by Jerry Remy
In my opinion, Boggs was the best Fenway hitter. He had the strength and the ability to flip it off the wall any time he wanted to, and he could pull the ball for base hits. He could hit it up the middle. I think Lynn used it very well, too.
Manny Ramirez was one of the best hitters I’ve ever seen. He could hit anywhere, but he used Fenway to his advantage. He was dumb like a fox and he was so smart hitting-wise that he’d set pitchers up. They’d throw him a curve and he’d duck out of the way and then he’d just sit there and look for another curve because he was baiting the pitcher into throwing him another one. When he got it, he’d just absolutely mash it.
Now, I can’t say Manny played the best left field at Fenway. There were times you’d look out there and he’d be 20 feet behind the infield. I’ve always been a proponent of playing shallow in left field here because a ball over your head is only going to be a double anyway and you can take away base hits, but it’d get to a point where we’d look out there sometimes and he’s 25 feet behind the shortstop. It was unbelievable.
When you’re there every day, there are things you take for granted. The sellout streak, 820 games, the longest in major sports history, ended on April 10, 2013, when the official attendance in an 8–5 loss to Baltimore was 30,862. A sellout for a Fenway night game is 37,493.
The streak began in May of 2003 and included the postseason. The streak broke the record previously held by the Portland Trail Blazers from 1977 to 1995. We also held the regular season record of 794 sellouts, which surpassed the previous high by the Cleveland Indians of 455 games, set by that team from 1995 to 2001.
It was a pretty big deal when it finally ended. But it was understandable after the horrible 2012 season where fans were upset about the direction of the team. Of course, 2013 turned out to be a great season, a World Series championship season. I think this was almost like pushing the reset button with the fan base, who after the 2011 collapse and the last-place 2012 team was looking for a reason to believe again.
The atmosphere in those days was just over-the-top excitement. Everyone wanted Red Sox tickets. Everyone wanted a chance to go to Fenway Park.
Fenway is also home for “Sweet Caroline,” which is played before the bottom of the eighth inning and is probably the most popular time at Fenway Park on a daily basis. The Boston Globe wrote that when the song was first played at the park, it was only during random games, between the middle of the seventh and ninth innings, and it was only played if the Red Sox were ahead in the game.
But that changed when a Red Sox employee, Amy Toby, saw that the song was a good luck charm and, in 2002, “Sweet Caroline” became an official Fenway tradition. To this day, the song is played before the bottom of the eighth inning at every home game. It’s also played at Jet Blue Park in Fort Myers, Florida, the spring training home of the Red Sox where Jet Blue Park is a Fenway replica complete with a Green Monster wall and Monster seats.
5. Who Did It Best?
Carlton Fisk and Jason Varitek
Obviously, I knew Carlton Fisk better than Jason Varitek. I played with Fisk and I covered Varitek. They’re both very similar in their competitive ways though they acted quite differently. Fisk, a Hall of Famer, was kind of laid-back. Nothing seemed to get him stirred up except the Yankees, who we absolutely hated. One of the funny stories when I got traded to the Red Sox involved Mickey Rivers, who was a former Angels teammate of mine. At the time Mickey was a Yankee. We were warming up before infield practice in those days and Rivers came up to me to shake my hand and just chat. Fisk saw that, and he came over to me right away. He said, “We don’t talk to those bastards around here.” I kinda got an introduction on how he felt about New York in that little session. That was good enough for me. Once we got playing in the game, I kind of figured out why.
Fisk was very methodical in everything he did. On the field, he took his time getting into the batter’s box. Off the field, he could be the same way. Fisk, Fred Lynn, and I used to live in the same development and would carpool together to the ballpark. We’d have a 2:00 pm meeting time to leave for the ballpark. Fred and I would go over to his house and he’d just be sitting down to have dinner at 2:00. He was one of those guys where it seemed like nothing bothered him. But he was very, very competitive in his own way. Probably the best catcher I ever played with or against.
