These ‘comebacks’ memorable, too
Picked-up pieces while trying to navigate Apple TV+ ...
■ With Mookie Betts in town for the weekend, it’s fun to look back at other celebrated returns to Boston.
The legendary Babe Ruth, who was sold to the Yankees 100 years before Betts was salary-dumped to the Dodgers, launched the greatest dynasty in the history of American sports for New York City . . . but he didn’t hurt the Red Sox when he first returned to Fenway. Playing center field and batting cleanup in April of 1920, the Bambino went a tepid 3 for 12 with two singles and a double in three losses at Fenway.
Unlike Ruth, Tom Brady, Roger Clemens, and Carlton Fisk got revenge in their first trips home.
In October of 2021, the much-decorated Brady — who was allowed to walk by Bob Kraft and Bill Belichick — triumphantly returned to Foxborough as Super Bowl champion quarterback of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Brady was cheered with gusto when he ran the length of the Gillette Stadium field (his signature entrance in the glory days here) before the start of the game.
In a rain-soaked Sunday night special that wasn’t decided until Nick
Folk doinked a field goal attempt with less than a minute left, Brady beat the Patriots, 19-17.
“Yeah, they cheered for me a little bit,” Brady said after leading yet another late game-winning drive. “But at the end, they were cheering for their team.”
A couple of storied Red Sox stars also had big fun in their returns to Boston.
In 1980, World Series hero Fisk was allowed to sign with the White Sox after Red Sox owners Haywood Sullivan and Buddy LeRoux failed to deliver his contract renewal by a December deadline. When Fisk came to Fenway with Chicago on Opening Day ’81, vendors sold “Haywood and Buddy are
Killing the Sox” bumper stickers outside the park. Fisk wore No. 72 for the White Sox, the reverse of his Boston No. 27.
And then he beat the Red Sox with an eighth-inning, three-run homer off former teammate Bob Stanley.
“I had been with the Red Sox organization for 14 years,” Fisk said. “This was my 10th Opening Day at Fenway, but my first with the visiting team. I felt the reaction would be mostly positive, which it was.”
Clemens’s comeback in 1997 dripped with revenge. He’d won 192 games, three Cy Youngs, and an AL MVP award (like Betts) with the Red Sox, but general manager Dan Duquette allowed him to leave via free agency, stating that the Rocket was “in the twilight of his career.” (Clemens went on to win another 162 games and four more Cys.)
On July 12, 1997, Clemens returned to Fenway in a Blue Jays uniform and fanned 16 (no walks) in eight innings of a 3-1 victory. He topped out at 98 m.p.h. When he came off the mound for the final time, he glared toward the Sox owners’ box as fans chanted, “Rog-er, Rog-er!”
“He came to make a point,” said Mo Vaughn, who fanned three times. “And he did.”
Some fellow named Bob Ryan covered that game for the Globe and wrote, “Why can’t we find pitchers like this?”
Catchy phrase there.
In the first two games this weekend, with the Sox and Dodgers each winning once, Betts was 4 for 10 with a walk, three runs scored, an RBI, and an error. He flew to the warning track in center field with the bases loaded to end Saturday’s 8-5 Sox victory.
● Quiz: Seven of the top 12 career save leaders pitched for the Red Sox at one time or another. Name them (answer below).
● This is the 75th anniversary of the Jimmy Fund. The WEEI/ NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon, annually the best two days of the Red Sox season, unfolds Tuesday and Wednesday at Fenway while the Astros are in town.
Kudos to Clemens for raising almost 26 grand with an auction item that gives the winner (and nine friends) a chance to bat against Clemens at Fenway in 2024. Clemens has been doing this for the benefit of the Jimmy Fund for many years.
● The late Buddy Parker, who last coached in the NFL in 1964, edged out Mike Shanahan, Bob Kraft, and Clark Shaughnessy (among others) to be selected as the coach/contributor finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2024. Parker, who coached the Chicago Cardinals, Detroit Lions, and Pittsburgh Steelers, died in 1982.
● MLB’s official-scoring corruption goes on unabated. It must have something to do with the unholy alliance with gambling advertisers. Everything is a hit. R If I were Alex Cora, I’d be wondering about Gerrit Cole’s strange remarks after the Sox lit up the Yankee ace again last weekend in the Bronx.
