Page 266 - 1975 BoSox

’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL 259
Ken had been traded to Cleveland, saying, “Where else in the league is the lake brown and the river a re hazard?” Bostonians picketed. Switchboards jammed. Said the Hawk, his nickname denoting an aquiline nose: “Baseball was never fun again.” In 1970 he broke a leg, took up professional golf, and found it his handi- cap. By November 1974, Ken had “thought about golf for months and that night decided to give it up.” At 3 A.M., panicked, he awoke: “What am I gonna’ do?” By quirk, Sox G.M. Dick O’Connell called that morning. “A year before he’d o ered me TV color. How amazing was it to o er again when he didn’t know I was shucking golf?”
In new agship WSBK’s rst exhibition, Ken neatly navigated till Montreal’s Tim Foli’s single. “Feisty guy,”Hawk ad-libbed.“Lot of balls”—language then verboten in the public square. Stockton’s jaw dropped, even golf looking good. Harrelson found that Red Sox Nation is a forgiving, if not forgetting, lot. He also learned what worked. “Some guys, especially ex-jocks, coast on their names. Others numb you with statistics,” Ken said, having long ago inhaled “mama’s love of baseball,” his single mother in Savannah, Georgia, nightly listening with her son to the Cardinals’ KMOX Harry Caray. Like Stockton, Hawk never forgot, as Dick said, “To do your work, try for perfec- tion,” nding that in New England even that might not be enough.
“Perfection” is not how 1974 ended for what Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell called “the Bostons,” the Red Sox blowing a seven-game late-August American League (AL) East lead. Never had a Boston team lost a title after leading by so much so late in the season. New skipper Darrell Johnson’s team stopped hitting, Reggie Jackson asking, “Who are all these Mario Andretti [in elder Mario Guerrero] guys?” Pitcher Luis Tiant, circa 33, allowed two or fewer runs in eight straight starts, winning once. e Boston Globe’s Leigh Montville wrote: “ e Red Sox fan, of course, is mad mostly at himself. He had forgotten his inbred pes- simism, his rooting heritage. He had stu ed it in a drawer.” Out it came, the Olde Towne Team placing third. Carl Yastrzemski led in average (.301), RBIs
(79), total bases (229), slugging percentage (.445), and home runs (15, with Rico Petrocelli): each a 1960s and ’70s single-year club worst.
As they had and would again, the Sox eyed top a liate Triple-A Pawtucket. Jim Rice, 21, became International League Most Valuable Player. Fred Lynn, 22, joined the Red Sox in September 1974. Dwight Evans was 22; Rick Burleson, 23; Fisk, 26. Still, Stockton said, “Few if any believed that young hopes of April [1975] would survive and become the young heroes of October!” ey began in a northeaster — and before a Fens then-record rst-day 35,343. In 1967 Tony Conigliaro had been hit by a pitch by Jack Hamilton, severely damaging the left eye. In May 1975 Tony C. tried a nal comeback. “ ere’s a drive to left eld!” Stockton said. “First [also nal] home run by Tony C. since his comeback!” By Memorial Day the Sox were only 21-17. e Yankees arrived three weeks later, Fisk returning from a broken wrist. e Townies took the series, three games to one, and rst place to stay. Fisk batted .331 and Cecil Cooper .311, Denny Doyle hit in 22 straight games, and Burleson steadied short- stop. Boston had only 134 homers, but led the AL in batting average, slugging percentage, and on-base percentage: “not a typical Sox club,” said coach Bobby Doerr. For one thing, they won.
Every fourth day Fenway said a rosary, congregants hymning “Loo-ie! Loo-ie!” as Tiant, nishing 18-14, left the bullpen before games and waddled across the eld. Rick Wise was 19-12, Roger Moret 14-3, Bill Lee 17-9. Jim Willoughby and Dick Drago moored the pen. “ e Red Sox always need pitching,” said Globe writer Peter Gammons. “In ’75, they had youth, too.” By June, youth’s name was Fred Lynn. On June 18 at Tiger Stadium, Lynn bashed three homers and had 10 runs batted in. To Sox radio’s Ned Martin, Lynn played center eld like Frank Sinatra sang Cole Porter. At Shea, the Yankees’ 1974-75 halfway house, Lynn’s lunging nal-out July 27 catch before a record Bronx Bombers crowd there (53,631) preserved a 1-0 Sox classic. e rst same-year Most Valuable Player/ Rookie of the Year wed a .331 average, 21 homers, and 105 runs batted in — an atypical Sox rookie.