1979 Red Sox Yearbook Dennis Eckersley

Words cannot describe my feelings for Dennis Eckersley. He was the coolest member of the Red Sox staff when I was a kid with that high leg kick and the fact he was a true Ace. Then he slogged around a resurfaced as one of the best closers in the history of the game with the Oakland A's. This was back before we knew about steroids, so that A's team with Canseco and McGwire was just too cool for words.

Fast forward to a few years ago, when Red Sox announcer Jerry Remy needed some time off to battle cancer and here's Eckersley, he (and others) filled in for Jerry and now Eck is a regular in the booth. He went from being scared to read the promotional ads to a really good analyst. He has his own lexicon of words like "high cheese" and "just a pair of shoes" but beyond that he is truly interesting and engaging. Big fan here.

The Red Sox and Yankees are playing in London today, of all places. 

1988 Topps Big Card #79 Willie McGee

I loved Willie McGee and he was a great player and one of the rare non-power hitters of that era who could change the momentum of a game. He got clutch hits and could run the bases. Given that everyone he was playing against was on steroids, he maybe should be a Hall of Famer. I believe he won a couple of batting titles. He played for the Red Sox for a year or two, I was glad they picked him up. 

The best thing about him though was his facial expression, he always looked like he'd just smelled something bad.  

1977 Red Sox yearbook celebrating Yaz

Yaz! Yaz! Yaz!

I totally had Yastrzemski mania back in the late 1970s so I would have been totally into this celebration of Red Sox outfielder Carl Yastrzemski in the 1977 Red Sox Yearbook.

Red Sox 1977 Schedule and Ticket Prices

How cool is this, how do Fenway ticket prices compare to 1977?

This is scanned from the 1977 Yearbook

1979 Red Sox Broadcasting teams

Ken Coleman, Rico Petrocelli on the radio and Ned Martin and Ken "Hawk" Harrelson on the television. This was a golden age of Red Sox draught baseball.

1979 Red Sox Yearbook Jerry Remy

Jerry Remy and Rick Burleson, what a great middle infield we had. Love Jerry as an announcer and wish him all the best in his recovery!  

1977 Red Sox Yearbook Tom House and Tom Murphy

I was an ardent Red Sox fan as a kid (and still am) but there was so little stuff to "study" in the offseason- now with the internet you can study stats and pictures and video all year but back then there was so little out there, the yearbooks became a big deal to us kids in the sticks. Here's a page from 1977. I always liked Tom House, and he's gone on to become the super guru of pitchers and throwing in general. I remember he used to throw a football around instead of a baseball!  

1975 Red Sox Yearbook Tony Conigliaro and Cecil Cooper

Here's a page from the 1975 Red Sox Yearbook. Compared to the yearbooks just a couple of years later it's a pretty drab affair- black and white pictures and stats. Some of the Red Sox players in 1975 were awesome- that was the year they made the World Series and lost to the Big Red Machine despite Carlton Fisk's famous home run.

Here are two such players- Tony Conigliaro was a Boston star until he was beaned in 1967. He was very young at the time. His career before the beaning was amazing- he was a surefire Hall of Famer if he could keep playing at the level he showed he could play at as a teenager in the major leagues! He was never the same after the beaning, and 1975 was his last year as a player.

Cecil Cooper was drafted by the Sox and played for them until right around this time. He was traded to the Brewers, changed his batting stance to one more like Rod Carew's and really started to hit. 

1979 Red Sox Coaching Staff

Some legends here from the 1979 Red Sox Yearbook. Don Zimmer, who was memorably thrown to the ground by Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez when coaching for the Stankees, here he is in his Red Sox managerial togs!

Also Johnny Pesky, who played and worked for the Red Sox for a million years. The Right Field Foul Pole (Fowl poll?) at Fenway is named after him. I met him at a baseball "camp" in Winslow or maybe Waterville, Maine way back then. He was with a young pitcher named Jim Wright and the two were doing clinics for Little League players.

Walt Hriniak I've actually mentioned on this blog before- he turned "Dewey" Dwight Evans into a hitter.

Al Jackson was a great pitcher for the Mets, and spent a lot of time as an instructor in their system. He'd been a teammate of Don Zimmer. Eddie Yost, the "Walking Man" was a long time coach with several teams.

1979 Red Sox Yearbook Carl Yastrzemski

Growing up, without exception, this guy, also known as Yaz, was my favorite baseball player in the world. I emulated his batting stance, the way he twirled the bat while staring out at the pitcher, the guy was just super cool. I really would have loved to see him play when he was in his prime.

1979 Red Sox Roster

Back in the old days before the internet, getting a player's batting average, or the current full roster, or really any statistic, required access to a good daily paper and perhaps the town library. I used to buy the Red Sox yearbooks every year to get stats and pictures of my favorite players and all of the stuff we can get now with just a few mouse clicks. Here's a page from the 1979 Red Sox yearbook, the full team preseason roster!  

1979 Red Sox Yearbook Dwight Evans

"Dewey" was one of my favorite players. He had a cannon for an arm, great outfielder, and then during his career he transformed his batting approach radically and became one of the better hitters in the game for a few years. I think he was a Walt Hriniak batting disciple.

This is from the 1979 Red Sox yearbook. It was before Dwight Evans could really hit, and before he grew that epic mustache.