Cole may win the AL Cy Young award, but the Sox absolutely own him, and Cole sounded suspicious after surrendering homers to the immortal Luis Urías (Heep) and Connor Wong, stating, “I put a lot of well-located pitches and paired a lot of good pitches together. I mean, I’m just a little confused why the level of execution on their side is so high.”
Cole joined the defending world champion Astros in 2018, the season after Cora helped orchestrate the cheating scandal in Houston, leading to his one-year suspension in 2020.
● Mixed reviews on Chaim Bloom’s vaunted farm system. Baseball America currently ranks the Sox at No. 5, citing three pitching prospects — Luis Perales, Wikelman Gonzalez, and Yordanny Monegro. Meanwhile, MLB.com published “MLB Pipeline” Aug. 15 and had the Sox ranked 16th, stating that they are “as thin as any organization in terms of pitching talent.”
● Average Al Verdugo has been benched twice by Cora this
year and Tuesday got tossed in Houston for chirping at the home plate umpire from the dugout. It will be a surprise if Verdugo is still with the Sox when they report to Fort Myers in February.
● On Sept. 9, Derek Jeter, now 49, will attend his first Yankee Old-Timers Day along with luminaries such as Bucky Dent, Ron Guidry, Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada, David Wells, and Joe Torre.
● The Yankees and Mets have never both finished last in the same season.
● Not sure about you, but I’m way over the Savannah Banana thing. NESN’s carpet-bombing “Banana” ads land like a Mad Fisherman promo.
● Maybe the Tampa Bay Way is not all that great. As reported by USA Today, since the start of 2020, nine Rays pitchers have had Tommy John surgery: Shane McClanahan, Jeffrey Springs, Drew Rasmussen, Shane Baz, Brendan McKay, Jalen Beeks, Yonny Chirinos, Colin Poche, and Andrew Kittredge. Also, Nick Anderson suffered a torn UCL.
● Puerto Rico-born Carlos Correa’s full name is Carlos Javier Correa Oppenheimer Jr. His mother’s last name is Oppenheimer.
● Sad to see that the Baltimore Ravens lost a preseason game to the Commanders, 29-28, Monday. Dating back to September of 2015, Baltimore had a 24-game winning streak in the consumer-ripoff contests.
● Some players care about NFL preseason games. UMass great Victor Cruz told the New York Post that his life changed when he caught a pass for the Giants against the Jets in a 2010 exhibition. Cruz was an undrafted free agent who didn’t make his first catch until the third minute of the second half against the Jets.
He wound up making six catches for 145 yards and three touchdowns, earned a spot on the team, and created a touchdown salsa dance that was imitated by Madonna when she performed at Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis.
● It’s been 20 years since any American male won a tennis major (Andy Roddick, 2003 US Open).
● The USWNT might have fared better in World Cup competition if veteran Kristie Mewis played more.
Let the record show that Whitman-Hanson’s Mewis, a former Boston College star who played for the powerhouse Eagle team under coach Alison Foley, made her penalty kick against Sweden in definitive fashion (unlike You Know Who).
Mewis’s sparse playing time was just one more reason coach Vlatko Andonovski had to go. Mewis’s only touch in the World Cup tourney was her penalty-kick laser.
● Love the tailgating potential, but I am no fan of Holy Cross playing BC in football Sept. 9 at Alumni Stadium.
The once-great rivalry died in 1986 when BC won for the eighth straight time, and 17 th time in 19 meetings.
They resumed things in 2018 and we saw a 62-14 BC slaughter. Another contest was canceled because of COVID in 2020, but they’ll be at it again in two weeks.
Holy Cross is an FCS school (formerly known as Division 1AA). Quarterback Matt Sluka is the real deal, but the Crusaders (12-1 last season) have not played big-time football in decades.
● My favorite wiseguy “comment” under a recent Sunday column read, “I’m sure Dan has been working on a long form Globe Sunday Magazine piece on how Calipari caused Climate Change.”
● RIP Bernie Pearl, father of Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl, who died at the age of 88 last week and was honored with a service at Schlossberg Family’s Chapel on the Hill in Canton.
Bernie Pearl was buried in an Auburn jersey.
● Quiz answer: Lee Smith, Billy Wagner, Kenley Jansen, Craig Kimbrel, Dennis Eckersley, Jonathan Papelbon, Jeff Reardon (the non-Sox alums in the top dozen are Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, Francisco Rodriguez, John Franco, and Joe Nathan).