Thanks, Dave Henderson. RIP.

Home run was one of my favorite Red Sox moments.  

RIP Dave Henderson. Makes me so sad to think that a guy who hit two of the biggest clutchest HRs in Red Sox history could die so young. I'll never forget GM 5 ALCS HR that saved the Sox and his midnight HR in Game 6 of the World Series almost made the Red Sox world champions. Can't believe he's gone

How many people remember that Hendu did not start game 5, and was only in because Armas got hurt?

I had forgotten, myself (I remember Armas starting over Hendu, but I thought the injury happened a game or two earlier). At ESPN, Christina Kahrl mentioned his trade to the Giants the next year as being a puzzling move by Gorman, and that got me researching the whole debacle that was the conjunction of Hendu's large talents and John McNamara's tiny, tiny brain. I posted this comment on Christina's article:

Thinking about the alternate reality where McNamara is never the Sox manager ...

In 1988, we had Benzinger at 1B, -0.1 bWAR, and Rice at DH, 0.5 WAR. We could have had Hendu in RF and Evans, who had subpar range at age 35 but still had an 861 OPS, at DH. Rice would have to best a -17 R/150 at 1B to be better overall than Benzinger. Evans had already done that (though not by much) the year before.

In '89 they fixed 1B by trading Benzinger (and Jeff Sellers) for Nick Esasky (and Rob Murphy -- a tremendous trade), while Rice crashed and burned entirely (621 OPS) while Dewey was still going strong (861). With Henderson in RF and Evans at DH, they tie the Blue Jays for the pennant.

In '90 Evans was the full-time DH. In May they had to trade a still-in-his-prime Lee Smith for Tom Brunansky to fill a hole in RF (shaped like Kevin Romine). That meant Jeff Reardon got promoted to closer. And (I did not see this coming when I started this. Do you see it now?) at the trading deadline they needed a setup guy, and got a very good one, trading a 3B prospect that they hugely undervalued.

Hmm .. in 1991 Brunansky and Carlos Quintana combined for 2.6 WAR (Brunansky was -0.3). Henderson and that squandered prospect, as a rookie 1B, combined for 10.2. The difference alone is enough to give them the pennant over the Blue Jays by a game.

I won't bother rewriting the next 13 years, but I will note that adding an average 5.6 WAR per year would have probably helped.

I was watching the game during a pub crawl on Thames St, in Newport. The day was interesting in that few were on the streets early, but many had given up and moved on to touristy things. The Hendu hit that low, outside slider over the wall and all hell broke loose. Never have I enjoyed time with total strangers like I did after that home run. Thank you Dave, for a great moment in my life.

I'll never forget how clutch Hendu was. From the time I grew up watching baseball (started following the Sox in 1980) until before 2004 the only "heroics" I could associate with the post-season were Hendu's homers, and it took along time to get to the next set of heroics - Pedro's relief appearance in 1999 and then D-Lowe's Houdini act in 2003 ALDS Game 5.

I remember wondering how such a magical season like 1986 could so easily go down the drain. They had blown a 3-0 lead in the 9th inning with Clemens pitching the day before poised to tie up the series, but Rice misjudged a flyball he lost in the lights, and then Schiraldi looked like he would squeeze out of the jam, but one strike away from victory (not the last time we'd associate that with Calvin), he plunked Brian Downing on the hip with the bases loaded to give up the tying run and eventually the Angels won in 11 innings.

In Game 5, Henderson came in and lost a HR over the wall that Tony Armas would have had no chance of catching up to. Armas would have watched the ball hit the wall for a double and the game would have been tied at 1. Instead Hendu's hustle resulted in him catching up to the ball but having the ball jarred loose when his wrist hit the top of the wall. Only the Red Sox.

Naturally Bob Stanley made the deficit worse. I remember when Baylor homered how I thought it was just a tease. And then after Evans popped up for out #2, I was shocked when Mauch totally broke up the flow of the game by removing Witt for Lucas. I get that Gedman was helpless against lefties and was hitting Witt very well, but I was surprised by the pitching change.

Of course Gedman got hit on the first pitch and then Henderson came in to face Donnie Moore. I had no inkling whatsoever that Hendu was about to hit one of the clutchest HRs in Red Sox history. Never occurred to me. I waited for him to fan as he really wasn't close to hitting Moore, but then he hit that huge HR, did his ballet moves, and I went into shock, although I was rational enough to have the immediate thought, "This is great!!! Too bad Bob Stanley is going to f*** up this lead!"

Sure enough Stanley got in immediate trouble before Sambito and Crawford made it worse. They blew the lead and the Angels had runners on 1st and 3rd with just one out. Somehow little used and always injured Steve Crawford got a good hitter like Doug DeCinces to hit a shallow fly to Evans. Wilfong didn't try to score at all. I was a little surprised by that - even with Evans' reputation. And after an intentional walk to Downing, Crawford fell behind 2-0 Grich and was very lucky to get a strike call on a very borderline at best pitch. Eventually Grich hit a softer liner right back at Crawford.

Rice snuffed out a 1st and 3rd 1 out situation with a killer 6-4-3 DP, but managed to catch a long fly ball by Pettis at the wall, and he wasn't even sure he had made the catch. If he hadn't the winning run would have easily scored.

Then Hendu came up with the bases loaded against Moore and no outs and got the sac fly they needed (couldn't believe Moore was still out there - different game back then), and this time Schiraldi had no drama.

That was the greatest game I've ever seen in terms of what's on the line and the pure non-stop drama.

Then in Game 6 of the World Series, with the score tied at 3 in extra innings, the thought popped into my head - "Who has the balls to seize this moment and be the hero?" And sure enough at 11:59pm Hendu launched a homer off the Newsday billboard to be the guy that broke the ice and was about to give the Sox the Championship. We all know how that worked out (or really didn't work out).

But I'll always appreciate the big moments that Dave Henderson delivered and I was disappointed to see the Sox deal him away for practically nothing (Randy Kutcher). As Eric Van said, had the Sox been able to make proper judgments, they could have kept Hendu around to play RF going forward with the young emerging Greenwell and Burks in LF and CF. Evans had made the transition to 1b by 1987 while Rice was on the way out at he was stealing ABs from Sam Horn by then.

I guess the Sox preferred Todd Benzinger to Dave Henderson, so Benzinger got RF before he swapped with Evans who went back to RF briefly before settling into the DH role.

It's a shame - I was looking forward to a 30 year celebration at Fenway next year and thought how great it was that everybody was still around, but now one of the biggest heroes on that team is gone. RIP Hendu - you'll never be forgotten. Ever.

I guess Armas is an example of a guy who people thought was better than he was because he played in the pre-advanced metrics era. The power numbers were there and that was enough for people to think he was a good player. They didn't realize all the damage the microscopic OPB was doing.

In 1983, Armas hit 36 HRs with an OPS-plus of 85. How does a guy do that? By being an out machine with a .218 BA and .254 OBP, that's how.

And since John McNamara - as EV points out - had a stone age-type understanding of BB, he stuck with Armas over Hendu well past the point when TA should have been on the bench.

By 1986, his range in the field was non-existent. I remember going to RS games in the late 1980s and noticing the immense difference in watching Ellis Burks close the gap on a fly ball compared to Armas a few years earlier.