- 1 day ago
Why no blame for the late Tim Wakefield, who gave up a homer to previously .161 playoff hitter Aaron ****ing Boone?
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Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
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00:23Hi everybody, I'm Brian Kenney, and welcome to ESPN Classic's Top 5 Reasons You Can't
00:27Blame.
00:27In 2003, the Red Sox had their best shot at breaking the curse of the Bambino.
00:34With 95 regular season wins under manager Grady Little, Boston met the Yankees in the ALCS.
00:40Fast forward to Game 7, the Red Sox up 5-2, and Little sends out his ace, Pedro Martinez,
00:45to pitch the eighth inning.
00:46With one out, the Yankees pull within two runs.
00:49Although Martinez has thrown more than 100 pitches, Little leaves him on the mound.
00:54And at this point, you know the rest.
00:55New York ties it up and goes on to win the pennant on Aaron Boone's 11th inning home run.
01:00Before we count down the top...
01:01But that was off of Wakefield, I think.
01:04...about five reasons you can't blame Grady Little for the Red Sox losing the ALCS.
01:09Let's take a look back at why nearly all of New England did.
01:21It was a time when the Red Sox looked like they were ready to overtake the Yankees.
01:29Ortiz has a long drive to right.
01:31Back is Garcia.
01:32It's gone!
01:34One-two-nine, it was as tough as a lot, as you'd fight.
01:39Bill Miller at third base.
01:41Nomar Garcia par at shortstop.
01:43Ortiz, Manny, Nixon, Baratek.
01:48That was a lineup that, top to bottom, was just stacked.
01:53There's a swing and a high drive in the right center field, and he's got it again!
01:58In 2003, the Red Sox led the majors in runs and batting average.
02:02Earning a wild-card berth, they rallied from a 2-0 deficit to beat Oakland in the American League Division
02:08Series.
02:09Strike three, call!
02:11The Red Sox win it!
02:12Up next, Boston's bitter rival, the New York Yankees.
02:16They'd met four years earlier in the American League Championship Series.
02:18It was kind of a one-sided deal.
02:19The Yankees won that in five.
02:21It was just kind of both teams finally being on a level playing field.
02:25Fee swings, and it's a long high drive deep down the left-deer line, hooking into the corner.
02:29That ball is gone!
02:31A home run for Millard!
02:32Our personality is that we didn't fear anybody.
02:35We had our own swagger, I think, that we carried with us,
02:38and we expected to go in there and win that series.
02:41Head-to-head during the regular season, the Yankees held a 10-9 edge.
02:45But when the Red Sox came back in the Bronx to tie the playoff series at three games,
02:49they looked like a team of destiny.
02:51When they won Game 6, all of a sudden there was this tremendous belief
02:55that the Red Sox could win Game 7.
02:57They had their ace on the mound.
02:59Game 7 was, I mean, it was a matchup that you could only ask for.
03:04You get two Hall of Famers going at each other,
03:07Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, and Yankee Stadium.
03:10It was huge.
03:11The Red Sox jumped ahead 3-0 off Roger Clemens in the second inning.
03:15Going into the bottom of the eighth, the Red Sox had a comfortable 5-2 lead
03:20with seven strong innings from Pedro Martinez.
03:23He cranked it up for the last hitter.
03:26He points to this guy.
03:27Swing and a miss!
03:29He struck him out!
03:30He embraced his teammates.
03:32Mentally, he had hung up his spikes.
03:34I was actually told I wasn't going to go back out.
03:38You ever seen a gutsier performance than Pedro is shown tonight?
03:42They had a lead going into the eighth.
03:44They had a three-run lead going into the eighth,
03:46and it seemed like there was no way they could lose.
03:48And even the most Yankee fan is figuring this is the year.
03:52Tension mounting at Yankee Stadium.
03:54First batter to the eighth inning, Nick Johnson, pops up.
03:56So now it's five outs to go to get to the World Series.
