You have to understand that this team wasn’t supposed to be good.
The Boston Red Sox pulled off a historic collapse to end the 2011 season, putting an end to the Theo Epstein and Terry Francona era, the general manager and field manager who took them to the 86-year promised land in 2004. And then again in 2007. Too much chicken and beer in the clubhouse, in part, saw the Sox end the season 7-20 and miss out on a playoff berth that seemed guaranteed.
That corresponded with an even worse move, the controversial hiring of the directionless Bobby Valentine to manage the directionless 2012 Sox, a team that finished 69-93. David Ortiz wrote in his autobiography Papi: My Story, “The biggest surprise to me was not that they hired him. It was that he made it a whole year without someone punching him out.”
The 2013 Boston Red Sox were just supposed to be okay. Just compete. And please, for the love of God, stop being so dramatic.
The offseason was low-key. John Farrell, the third manager in three years, was brought in because he was never one to make it all about him. Veteran catcher David Ross came in for $6 million over two years. Jonny Gomes, Mike Napoli, and Stephen Drew all took one-year deals. The big deal of the offseason was signing 33-year-old Shane Victorino for three years.
Keep your head down. Don’t cause a scene. Stall for time until Xander Bogaerts, Matt Barnes, Jackie Bradley, Mookie Betts, and Blake Swihart can develop.
Through Monday, April 15, the Red Sox were 8-4, a record that was most assuredly going to deflate. That day, however, Mike Napoli doubled home Dustin Pedroia in the bottom of the ninth to walk off the Tampa Bay Rays. It was exactly how a Red Sox game should go on Patriots Day.
Then, as Ortiz puts it, “By the time the players left the park for the airport, everyone had heard the devastating news. Two bombs had exploded, 12 seconds apart, on Bolyston Street, near the Marathon finish line … It was an act of terrorism … Three people, including an eight-year-old boy, were killed … the sidewalks … were covered in blood.”
After a four-day manhunt that saw the city on lockdown (while the Red Sox played a series in Cleveland), they saw one game canceled before quickly returning home to Fenway Park.
The Red Sox honored the victims and the city they played for before their game on Saturday. Ortiz memorably drew attention to the name on his chest during the pre-game ceremony:
“This jersey that we wear today, it doesn’t say ‘Red Sox’. It says ‘Boston’. This is our f***ing city, and nobody gonna dictate our freedom. Stay strong.”
Boston Strong, a phrase that found itself in the national vernacular days before, became a rallying cry for a city that desperately needed one.
The Sox, meanwhile, were still supposed to finish last. A third-place result in the division would be a happy accident.
They were never bad. Every single month saw them win more games than they lost. All season, they never lost more than three games in a row. They spent 141 days in first place. When they came back to Boston, they kicked off their largest win streak of the season, one that lasted seven games.
As the late and legendary Red Sox broadcaster, Jerry Remy, wrote in his book, If These Walls Could Talk, “Jacoby Ellsbury had an MVP-type season. Jon Lester was tremendous. Ortiz was a stud. Pedroia had a great year.”
It was a team that picked up the slack when it needed to be picked up. Remy writes, “When Will Middlebrooks had a poor sophomore season, young Xander Bogaerts took over at third base and did a fine job.” Or how about when multiple closers, Joel Hanrahan and Andrew Bailey, went down with injuries to open the door for Koji Uehara to take the job and have one of the best relief seasons in Red Sox history?
It was a team that had to step up because they knew people were counting on them for a little hope, a little optimism, a little all-is-right in the world. Ortiz writes, “Our team would never be able to take away the pain of the tragedy, but we could honor the city with our play and love for each other.”
Manager John Farrell probably put it best. “I go back to our players understanding their place in this city. They kind of, for lack of a better way to describe it, they get it. They get that there’s a civic responsibility that we have wearing this uniform, particularly here in Boston. And it became a connection.”
The other connection, of course, was their matching facial hair. Fear the Beard completed the team’s trifecta of slogans, as the wacky Gomes lead Napoli, Ortiz, Jarrod Saltalamachia, Mike Carp, and others in a banding together initiative reminiscent of 2003’s “Cowboy Up” campaign. As long as Ellsbury was leading off and Ortiz was hitting long balls and Lester started every fifth day and Uehara closed the door, all while looking pretty fine doing it, they couldn’t lose.
That wasn’t to say they weren’t without competition. They had to beat David Price and Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer and Adam Wainwright and Michael Wacha in the playoffs. Ortiz had to hit his iconic ALCS grand slam to sway some lousy playoff momentum. But it was just meant to be.
Whatever it was.
A little luck from the beards? Possibly. At the very least it helped with team chemistry.
But the real bonding; the real uniting came from the understanding that playing for a city means playing for a city. Representing them, working for them, being a civil servant. They knew that they couldn’t let everyone down.
It sounds ridiculous, and that’s because it basically is. The next year, a lumpy 2014 season, saw the Red Sox finish in last place again.
Think about it like this: If Hollywood made a movie about a baseball team that stunk the season prior, brought in a bunch of aging players on the decline, witness the worst of tragedies in the city that they play for, step up to become World Champions, and then never be that good again…you wouldn’t believe it.
That’s what makes it so believable. So special. You can’t make this stuff up.
You had to see it to believe it. Even to believe it now, all of the Boston Strong tears and Fear the Beard giggles and “This is our f***ing city” power ballads, you have to hear it from those that made it happen:
“We didn’t put Boston on our back. Boston put us on its back.” – Jonny Gomes
“For the Red Sox to have the honor of playing a small role in the healing of the city is something that each of these players should really be proud of for the rest of their lives.” – Red Sox executive Dr. Charles Steinberg
“Winning the World Series helped a lot of people get closer to the normal they once knew.” – David Ortiz
The men age. The beards go grey. Some of the memories fade. But that feeling, the one that you get when you see strangers take care of each other or when a city becomes a community or when the Boston Red Sox place their World Series trophy on the Marathon finish line and sing “God Bless America” … that feeling that makes your heart and eyes and soul swell … that will never, ever go away.