4/10-4/12 Red Sox vs. Yankees Series Thread

I've met Lee several times. He is so many things. He's down-to-earth, friendly, zany, says crazy things, can be less than tactful to put things kindly. He's a kid or a frat boy who never really grew up. He loves baseball, though. That's not up for debate.

I've started reading Bill Nowlin's new book on Tom Yawkey. I skipped to a section in the book where it talks about how ticked off people in the organization were at Lee, blaming him for losing Tom Yawkey's last chance to witness a World Championship. They were very unhappy with Spaceman picking the 7th game of the 1975, against the wrong hitter, Tony Perez, to throw his blooper pitch. Lee had been told not to throw that pitch, particularly to Perez who murdered offspeed, and his Leephus pitch was as offspeed as you can get. It was seen as foolish showboating.

Lee still gripes about the blown DP that would have got him out of the inning and would have avoided the confrontation with Perez. To me, after watching a wounded Curt Schilling pitch around 4 errors in Game 2 of the 2004 World Series, that kind of rings hollow. A blown DP isn't a good excuse for allowing that HR to Perez. But to be totally fair, Lee pitched an excellent game and left with a 3-2 lead with 1 out in the 7th inning after he walked Griffey Sr because his blister popped. The problem was the Moret was lousy in relief, Willoughby was great in relief but Johnson pinch-hit for him for no real good reason and used an inexperienced LOOGY for the 9th inning in Jim Burton.....and the Sox didn't hit. The offense was dead after the 3rd inning and Burleson failed to get the bunt down in the last of the 8th and hit into a DP erasing a leadoff walk by Evans. Should have made the decision easy not to pinch-hit Cooper for Willoughby with 2 outs and none on, but the Red Sox usually had brain dead managers so....the rest is history.