04:01The pitch is swung on and lined a deep right field.
04:03Nixon going back, way back, and it's over his head.
04:06I felt like we were going to win no matter what happened.
04:09Something always magical seems to happen at Yankee Stadium.
04:14Face it!
04:15Cheater rounds third.
04:16He'll score, and the Yankees will set up the time run.
04:20The Red Sox bullpen had performed superbly throughout the postseason,
04:25and you had three guys out there.
04:27Mike Timlin had basically pitched a perfect game in the postseason.
04:30Williamson's probably going to be your closer.
04:32Embry's an option, and that had been the formula.
04:38Here comes Brady Little jogging out to the mound.
04:42When he first came out, when he first appears out of the dugout,
04:47people assume that that's it.
04:49Tato's coming out of the game.
04:50I wrote the change in my scorebook.
04:52I assumed there was going to be a change in the scorebook.
04:54He asked him if he's all right.
04:56I was right there, and Tato said, I'm fine.
04:59Don't ask him!
05:00You can't ask him!
05:02You know, because he's the champion.
05:03He's never going to say, oh, yeah, coach, I'm hurting.
05:07Take me out.
05:08Brady's not made a move yet.
05:10He's staying with him.
05:11When he left, I turned to my door, and I said,
05:14that is the dumbest move.
05:16People were just, they were throwing their keyboards up in the air in the press box.
05:20It was, I mean, this was not second-guessing.
05:22This was first-guessing.
05:23Everybody was saying, wow, he's just set himself up for disaster here.
05:27Boy, is it strange that Little is not going to his bullpen?
05:33He wasn't managing with his eyes because it was clear that Pedro was losing it.
05:38Swing and a line drive down the right field line.
05:40Fair ball!
05:40It was known at that point in his career that Pedro really started to go south
05:44after about the 105th, 106th pitch.
05:47Great will refuse to look at statistics in any way.
05:51He kicks and deals.
05:52Swing and a fisted player in shallow right center,
05:55and it's going to drop for a hit.
05:57One run scores.
05:58Here comes Matt Thruy with a tying run.
06:02And the pitch to passada that he had in the center field
06:04was the 123rd pitch that Pedro had thrown in the ninth.
06:06One of the greatest comebacks you'll ever see.
06:10With the game tied at five,
06:12Martinez, who allowed hits to seven of the last nine batters, was done.
06:16But the drama continued into the 11th inning.
06:19Here's Boone.
06:20He swings.
06:21A long, high drive.
06:22Down the left field line.
06:24It's over!
06:29Could have been Tim Wakefield as the GOAT,
06:31but I just think given how enormous of a lead that is going into the eighth inning,
06:37if you're going to second-guess anything, that is what you have to pinpoint.
06:40As soon as he left Pedro in there to take his lumps,
06:44we knew it was all going to come down the ground.
06:47Max, every time, when it really mattered, he left him in, inexplicably.
06:53Pedro wanted a pitch, and Grady didn't step up and take him out.
06:56I don't think he had the stones to pull the trigger.
06:59You can blame Grady because it was such an obvious decision,
07:03he just flat-out froze.
07:05That cost him.
07:06That cost him the game.
07:07That cost him the series.
07:08That cost him a chance at the World Series,
07:10and ultimately it cost Grady Little his job.
07:16You've just seen why people do blame Grady Little
07:18for the Red Sox losing the pennant to the Yankees.
07:21Before we present the top five reasons you can't blame him,
07:24here are a few that missed the cut.
07:27The moose was loose.
07:29Here comes Joe Torre, so that's going to be it for Roger Clemens.
07:32With the Yankees trailing 4-0 in the fourth,
07:34Mike Messina made the first relief appearance of his 13-year career.
07:40And Mike Messina, of all people, comes out of the bullpen
07:43and strikes out Jason Baratuck.
07:46And then Johnny Damon, who had hit into only five double plays all season,
07:51hits into a double play to end that inning.
