October 2nd Memories
I hate October 2nd or more appropriately, October 2nd seems to hate me! That day is kind of my Kryptonite, my Achilles’ heel, and my Ground Hog’s Day. In the early 90’s I tore the MCL in my leg breaking up a street hockey fight while refereeing, my Jr. Park League baseball team lost a gut-wrenching Championship deciding game on a blown call. I wrecked a car, have got dumped by a High School girl friend and got laid off from my first full time job as a teen on October 2nd. Coincidently, October 2nd is also my Mother-In-Law’s birthday, but I digress.
Overshadowing all those events, though, was the day that will live in Red Sox infamy, October 2, 1978. The day that The Red Sox and Yankees played game 163 of the season, the day that saw one of the greatest collapses in MLB history came to fruition, the day that Bucky Dent earned a new middle name and the day that a 15 year old boy (me) and his *11 year old brother witnessed (a painful) history that has given us a lifetime of stories & memories.
Guess What It Is??
From 2nd grade on, I grew up in Brockton, hometown of the great Rocky Marciano and later Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Since the age of 11, I’d been taking the bus from Brockton to the outskirts of Boston, then onto the “T” (MBTA) over to Fenway Park to watch my beloved Red Sox. Ya, it was a different era! By 1978, my younger brother Jeff and I had travelled that path together to dozens and dozens of games. He was nearly 11, but whenever he retells the story, he emphasizes that he was 10. Technically so, but more on that later. On this October 2nd, Mom allowed us to “skip school” knowing how important this game was. The Sox had blown a 14 game lead and had to fight back in the last week of the season to tie the Yankees and force the extra game.
Jimmy, THIS is the Pride of Brockton
The game was slated for late afternoon on a gloriously sunshiny day in Boston. Jeff and I got there early for batting practice and found our seats in section 4A in the right field corner. We watched Reggie Jackson put on one of the most impressive batting practice displays I have ever seen as he sailed homer after homer far over our heads and even hit one off the right field façade. Impressive! The game featured Boston’s #2 starter, Mike Torrez (Eckersley, 20-8 was #1) against the best pitcher in baseball, “Louisiana Lightning,” Ron Guidry.
The Sox held a 2-0 lead into the 7th as Torrez put 2 men on with one out before Bucky #@%^! Dent changed history with one swing of the bat. From right field, the ball looked like a lazy fly ball to Yaz in left, but as Yaz drifted back, it began to look like it might catch some wall, floating, floating and BOOM, it settled into the net over the Green Monster and the Yankees had a 3-2 lead they eventually stretched to 5-2 when Mr. October smacked a solo bomb to straight away center field.
But the biggest play, unheralded play, and came in the bottom of the 9th inning that Jeff and I had a perfect view to. The Sox had scrapped back to cut the lead to 5-4 heading to the 9th as Sox shortstop and leadoff hitter, Rick Burleson worked a one out walk. Jerry Remy then met up with a Goose Gossage offering and smacked line drive to right field. If you know anything about baseball, you know that Fenway Park has one of the worst right field sun fields in baseball, especially during late afternoon games.
Our seats were positioned (behind and) about 20 feet to the left of right fielder Lou Piniella, so we had a slight angle advantage fighting the sun than Piniella had as the ball sailed his way. Right away, I knew that the ball was to Piniella’s left as he moved a step to his right. He couldn’t see the ball! Remy was a speedster and he certainly would have had an easy triple or a two run, walk off, inside-the-park home run if it got past the shallow Piniella. But just as the ball landed to the left and just in front of the blinded Piniella, he lunged and stuck out his glove to snag the ball, holding Remy to a single and more importantly, keeping Burleson from going to third base. That and the throw he uncorked as he righted himself and threw a ball all the way to third base on the fly! WOW!
No, he REALLY couldn’t see the ball!
The rest is history, Rice flew skied a deep fly ball that would have plated Burleson had he been able to reach third and Yaz popped out to third base to end it! Pain, agony and, the rest of the story…
As Rice was coming to the plate, Jeff and I were plotting on how to get on the field. We felt that he would have a better chance getting on the field because security they’d likely go after one of the adults that stormed the field, not an (almost) 11 year old. So off Jeff headed toward the 1st base side with visions of storming the field if the Sox came back to win and stealing second base. No, literally, we plotted that he’d go out and pull up second base and steal it! We agreed to meet at a specific spot out side of ‘Gate A’ if we got separated. Simple plan, right? Well, we get separated so I head out to ‘Gate A’ and waited and waited and waited. After an hour, it began to get dark so I decided to walk around the park to look for my little brother. All the while, he had gone out to wait outside the player’s parking lot in hopes of getting autographs and lost track of time. (An admission that he later retracted and conveniently forgot.) As darkness crept in, he realized he’d lost me so he began asking anyone who would listen, including a cop if they had seen his brother “wearing a Red Sox jacket.” Umm, there were probably tens of thousands of males in Red Sox jackets that day.
Eventually I assumed that since Jeff was so familiar with the “T” and bus trip back and forth between Fenway and Brockton, that he’d made his way home, after all, it was now 2 hours after the game ended. As I got off the bus in front of our house, my Mother was waiting, hair brush in hand as she whipped my ass!
Grandma Derochea, circa ’73.
Apparently Jeff had not made his way home, but after hailing a policeman who gave him a ride to the bus, the policeman called my Mom and told her that he had Jeff and was getting him home because “his brother left him in Boston!” Really? I left him in Boston or he left me hanging. To this day, he tells the story portraying himself from a “poor me, I was *10 years old and he left me there” perspective, which is half of the fun whenever we reminisce and debate over our adventure from that day. (Dude, you were 6 weeks away from being 11, so I say you were 11! Damn semantics!)
Looking back to that day after 35 years, I guess October 2nd wasn’t really that bad of a day. Sure, the Sox lost to the Yankees, but we got to see a classic, historic game and Jeff and I shared an adventure that has bonded us for life! But I still wish Piniella missed that damn ball!
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