The All-Star who became a Red Sox scapegoat
By any reasonable standard, Bill Buckner had a stellar baseball career. He connected for 2,715 hits and 174 home runs over 22 seasons, never striking out more than twice in one game. But one fateful play in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series turned Buckner into a symbol of sports failure. He was playing first base for the Boston Red Sox when New York Mets’ outfielder Mookie Wilson hit a ground ball straight toward him with the game tied in the bottom of the 10th inning. It looked like an easy out, but the ball shot between Buckner’s legs, allowing a runner on second base to score the winning run for the Mets, who went on to claim the championship in Game 7. Buckner received death threats after the gaffe and was let go by the Red Sox the following July. “You can never really forget it,” Buckner said in 2011. “Here we are, 25 years later, still talking about it.”
Born in Vallejo, Calif., “Buckner excelled at football and baseball as a youth,” said The New York Times. At age 19, he was selected by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the second round of the 1968 amateur draft. Buckner won the National League batting title with the Chicago Cubs in 1980, with a .324 average, and was named to the All-Star team in 1981. Despite beginning his career as a “speedy outfielder,” he was hobbled by injuries. “By the time he went to Boston, in a trade in 1984, he had become a full-time first baseman.” Buckner was a key member of the 1986 Red Sox World Series team, and often played with “aching knees and ankles,” said The Boston Globe. But even though the Red
Sox choked away a two-run lead before his
Game 6 error, fans blamed Buckner. The media replayed the gaffe endlessly, with the footage becoming synonymous with Boston’s championship drought, which lasted from 1918 to 2004. In retirement, Buckner moved his family to a 2,000-acre ranch in Idaho, “in part to escape the taunts of fans,” said The Washington Post. But after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2007, he returned to throw out the first pitch of the following season. Buckner received a standing ovation. “It’s life, and everybody has to deal with something,” he said. “Most of the time it’s a lot more important than a baseball game.”
Born to a wealthy Viennese family, the young Lauda “showed little interest in anything but cars,” said The Washington Post. By age 14 “he was barreling around a family estate in an old Volkswagen.” Rejecting his parents’ entreaties to join the family paper-manufacturing business, he entered his first F1 race in 1972, joining Team Ferrari two years later. He dominated the sport in 1975, winning five races and his first championship.
A licensed commercial pilot, the driver launched his own airline, Lauda Air, in 1979. He was devastated when one of his Boeing airliners crashed in Bangkok in 1991, killing 223 people, said The Guardian (U.K.). Lauda didn’t rest until he’d proved to the world—“and to the reluctant manufacturer”—that the tragedy had been caused by a mechanical failure. “If I race and kill myself, OK,” he said of the crash. “But these people just bought a ticket to fly safely from A to B.”