What made him unique was the fact that he was so big. He was 6-foot-3, which was unusually tall for catchers back in those days. Quite frankly, it’s unusual in today’s game. It was amazing the things that he was able to do. We used to call him “Magic” because of the way he could handle a glove. He was so good handling the glove behind the plate. He played in a time when they didn’t have the information that’s available to players nowadays. Pretty much everything you did as far as setting up hitters and knowing hitters’ tendencies was based on your own memory and feel for the game.
He wasn’t afraid to go out to the mound to chew out a pitcher. It would take him a while to get out there, but once he finally did, he could let him have it pretty good. His throws to second base were like arrows. They were just straight. There was no tail on them. There was no nothing. He threw it directly over the top. He was a pretty special guy to play with. And he was a good friend.
We maintain a good relationship to this day. Every time that he stops in a luxury box up in Fenway, he says hi. I’ve gotten to know his family very well from living in the same development with him. It was kind of a close relationship. Obviously, you go separate ways when you’re done playing. The shame of it all is that he never should have left the Red Sox. He should’ve been in Boston his whole career. I remember the night before they didn’t issue his contract. He called me and said, “You’re not gonna believe this but tomorrow’s the deadline and I don’t have my contract yet.”
I said, “What?” I couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it either.
He was a very stubborn guy, very stubborn. His wife, Linda, was very strong. She was his backbone. Once they didn’t receive the contract, all hell broke loose. Next thing you know, he’s playing with the Chicago White Sox, which should’ve never happened. He was from New England, from New Hampshire, he was popular, he was good, a Hall of Famer. All of a sudden, he’s playing for the Chicago White Sox, where he played more games than he did with the Red Sox. It was really kind of bizarre when that started to happen.
That was the beginning of the breaking up of what was a really good team. After that, Burleson left to go to the Angels. Fred left. They got rid of all the core guys. I stayed because I had a contract. We thought from ’78 on we could’ve gone on and won maybe a couple of championships with that club. All of a sudden, the base of it really changed because of those moves. That was kind of tough to swallow at that time. You see great players going to other ballclubs. The club was not the same club as what we had. Fisk was a major factor in that. They had a very difficult time replacing him behind the plate. He was a Hall of Famer.
Carlton Fisk’s famous home run in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. (AP Images)
Our scouts would go out prior to a series. If we were playing the Yankees, they would go see the Yankees before we see them. All we had were written reports from our advance scout that were nowhere near as detailed as what they have now or even in Varitek’s time with the Red Sox. We’d have these meetings before the games and the manager would come out and say, “Okay, this guy’s swinging the bat good. This guy’s not swinging the bat good. This guy will hit and run. This guy will do that.” It was stuff like that. It was usually before we saw a club for the first time. Information was not very solid. Most of the time, the scouts didn’t see the pitchers we were going to see in our series. We had no idea what these guys were doing, how they were throwing. Most of it, in those days, was just based on memory. It was what you remembered about a particular guy. What you remembered he hit against you and where he hit the ball.
They did have pitchers me
etings but they weren’t nearly as detailed as they are now. There wasn’t a real game plan going in. It was just pretty much based on what we’ve seen in the past and what our recollection was. From a catcher’s point of view, that had to be very difficult because he wasn’t loaded with the information about how they were doing or how they were swinging at that particular time.
Well, Fisk had an interesting relationship with pitchers. He’d put down some fingers and they’d shake ’em up. Next thing you know, the mask was on top of the head and he was walking out to the mound. There’s plenty of famous pictures of him walking out to the mound. That’s when sometimes you get pretty intense out there. It was a general back and forth between him and the pitchers. I think he butted heads with Bill Lee quite a bit on things that they wanted to do.
