The Reverse Little and Other Musings

How many of us can remember where we were on this date in 1983 (assuming you were born by then)? Well, I can, almost. That is, I know where I was on October 2, 1983, though not really the next day. I was in Fenway Park watching Carl Yastrzemski play his last game.

I was probably sitting in the bleachers, and was amazed that I was able to get a ticket at all. I didn’t realize that the big event celebrating his 23 years with the Red Sox was the day before. October 1st was designated Yaz Day, and that was the day he ran around the ballpark high fiving fans in the front rows. There were other aspects to the celebration as well, but Yaz didn’t get a hit that day. He got his final hit on the much more subdued day when I was there. Number 3,419 for those keeping score at home. All in service of a single team, the one that I adopted when I came to Boston a few years earlier.

So, I have a few questions. Like, were baseball fans better off when star players stayed with one MLB team their entire careers? (I’m talking about you, Mookie Betts.) And why have we seen so little of Yaz over the years, but Jim Rice and Dennis Eckersley are in the broadcast booth for so many of the Red Sox games (as they should be)?

And how would things have been different if John McNamara had substituted Dave Stapleton for Bill Buckner in the final inning of Game 5 of the 1986 World Series, or if Grady Little had pulled Pedro Martinez when he showed signs of struggling in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS? And how would we have felt if the Red Sox had lost yesterday’s inter-league game against the Nationals after Alex Cora pulled Tanner Houck, who had just pitched five perfect innings? Instead of Tinkers to Evers to Chance, would we have had McNamara to Little to Cora? A combination that would have stretched across time? And can we call Cora’s early hook the Reverse Little?

One never knows. What I do know is that the final Red Sox game of the 2021 regular season starts shortly, and so I have no time to explore these or other profound questions with you today. I promise I will try to do better next week.

Oh, and the team the Sox played on Yaz’s last day was the Cleveland Indians. Today is their last day too.