The Boston Red Sox Saturday, April 25, 2020 * The Boston Globe Thoughts on the Red Sox punishment, Gronk’s un-retirement, and other picked-up pieces Dan Shaughnessy Picked-up pieces while rooting for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to go 0-16 … ▪ The Red Sox look weak for letting J.T. Watkins, a low-level employee, and a West Point grad no less, take the hit for their latest cheating scandal. It’s a Big Nothing to the fanboys, but at least 11 Sox “witnesses” told MLB that they concluded Watkins had broken the rules by supplying them with information gained illegally. It’s certainly possible to assume most or all used the information. They all knew. And none of them were identified or punished. The Sox baseball boss and manager also were absolved even though they’d been instructed that the team would be punished for future infractions after the Apple Watch incident in 2017. Nope. It was all J.T. Watkins. This 30-year-old guy had the power to move the video room at Fenway Park to a spot next to the dugout. All by himself. Not a proud day for the Boston franchise. ▪ It’s incredible to discover that it was J.T. Watkins who made the decision to leave Bill Buckner in the game at Shea Stadium in 1986. And upon further review, I have learned that it was J.T. Watkins who procured the chicken and beer for the Red Sox clubhouse during the collapse in 2011. I’m also hearing that Ed Davis has identified J.T. Watkins as a “person of interest” in his ongoing investigation in the Dominican Republic. ▪ Manny Ramirez left the Red Sox in a blaze of glory compared with Rob Gronkowski’s messy departure from New England. We all love Gronk. Greatest tight end of all time. Played hurt and played hard. Good to all charities and never got in trouble. But he put the screws to the Patriots on his way out the door. He strung everybody along, then “retired,” just in time to ruin planning for the 2019 season. Now after all the sales pitches in which he sounded like a young man who needed to be done with football (Gronk said he’d suffered “like 20 concussions”), he’s coming back to party and play with QB/GM Tom Brady in the Tampa funhouse. (Looking like a boy-band member these days, Gronk will have go to back into “training” to regain his football body.) It’s nauseating. These guys have turned into NBA-type divas, social media mavens demonstrating amazing tone deafness while the country endures a pandemic. So now Gronk and TB12 are united in Tampa, away from bully Bill Belichick. Maybe they can get Jules to join them. Why not AB? Swell. I’ll be hate-watching every one of their games. Put me down as honorary captain of Team Bill. ▪ When Football Games Saved Lives: A Wall Street Journal story promoted a theory that the Chiefs’ victory over the 49ers in this year’s Super Bowl might have had hidden blessings. There were only a few known COVID-19 patients in the US on Super Bowl Sunday, but two were in Santa Clara County and a small group of local doctors was dealing with those cases when the Chiefs beat the Niners in Miami Feb. 2. A 49ers victory would have resulted in a San Francisco parade, a massive gathering, and tremendous risk for transmission of the virus. "It may go down in the annals as being a brutal sports loss, but one that saved lives,'' Dr. Bob Wachter (chair of UCSF’s department of medicine) told the Journal. The Bay area’s inadvertent good fortune reminded me of the lives saved when Holy Cross’s gridders stunned No. 1-ranked and Orange Bowl-bound Boston College at Fenway Park, 55-12, on Nov. 28, 1942. BC-HC was a big deal in those days, and a BC victory party at Boston’s Cocoanut Grove nightclub was canceled as a result of the upset. Four hundred and 92 souls died, and hundreds more were injured in a fire at the Cocoanut Grove just a few hours after the football game. ▪ One of my wiseguy readers suggests that sports returning to empty ballparks and stadiums can compensate for the silence by pumping in artificial crowd noise like the Colts in Indianapolis and the Falcons in Atlanta. ▪ QUIZ: 1. Name the major leaguer with the most career homers who never hit 30 in a season; 2. Name the only high school hockey player to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated. Hint: he’s local. (Answers below.) ▪ Watching the epic Celtics-Sixers 1981 Game 7 conference final, I saw Cedric Maxwell miss four straight free throws