All posts by Liza Ketchum

2004 World Series rings matched Boston’s epic season

In 2006, Red Sox legend Johnny Pesky proudly displayed his World Series ring. By Hackhix (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

In 2006, Red Sox legend Johnny Pesky displayed his team pride via his World Series ring. By Hackhix (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Boston players played for “a ring” in 2004.

And what a ring they earned! Their World Series ring read on one side: “Greatest Comeback in History.”

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2004 All-Star game homers earned Red Sox home field advantage in the Fall Classic

Manny, who provided an all-star homer, gets the all-star treatment at the World Series victory parade. By Schmiddy at en.wikipedia (Uploaded to the English Wikipedia by the author.) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

Manny Ramirez, who provided an all-star homer, gets the all-star treatment at the 2004 World Series victory parade. By Schmiddy at en.wikipedia (Uploaded to the English Wikipedia by the author.) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

Manny Ramirez was the sole Red Sox starter on the 2004 All-Star team.

However, Manny and David Ortiz contributed key homers that guaranteed Boston home field advantage for the World Series.

Here are all the stats you’d ever need to relive that night. 


2004 Manny Ramirez legend spreads, fueled by Pedro Martinez memoir

The mysterious Manny Ramirez, circa 2008. By Keith Allison (Flickr) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The mysterious Manny Ramirez, circa 2008. By Keith Allison (Flickr) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The words “Manny being Manny” are part of my book Out of Left Field.

They’re being spoken more than a decade later, repeated by Hall of Fame teammate Pedro Martinez.

 

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2004 Red Sox speedster Dave Roberts a rising star in managerial ranks?

RobertsDaveUSScap

Dave Roberts wore a different team cap during the 2010 off-season: the U.S. Navy’s. He toured the USS Carl Vinson as a Padres coach. By Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Travis K. Mendoza (http://www.flickr.com/photos/compacflt/5260980927/) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

More Boston news outlets than California media jumped on the story when former Red Sox speedster Dave Roberts (briefly) was named interim manager of the Padres.

It seems those reporters haven’t forgotten “The Steal” from 2004, either. 

My husband and I were lucky to attend the Sox/Giants game, the summer after the World Series, which marked Roberts’ first return to Fenway Park. The crowd went wild when he came up to bat and gave him a standing ovation, even though he was now playing for the other team.

 

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Tom Verducci pens classic tribute to 2004 Red Sox fans

Writing or announcing, Verducci knows how devoted Boston fans are! By Sandy_Alderson_and_Tom_Verducci.jpeg: Caryn Rose derivative work: Delaywaves talk (Sandy_Alderson_and_Tom_Verducci.jpeg) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Writing or announcing, Verducci knows how devoted Boston fans are! By Sandy_Alderson_and_Tom_Verducci.jpeg: Caryn Rose derivative work: Delaywaves talk (Sandy_Alderson_and_Tom_Verducci.jpeg) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The 2004 Red Sox revival meant the world to Brandon in Out of Left Field.

In reality, other fans felt the same.

Tom Verducci crafted the perfect tribute to the Boston faithful, a feature that keeps inspiring more than a decade later.

 

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Does Fenway Park boast baseball’s best-read fans?

One of the many program vendors working the neighborhood outside Fenway before games! By Vegasjon (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

One of the many program vendors working the neighborhood outside Fenway before games! By Vegasjon (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Boston Baseball or Yawkey Way Report?

Red Sox fans have great reading choices even before they enter Fenway to consider the team’s “official” magazine.

Here’s a look at the newest “kid” on the publishing block.

 

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Knuckleballer Tim Wakefield gave 2004 Boston Red Sox plenty of flutters

"Wake" throwing his knuckler in a 2006 battle at Baltimore. By Waldo Jaquith on Flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

“Wake” throwing his knuckler in a 2006 battle at Baltimore. By Waldo Jaquith on Flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Although he didn’t sparkle in the ’04 World Series, Tim Wakefield supplied Boston with a dozen victories prior to the Fall Classic. 

He did it all with one mystical pitch.  

Here’s one of his starring moments (including some slow-motion artistry) from the 2012 documentary, Knuckleball:

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Storybook 2004 season closed the Red Sox chapter on Nomar Garciaparra

Nomar in 2002. By Dlz28 on en.wikipedia (From en.wikipedia; description page is (was) here) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Nomar in 2002. By Dlz28 on en.wikipedia (From en.wikipedia; description page is (was) here) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Through 2003, Nomar Garciaparra was a Boston sparkplug. 

His strict at-bat rituals—which started when he left the dugout, one careful step at a time—amused fans. He had five All-Star nods. Two batting titles. Brandon and other fans expected him to help spark Boston’s turnaround.

What happened?

 

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Peter Golenbock Red Sox history book looks at the road to 2004

Frank Malzone, who became a Red Sox Hall of Famer in 1995, is quoted by author Golenbock as saying he wasn't promoted to Boston sooner because of his Italian heritage.

Frank Malzone, who became a Red Sox Hall of Famer in 1995, is quoted by author Golenbock as saying his promotion from the minors was delayed because of his Italian heritage.

