Buckner is an update in my all-time greats. He didn’t strike out much, played several positions well and was an overall high-quality steady player, who helped several teams when they needed it. There is now even a chance that, someday, he could make the Hall of Fame; now that Boston has won their pennants (sic).

Excerpt from the “Guide to Being a Media-Savvy Professional Sports Figure”:

“When discussing people who watch you or your team, you must be clear on two things:

“1) ‘The Fans’ are always great. Use this collective noun, ‘the Fans’, any time you feel like offering praise to the people who watch you or your team. Do this often. Example: ‘The Fans here in (your city) are the very best in all of (your sport)’.

“2) Never use the collective noun, ‘the Fans’, when you are feeling critical. Never use the word ‘Fan’ at all, in fact, when feeling critical. Do not say ‘The Fans need to be more patient.’ Do not say ‘Some fans are spoiling the fun’. Instead, if you absolutely must express your frustration, use the words ‘some people’ and combine liberally with the word ‘unfortunately’. Example, ‘Unfortunately, some people are spoiling it for the Fans.’

I wrote that (above) because, not having paid much attention to the Buckner-hating, I’ve found the recent explanation (that the media did it) to be a partial truth. I believe I have heard Buckner previously quoted as saying that he gets hate-mail and is otherwise mistreated by some people (who are spoiling it for the Fans).

12 Observation about the famous clip of Buckner’s error in 1986. Baseball players (on defense) have a directive for every situation and every play, and those directives keep players in motion until the ball is dead. What made the tv-clip so interesting is that one rarely ever sees the ball rolling away with no one running after it. Since the game was basically over at that point, it is like the deep fly ball bouncing harmlessly past the drawn-in outfielders — a strange sight… Why is no one going after it? Oh…

As for Gedman, he’s a local boy, grew up a Sox fan. I may have been mad at him for a while at one time, but I cheered my guts out for him as he passed me by on the duckboats in the parade in ’04. Redemption for all. That’s how I see it.

Stanley. Yeah. I don’t have any blame anymore, really, except maybe for MacNamara (and Bill Lee-hating Don Zimmer), but even in the pre-’04 years I couldn’t really come down too hard on Stanley, that pearshaped tragicomic shlub. How can a guy who just wasn’t that great shoulder the blame?

And not for nothing, but I believe I’ve heard that he’s a really good guy who’s worked tirelessly for the Jimmy Find.

Right after that WS the 1918 chant started on a regular basis from both Yankees and Mets fans. The only comeback I had was the equally obnoxious 1940.

My best friend was a huge Ranger fan and after the Rangers won and skated around with the Cup, I called him and congratulated him.

I told him it was the most incredible celebration I had ever seen and for the first time I felt happy for a NY fan.

In 2004 he responded in kind.

I never blamed Buckner, I watched the pregame ceremony with tears in my eyes.

I still blame Bob Stanley. He cost me 1978 and 1986.

CORRECTION:

I was informed by a friend of mine that I have misunderstood what being “run out of town on a rail” entailed. To quote my friend (a doctor of physics, no less):

“Riding the rail was a punishment of Colonial America in which a man was made to straddle a fence rail held on the shoulders of two men, with other men on either side to keep him upright on the rail. The victim was then paraded around town. Alternately it can refer to tying a person’s hands and feet around a rail so the person dangles under the rail… Here’s an excerpt from Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that should help you visualize being “run out on a rail” (a rail being a wooden post): ‘here comes a raging rush of people with torches, and an awful whooping and yelling, and banging tin pans and blowing horns; and we jumped to one side to let them go by; and as they went by I see they had the king and the duke astraddle of a rail–that is, I knowed it WAS the king and the duke, though they was all over tar and feathers, and didn’t look like nothing in the world that was human–just looked like a couple of monstrous big soldier-plumes.’ The practice can also be noted in a scene from ‘O Brother Where Art Thou?’”

I stand happily corrected.