Page 38 - 1975 BoSox

’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL 31
Another memory that will endure is the infamous double tag on the same play at the plate in Yankee Stadium in August 1985. Fisk, taking a relay from Ozzie Guillen, tagged out the barreling Bobby Meacham, then spun and tagged and crashed into Dale Berra, as the collision sent them both sprawling to the dirt. It was literally a bang-bang double play, and preserved a seventh-inning 3-3 tie, a match later won by the White Sox in extra innings.
Frequently criticized for pedantic play, Fisk with his slow, deliberate style could sometimes make a federal income-tax refund check seem speedy by comparison. Fisk was known as the vendors’ best friend. According to Dave Nightingale of e Sporting News, when he left Boston in the spring of 1981 the chief complainers were the Fenway concessionaires. “Several of them, you see, insisted that the Fiskless Red Sox were playing home games 20 minutes faster in 1981 and that the new brevity was costing them money at the concession stands.”22
And that Fisk home-run trot!! Hands held down, elbows sti , head high as he rounded the bases in elegant, almost regal demeanor, the trot could be seen as arrogant to his opponents. “If you could only teach him to run di erently, people wouldn’t dislike him,” said Milwaukee manager Del Crandall.23 But his teammates knew di erently and saw it simply as a manifestation of Fisk’s own pride and respect for the game.
Said Roger Angell in his 1988 book, Season Ticket, “No catcher of our time looks more imperious than Carlton Fisk, and none, I think, has so impressed his style and mannerisms on our sporting consciousness: his cuto , bib-sized chest protector above those elegant Doric legs; his ritual pause in the batter’s box to inspect the label on his upright bat before he steps in for good; the tipped back mask balanced on top of his head as he stalks to the mound to consult his pitcher; the glove held akimbo on his left hip during a pause in the game. He is six-three, with a long back, and when he comes straight up out of the chute to make a throw to second base, you sometimes have the notion that
you’re watching an aluminum extension ladder stretch- ing for the house eaves....”24
Among the 13 Hall of Fame catchers for whom numbers are available (complete statistics don’t exist for Negro Leaguers Josh Gibson, Biz Mackey, or Louis Santop), Carlton Fisk ranks rst in total games caught, at-bats, hits, runs scored, and doubles; second in total home runs and putouts; and third in RBIs; and is tied for fourth in elding percentage. Fisk’s 128 stolen bases for modern Hall of Fame catchers are second only to Ray Schalk’s 176. He was an 11-time All-Star. e White Sox retired his number 72 in 1997, the same year he was elected to the Red Sox Hall of Fame. Fisk’s election to the Baseball Hall of Fame was almost a foregone conclusion, but it was made o cial in January 2000.
After some delay, Fisk provided the answer to a dif- cult question by announcing that he would wear a Red Sox cap into the Hall, even though he spent 13 years with the White Sox and only nine full seasons with the Red Sox. “I would like to say that this has always been my favorite hat, and I will be wearing this hat probably for the rest of my career,” said the man who worked at the time as a special assistant to Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette. At that same press conference, Duquette told a surprised Fisk that the team had decided to retire his number 27. “I didn’t think I met the criteria,” said Fisk. “It gives me goosebumps to think about it. I didn’t think it was at all possible.”25 In the past, the Red Sox had stated that they would retire a number only for a player who is in the Hall, spent at least 10 years with the team, and nished his career in Boston. Duquette, by hiring Fisk, ensured that he was nishing his career with the Red Sox. In formal ceremonies during 2005, the left- eld foul pole was o cially named the Fisk Pole.
Fisk is proud of attaining the success he enjoyed, and particularly so coming from a small town of under 1,000 people, with 43 in his graduating class, and playing less than 100 games as an amateur. And Fisk was never hesitant about showing his appreciation to the people he knew from the area. A favorite trick to get his attention before or after a game would be to