07:54And to come in just middle of the game and give them three shot innings,
07:58the team realizes how big that was, and that's why they won that series.
08:02Our other best of the rest, Trott Nixon.
08:05The Boston right fielder's defensive laps in the eighth opened the floodgates.
08:09Yankee Stadium has probably never sounded quite so desperate.
08:12And then Derek Jeter gets a hold of a Pedro fastball.
08:18Trott Nixon took a bad angle for it.
08:20It looked like the ball was going to be caught.
08:22Nixon going back, way back, and it's over his head.
08:25If he hits the same ball a hundred times, Trott Nixon might catch that 90 times.
08:29He didn't get a very good jump on the ball, didn't really take a great angle on the ball.
08:32Nixon got fooled, I think, by the trajectory of the ball.
08:35And all of a sudden it was over Nixon's head and rolled to the wall for a double that started
08:39the rally.
08:42The curse of Don Zimmer.
08:46During the five seasons he managed the Red Sox,
08:49bad things tended to happen when they played the Yankees, especially in 1978.
08:56Wow, 78.
08:58That was a tough year.
09:00The Red Sox, you know, built up this incredible lead, 14-game lead.
09:05We just slowly, slowly caught up with them.
09:08Zimmer, Zimmer ruined it.
09:09Zimmer kind of ran the Red Sox into the ground and he was running the same guys out there every
09:14day.
09:14And then the last day, the last game, the playoff game,
09:18one pitch told that whole story.
09:22Deep to left!
09:24Yastrzewski will not get its home run!
09:27Fast forward to the 2003 ALCS.
09:30It's game three and Zimmer, now 72, is the Yankees bench coach.
09:35As he watches from the dugout, a duel of sorts is underway out on the mound.
09:40Emotions are high as it is and it doesn't take much for something to happen.
09:46That is high and tight and now Manny walks out toward the mound.
09:49And he's shouting angrily at Roger.
09:51And everything, you know, broke loose.
09:53Manny overreacted and the benches cleared.
09:57I remember looking out of the corner of my eye and seeing Zim.
10:00And I almost said, you know, you stay here.
10:04But I know he wouldn't have.
10:05The Red Sox come pouring out of their dugout.
10:08Don Zimmer in foul ground has gone down.
10:13Crazy little Zimmer comes bombing out of the dugout, literally running full speed.
10:18He got a bad airfuck on this, yo.
10:23The man tried to punch me.
10:26So I stepped aside.
10:29Did not throw a punch.
10:30He could have really hit him with a quick two-piece like bomb bomb.
10:33But he had respect for the Zimmer.
10:34Zim was actually sort of coming close to him.
10:36He's like, I'm kind of sleepy.
10:38Where can I lay down?
10:39Pedro just said, right here.
10:41It looked to me like a bullfight.
10:43Like a bullfighter with an ole type move.
10:46He didn't really know where he was at.
10:48He said that, you know, Pedro had hit him.
10:50That's what he told me while I was holding his head up.
10:52One of my backburner theories is that all that effort that he took to throw Zimmer,
10:56he probably burned up some good pitches that he had left.
10:59He might have got through game seven if he hadn't have made that toss.
11:02It certainly was ironic.
11:03The guy that's run out of town for them blowing that lead in 1978.
11:07He would be at the center of that controversy.
11:09Look, if you're a Red Sox fan, you're willing to believe anything.
11:14Have we begun to change your mind yet?
11:16If not, take a look at reason number four.
11:20The leaky pen.
11:22The Red Sox closer by committee arrangement didn't provide Grady Little with an overwhelming
11:27sense of security.
11:28He was scared to death his bullpen would be Scott Norwood wide right.
11:42We didn't have a whole closer.
11:44We had Alan Embry and Mike Tillman who were throwing the ball well, but it was kind of
11:47by committee.
11:47In the playoffs especially, the closer is enormous.
11:51Absolutely enormous.