The thing that amazes me is the knowledge that he had about hitters despite having limited information to work with. It was pretty much a field game at that time. How things were going in that particular game, how things had developed since the last time we saw ’em. You see a team in May, but you don’t see them again until August. Things change. Fisk had to figure most of that out on his own. That was quite different from Jason’s time, where I remember seeing him sitting at his locker just studying charts of pitchers and hitters. He was a real student and pored over the information.
Jason looked more like a catcher than Fisk. He was built like a rock. He had tree trunks for legs. He was great at blocking the plate. It was very dangerous for him, but it was like hitting a stone wall when you hit him. With Fisk, he had blown out his knee early in his career and it was at a time when surgeries were experimental. It is amazing that they were able to fix his knee and he was able to have the lengthy career that he had. That was really pretty remarkable. He was a little bit more hesitant than Varitek on blocking the plate because of that knee problem. Varitek would just stick a leg out and it was like hitting a tree trunk. They were different in those ways.
Varitek reminded me more of Munson’s body shape than Fisk did. Fisk just didn’t look like a catcher. He was so big. They were both fiercely competitive. Varitek was quiet. He was not a guy who went around and chatted a lot in the clubhouse, but he was always open to talking to pitchers. He was very up-to-date with knowledge and information that was presented to him. Both were looked up to by everybody on the team just because of the way they played the game. Jason wasn’t a rah-rah guy who went around cheering people on and picking guys up. He said what he had to say and what he had to say meant a lot to a lot of players.
Jason had a strong relationship with everyone, but he was definitely known as Pedro’s catcher. Pedro trusted him completely. He knew he’d put down the right fingers. Pitchers knew he had a game plan. I think that impressed them, knowing that this guy has an attack in mind and this is the way we’re going to go about it. I don’t think many of them questioned him very often.
Jason Varitek had the confidence of all the Red Sox pitchers during his career in Boston, including closer Jonathan Papelbon. (AP Images)
For a pitcher to have confidence in his catcher is one of the most important relationships on the field. When you’re sitting out there and you’re playing a game and your pitcher and catcher are not on the same page, it doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work. When they’re not on the same page, there’s so much time spent going out to discuss pitches. It’s disruptive. When you have confidence in the catcher, you know he’s putting down the right fingers. It also gives the pitcher confidence. This guy knows exactly what he wants me to do, now I’ve got to execute it. This is the best chance we have of getting people out.
That was Varitek’s strength, in my opinion, that he knew exactly what he wanted to do. It took a lot of convincing to change his mind. I think he also had a very good feel for each individual pitcher on what their strengths and weaknesses were on that particular day. I think he read very quickly that, “Well, today he doesn’t have his good breaking ball so we’re gonna go to a plan B.” I think he was very good changing up midstream depending on what the pitcher had that particular day.
Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens
I was lucky to see both Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens up close. I actually played a couple of games behind Roger but most of it was broadcasting his games. They were two guys who desperately wanted to be the best in the game but had totally different styles.
Roger was more of a workaholic. He worked very hard at keeping himself in shape. He was intimidating. He’d buzz you in a second. He was kind of old school. He grew up idolizing Nolan Ryan and he had that kind of stuff. He was amazing to watch. I mean, a blazing fastball, a great split-fingered fastball. You watched him grow and grow as a pitcher. Then he became, obviously, an elite pitcher. I was lucky enough to do his second 20-strikeout game against Detroit on September 18, 1996. It was a pretty amazing feat. I didn’t see the first one (on April 29, 1986), but to sit there and broadcast a game like that, wow! As a hitter you had no chance. If he had his stuff and he was on, he was devastating to face. He put that fear in hitters that other great pitchers had. I remember he struck out Travis Fryman four times including the final out of the game, and Tony Clark three times. Alan Trammell and Brad Ausmus were the only regulars who struck out only once. Roger threw 151 pitches in that game and I just can’t imagine any pitcher staying out there that long nowadays. The other amazing thing was that he didn’t walk anyone, just as he had done in his first 20-strikeout game 10 years earlier. That was Roger’s last year with the Red Sox as the Red Sox made what was likely an unwise choice not to re-sign him.
