk reaching first base, the ball landing in Foster’s glove — the broadcast finally gives us the replay, from inside the Green Monster showing Fisk waving the ball fair.

“A lot of body English for Carlton Fisk, huh? Watch it. How many steps does he take? One. He waits to see it. Get over! Get over! He knew it. There it is!”

That one shot is credited with opening the possibilities of keeping cameras on specific players, looking for individual reaction rather than simply different angles of the play itself. This is from a Boston Globe story about the impact of that one shot, and the way it changed sports broadcasting forever:

“The camera shot had actually been something of an accident. Cameraman Louis Gerard had been stationed inside the left-field wall at ground level, peering through a small hole in the scoreboard the entire game. But Gerard wasn’t alone in his perch. He had a furry companion that contributed to his historic shot. In an interview in the in 2012, Gerard said that as Fisk stepped into the batter’s box, the director told him over the headphones: “ ‘Follow the ball if [Fisk] hits it.’ I said: ‘I can’t. I’ve got a rat on my leg that’s as big as a cat. It’s staring me in the face. I’m blocked by a piece of metal on my right.’ So he said, ‘What are we going to do?’ I said, ‘How about if we stay with Fisk, see what happens.’”

Stay with Fisk. See what happens. Good advice, no matter how many times you’ve seen it.