http://www.sptimes.com/2005/07/27/news_pf/Sports/Talkin__about_Wade.shtml
Bogg's book Fowl Tips said:
Jim Rice ain't Pedro either.
Podsednik is no worse than Chico Walker, Butch Hobson, or Kip Gross, who wore Doerr, Cronin, and Fisk's numbers before they were retired. And Boggs was a better player than Doerr or Cronin, and probably Fisk too (especially limiting it to years spent in Boston).
did it occur to you that Jim Rice's number might be retired?
I like Wade Boggs fine. But I just don't think he "deserves" to get his number retired. He was awesome while he was here but having lived through the Wade Boggs era, I don't know, he never did it for me. It sounds incredibly dumb but guys like Dwight Evans, Jim Rice and Roger Clemens were larger than life heroes. Even players who were worse than him like Don Baylor or Mike Greenwell or Ellis Burks or Lee Smith seemed to me that they were doing things that Boggs* couldn't do.
Great, looking forward to seeing Steve Crawford's number up there on the facade too.
The most Celtics thing they've ever done was retire the number of a little old man who hung around the clubhouse a lot. Retiring the number of one of the five or six best players in the history of the franchise is not that.
The guy spent 1976-1992 in a Boston-affiliated uniform; if you viewed him as "passing through" before he left, that's just odd. He was a home-grown hero--his five consecutive batting titles (*six) and the fact that he'd had a zillion consecutive seasons hitting over .300, going back to his early days in the Red Sox farm system (the only year he failed to was his first 57-game partial year at low-A Elmyra) were viewed with reverence on the playground in an era when BA was terribly overrated. Growing up he was absolutely the guy most people I played with wanted to be, ahead of Rice and Greenwell and Burks, though there were a few Dewey guys, too.
Right. Retiring the number of a first-ballot HOFer who got 92% of the vote is really watering things down.
One of those is not like the others. Fisk is no more part of the pantheon than Fred Lynn. Boggs is at an absolute minimum equal to Fisk in deserving to have his number retired.
Yeah he is, if we're talking about the pantheon of Red Sox history. He's not as good a player as Boggs, but the HR is an iconic part of Sox history in a way that Boggs never had--hell, arguably Ted Williams never had.
I don't think that it's odd, it's just my recollection of Wade Boggs. He also spent a lot of time grousing about the fact that the Sox kept him in the minors for too long (which he was 1000% right about, BTW) so it's not like he was on the Good Ship Lollipop with the Boston Red Sox. And after the Margo Adams thing, Wade Boggs' name was attached to so many trade rumors* that when he took his position every night at third base I bet more than a few people were surprised. Even when I was 12-years-old I knew that Wade Boggs wasn't going to retire as a Red Sox.
Nahh, they'll just drag a port-a-john out to the mound with his name on it.
I was thinking they've become the Yankees. Soon there are going to be too many numbers to fit on the façade, just like the Yankee Monument Valley has gotten too crowded. I always thought that it was really classy that Red Sox had just a handful of retired numbers for absolute immortals instead of the Yankees with seemingly dozens, instead of the four teams that each retired Nolan Ryan because he spent a few years in town.
And he would have looked even better had OBP been more widely known during the era.
Sure, if that won the World Series, otherwise it is what it is: an iconic part of history. To me that is a different thing than the "Pantheon". Otherwise, Dave Henderson and Bernie Carbo would be knocking on that door. I grew up with the mid 70's Sox and they inspired my love of the team and the game so Fisk carries a very special place in my heart. That said, to me a team's pantheon is maybe 4-5 of the top players of all time. Fisk for all his contributions doesn't come close to knocking out Williams, Yaz, Pedro, Ortiz, or Clemens.
Young? Speaker? Foxx's tenure was a little too brief, though if Pedro's in the mix then he might be as well.
That's a fair point. I'm not sure I would have said yea on Fisk either. The '75 WS went a long way to creating a Red Sox legacy for him, though.
All ahead of Fisk.