As the Sox struggle this year, we need to look back on successful seasons in the past. 

A good place to do that is with Peter Golenbock’s history, Red Sox Nation: The Rich and Colorful History of the Boston Red Sox

Golenbock writes team histories like no other author. This 608-page book will provide any Red Sox Nation citizen a mental and physical workout.


What baseball books mean to me:
sharing my all-star favorite reads

On my All Star Book Giveaway page, you can enter to win one of three autographed copies of my novel, Out of Left Field.

Summer is a time for reading and for baseball, so why not ask writer friends and fans for their favorite baseball books? I was interested in books they might have read when young, as well as current titles. Here are some suggestions. I look forward to expanding the discussion:

Lou GehrigMy husband, John Straus, still owns the biography of Lou Gehrig that he read when he was a young Brooklyn Dodgers fan: Lou Gehrig: Boy of the Sand Lots, by Guernsey Van Riper, Jr. (Childhood of Famous Americans Series, 1949). With lots of invented dialogue and action, it reads like a fast-paced novel, but brings the game to life. 

Since we moved to the Boston area, John and I have shared and enjoyed a number of baseball-themed books together. Favorites have been Moneyball, by Michael Lewis; Wait Till Next Year, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s memoir of enjoying the game with her father; and Chad Harbach’s wonderful novel, The Art of Fielding. John also recommends Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy, by Jane Leavy, about one of the game’s greatest pitchers, and David Halberstam’s The Teammates, which profiles four great Red Sox players.

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Long before I became an ardent Sox fan, I followed Roger Angell’s baseball writings in The New Yorker. The New York Post has called him “The clear-eyed poet laureate of baseball.” The Roger Angell Baseball Collection gathers three books of his essays into one. 

As I wrote my baseball novel, Out of Left Field, I reread and quoted from A Great and Glorious Game: Baseball Writings of A. Bartlett Giamatti. Our friend David Riley, a poet, playwright, and passionate Red Sox fan, called to remind me of John Updike’s brilliant piece in The New Yorker, which chronicled Ted Williams’s last game (Williams finished with a home run).

In addition to these adult titles, I also appreciate baseball books for young readers. For a lively historical overview, I recommend Baseball For Everyone: 150 Years of America’s Game, by my friend Janet Wyman Coleman.

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My former student, Cathy Goldberg Fishman, tells the moving story of the first encounter between Jackie Robinson and Hank Greenberg in When Jackie and Hank Met (illustrated by Mark Elliot). Virginia Euwer Wolff’s novel, Bat Six, follows a girl’s softball team in Oregon, post-WWII. 

Fellow New Englander Matt Tavares has written and illustrated a number of books about the Red Sox, including his recent Growing Up Pedro: How the Martinez Brothers Made It from the Dominican Republic All the Way to the Major Leagues. Ken Mochizuki’s Baseball Saved Us, illustrated by Dom Lee, is a moving story about Japanese Americans who turned to baseball as a way to survive their internment during World War II.

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My good friend Nolan Zavoral, a poet and journalist who briefly covered the Brewers, told me that his all-time favorite baseball book is Bang the Drum Slowly, by Mark Harris. Nolan wrote: “What stays with me is that last line, a killer: ‘From here on in, I rag nobody.’ …It’s a sad, ironic, funny book, with a first-person narrator who pitches in the bigs. My runner-ups are a tie between [Bernard Malamud’s] The Natural, and Ball Four; the first for all the writerly reasons, the second because Jim Bouton (with a fine assist from Leonard Schecter) made us see baseball players without the halos.”

My cousin George Grayson, who taught himself to read by poring over the sports pages at the breakfast table, also praises Ball Four, which he said “was a controversial book, detailing Jim Bouton’s struggles as a knuckleball pitcher. Of course, as an 11- year-old, I enjoyed it immensely and was convinced it was the best book ever published. Unfortunately for me, it was released in very late August, at a time when I was supposed to be ‘finishing up’ my summer reading list…”

George, a long-time Senators—now Nationals—fan, had a personal connection to Kiss It Goodbye by Shelby Whitfield, about the Senators’ final season and their fatal last night. George told me a story that makes today’s games seem tame: “I went to the final game of that last season with my father,” George wrote. “Our sole remaining good player, the gentle giant Frank Howard, hit a laser shot of a home run that night and the crowd wouldn’t stop cheering. Finally, in the 9th inning, many in the crowd stormed the field, physically uprooting and then literally stealing second base, and the game was declared a forfeit.”

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Readers: what are your favorite baseball titles? On my All Star Book Giveaway page, you can enter to win one of three autographed copies of my novel, Out of Left Field. Share your favorite title before midnight, Tuesday, July 14th, and we’ll enter you in the drawing. We’ll draw names from a baseball hat and notify winners within the week after July 14th. Winners’ names will be posted on that same giveaway page.

Remember: The entry deadline is midnight Tuesday, July 14th (CDT). Sorry, only readers from the U.S. mainland are eligible for this giveaway.

Happy summer, and happy reading!

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