He did whatever it took to be a winning pitcher, to be a winner in any particular game. Even on the days where he didn’t have his best stuff, he was still able to survive because he was Roger Clemens. When they let him go, I wasn’t against it. I thought that he needed a jumpstart in his career at that time. I thought that he was motivated to become what he was after he left the Red Sox. I think that leaving pissed him off to no end and he couldn’t believe that had happened. He said, “Well, screw you guys. I’m gonna show you.” Did he ever.
All the great athletes are like that. They find some type of motivation. I honestly believe that he thought he’d be with the Red Sox his whole career. I think that sometimes when you get in those situations, you get a little bit stale. That might sound harsh, but I think he was a little bit stale here. I think that by moving on, going to another club, he got his fire back. And when he got his fire back, look out. We all know what he did. He was special.
But I must say I list him at number two on my list. Pedro is number one.
Pedro was the best I’ve ever seen. For a lot of reasons, but mostly his pitching ability. He’s another guy who had a chip on his shoulder because the Dodgers told him that he couldn’t be a starting pitcher. He was too small. He never forgot about that, both in Montreal and when he came to Boston. He was electric. It was something like we’ve never seen around here. The ballpark turned into a World Series game every time he pitched. He created that. He’s another guy that was mean like Roger was, but in a different way.
Roger was just big, strong, and mean. Pedro was this little guy who could throw 98 miles an hour with a devastating change-up. One that you knew was coming and you still couldn’t hit it.
Both Pedro and Roger had great stuff, but I’d say Pedro had a better off-speed pitch. Roger had that split, which was pretty devastating. Pedro’s change-up was the best I’ve ever seen. I honestly believe he could walk up to home plate and tell you, “I’m gonna throw you four change-ups in a row.” And you couldn’t hit them. He had the same mentality as Roger. He was going to be the intimidator out there. He wasn’t afraid to buzz people, as we saw on many occasions. He honestly believed that was part of pitching. I agree with both of them that intimidation is part of pitching. When you’ve got a hitter who’s not quite sure what a pitcher is going to do, that’s intimidating. That’s a quality that they both shared. Pedro is my
all-time favorite. I couldn’t wait as a broadcaster to do his games every five days. I just couldn’t wait because it was like a heavyweight fight. It would have that kind of an atmosphere at the ballpark every time that he took the mound.
The one and only Pedro Martinez. (AP Images)
My favorite Pedro game actually wasn’t at Fenway. It was the one at Yankee Stadium on September 10, 1999, when he struck out 17 Yankees. He gave up a second-inning home run to Chili Davis early in the game and then they couldn’t touch him. It was the only hit he allowed. He retired 22 straight batters, struck out the side in the fifth, seventh, and ninth innings. He embarrassed them the rest of the way. It got so bad that Yankees fans were cheering for strikeouts. And the Yankees were in first place at the time. I mean, he just basically embarrassed them the rest of the way. That was better than some no-hitters that I’ve seen.
In fact, that’s probably the best game that I’ve ever seen pitched. Believe me, I’ve been behind no-hitters, I’ve broadcast no-hitters. I’ve never seen a game like that. I’ve never broadcast a game like that. His personality was so different. He was such a clown, really. A smart clown in the clubhouse. He was much better with the media than Roger was. Roger was uncomfortable with reporters. Pedro was totally comfortable with them. He’d say some things that were just absolutely hilarious, like, “Babe Ruth can kiss my ass.” Or whatever it was. Stuff like that. He was a pleasure to cover. He was a real quality guy. He goes down in my book as the best pitcher that I’ve ever seen. I’ve never had to face him, obviously. I do believe that after that incredible performance in the 1999 All-Star Game, he was never the same. I think that he just wanted to embarrass people in that game and he did. It was at Fenway Park. I think that after that, I don’t know if physically he was ever quite the same as he was prior to that game.