late in the game. I texted Max to ask him about this, and while the game was still airing, Max fired back with, "I’m sure I made up for it.'' He did. Max went on to become MVP of the ’81 NBA Finals. When the 2020 Celtics were in Los Angeles in February, Max participated in an old-timers panel of former Celtics and Lakers. Proof that the Celtics forever take up space in those Lakers heads, Michael Cooper insisted that Lisa Leslie in her prime could have scored at will against Max. ▪ Texted Terry Francona to ask if we are going to see him in future episodes of ESPN’s excellent “The Last Dance” documentary. Francona was Michael Jordan’s manager with the Birmingham Barons in 1994. Tito replied, "I heard I got 15 seconds of fame. And not a second more. LOL.'' Back in 2012, here’s what Francona told me about the Jordan experience: "The first question he asked me was, ‘Do we fly?’ No. We had major bus trips everywhere. The shortest ride was 3½ hours. It was 16 or 17 hours from Memphis to Orlando and we did that. "He said, ‘What if I can get us a better bus?’ The next day, there were four buses in the parking lot. It was a bus audition. One of the buses was for a touring rock band. We ended up riding in a new bus. Michael signed the door, so they called it ‘the Jordan cruiser.' ’' Francona was still athletic in those days and played pickup hoop with Jordan a couple of times. When Tito took the last shot in a best-to-11 game, Jordan told him, "I always take the last shot.'' The manager replied, "Now you know how I feel when I watch you try to hit a curveball.'' Jordan hit .202 with 51 RBIs and 30 stolen bases for Francona’s Double A Barons. ▪ Can’t believe the Sox allowed J.T. Watkins to persuade them to sign Chris Sale and Nate Eovaldi to giant contract extensions after the 2018 World Series. ▪ Baseball lifer Jim Frey died at the age of 88 April 12. A Cincinnati high school teammate of Don Zimmer’s, Frey was first base coach of Earl Weaver’s Orioles when I covered the team daily in 1977-79. During the Red Sox collapse of 1978, it was Frey who relayed this exchange with Boston first baseman George Scott while Boomer was rolling out grounders to Sox infielders before the start of an inning: “I said, 'Boomer, you guys had this big lead and now it’s down to four or five games. What the hell is going on with you guys?’ And Boomer said to me, ‘Some of these guys are choking, man.’ ” (Scott soon went into an 0-for-34 slump.) When Cy Young winner Mike Flanagan reached first base in a game, Frey told him, "Keep your left foot on the bag and get as big a lead as you can with your right foot.'' Frey left the Orioles to manage the Kansas City Royals and wound up in the 1980 World Series. For a young reporter, it was a big deal to know the manager of the AL champs, so I asked Frey if he would acknowledge me by name when I asked a question at the massive pre-World Series press conference. I figured it would make me look good. Frey laughed and agreed. When I asked my question, Frey leaned into the microphone, looked out at the hundreds of reporters, and said, "Well, DAN . that’s a stupid question!'' RIP Jim Frey. ▪ NESN needs to do a better job vetting old content. A 1987 “Forever Fenway: 75 Years of Red Sox Baseball” documentary re-aired April 10, still featuring an interview with the late Don Fitzpatrick. “Fitzy” was the infamous clubhouse attendant who sexually assaulted young clubhouse workers for more than a decade while employed by the Red Sox. ▪ Why didn’t Larry Lucchino and Dr. Charles Steinberg go with “The Polar Grounds” instead of "Polar Park,'' for the Worcester Red Sox’ new stadium name? ▪ Quarantine reading: Check out “Fenway 1946: Red Sox, Peace, and a Year of Hope” by Michael Connelly. ▪ It turns out that J.T. Watkins is the one who lowballed Jon Lester in the spring of 2014. ▪ Quiz answers: 1. Al Kaline, 399 homers. 2. Bobby Carpenter of St. John’s Prep in 1981. Anxious sports fans wonder when they will get their ticket money back Michael Silverman Boston sports fans want more than their teams to get back to playing games. They want their money back. Based on the latest available Forbes figures, the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, and Revolution are holding more than roughly $100 million in combined ticket sales for games that have been postponed between March and the end of May because of the COVID-19 pandemic.