Most fans would consider a 91 win season to be a success, but not Red Sox fans, who suffered through 1978’s collapse that culminated in the Bucky F-in Dent game. This franchise was in the middle of a run that started in 1975, when they upset the 3 time champion A’s to win the AL pennant. Fans could taste that elusive championship that Boston was unable to capture for 60 years to this point. The Red Sox came out of the gate strong and held a share of 1st until around June, then hung tight until injuries and a great run by Baltimore doomed them to a 3rd place finish 11 1/2 games out of 1st. The Sahx led the AL in roundtrippers with 194. 5 guys had over 20 homers with Jim Rice and Fred Lynn posting 39 apiece. Injuries to Carlton Fisk and Jerry Remy were probably too much for this team to overcome. Not having a #2 or #3 starter behind Dennis Eckersley did not help much either. The time clock was now ticking on aging veteran superstar Yaz and manager Don Zimmer.
Editor’s Note: I couldn’t find a viable photo, or any for that matter, of Mike O’Berry in a Sox uni, so I used one of him in a Reds uni that conveniently didn’t display a logo. I had 3 choices for Sizemore: Colorize a B&W photo, use his 1980 Card photo or take one that had him wearing a Cardinals cap and jacket and add a blue cap rim and put on Boston “B”. I took the latter. Stan Papi is a colorization that is middle of the road. The Ripley shot is one that I colorized for the ‘78 project and the Finch photo comes from his minor league card (Pawtucket). It was easy to airbrush out the “P” and replace it with the “B”. Special thanks to Tony for furnishing me with most of the images that were used here.
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