11:53Strike three.
11:54Ball game over.
11:55Yankees win.
11:56In 2002, Uget Urbina saved 40 games for the Red Sox.
12:01But when the free agent signed with Texas after the season, he wasn't replaced.
12:06Boston GM Theo Epstein pinned his bullpen hopes on a flexible rotation of the leaders.
12:12It was definitely a flawed idea by Theo Epstein there as far as, you know, the closure by committee
12:18has never worked.
12:19Embry could not get the job done.
12:21The base hit, the home run, and now a base hit again.
12:23That's one of the worst concepts in the history of baseball is closure by committee.
12:28It was a radical approach.
12:29It was one that a lot of people frowned on.
12:31It blew up on them very early in the year.
12:34In the air to right.
12:35Nixon is headed back.
12:37Looking up.
12:38That ball is gone.
12:40The Devil Rays have come all the way back and they win it.
12:44Every manager.
12:45The Devil Rays were getting hits off of them.
12:48Rides hot hands and rides hunches.
12:50And that's wonderful.
12:51But I don't think you want to entrust the ninth inning of game seven of any kind of series
12:56to a hunch.
12:58And I think if we had a Mariano Rivera at that time, a Billy Wagner, a Rob Nett, you know,
13:02maybe you bring him in in a two-out situation in the eighth inning.
13:07Swing for the minutes, he's working out.
13:09Mariano Rivera has shut out the Red Sox for three.
13:13If they had a closer of that quality, I don't think there's any way that Brady leaves Pedro in
13:18the game.
13:19He just didn't feel safe with whoever he was going to bring in.
13:23It's simple as that.
13:26The ghost of the Bambino.
13:28For more than eight decades, spooky visitations from the banished babe haunted the Red Sox.
13:34As Grady walks out to the mound, he had the curse of the Bambino riding on his shoulders.
13:39You can see all the ghosts accompany him.
13:41You can see Joe McCarthy blowing the 1949 pennant.
13:44You can see Don Zimmer, 1978, blowing a 14-game lead and ultimately having his bacon cooked
13:50by Bucky Den of all people.
13:52And when he left Pedro in the game, it's almost as if the curse had inflicted itself right
13:57at that moment on the Red Sox.
14:00Swing it, a fly ball, right field, deep back, goes Nixon, still goes back, reaches up, it's
14:05over his head.
14:06They've got a hit here and a hit here.
14:10It blew up here and a hit here.
14:12I'm like, maybe those ghosts are flying around here.
14:15Since the unforgivable act of selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees after the 1919 season,
14:21Red Sox fans had been locked in purgatory.
14:24Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS was merely another tantalizing episode in a long history of dashed
14:31hopes.
14:33There's no question that the Red Sox had long had a capability of snatching defeat from the
14:41jaws of victory.
14:42Part of you thought, maybe this Red Sox team is different, but this was the Yankees.
14:48This was the Red Sox.
14:49We've all seen this movie before.
14:51Nobody was panicking on the bench and we'd always talked about it and goofed around it.
14:55Just wait for the ghosts to come out and things are going to turn around.
14:58Like Derek told me, the ghosts will show up eventually and they did.
15:01It was inevitable that Grady Little would make that decision.
15:05This is Red Sox lore.
15:06This is Red Sox history.
15:07It was as inexorable as a great tragedy.
15:11And of all the bitter disappointments over the years in Red Sox history, it would be
15:16hard to imagine that there has ever been anything as bad as this.
15:23With three strong reasons in the books, here is reason number two.
15:28Pedro Martinez.
15:29Almost everyone in New England believed he was the man, including Grady Little.
15:34I think he would rather put all of his money on Pedro than a money pitcher.
15:40Swing and a miss.
15:41He went back with the high hard one at 93.
15:44His shoulders are, you know, he can hold the world on his shoulders.
15:50Fastball, struck it out, Swing.
15:52When Grady came up, the simple question was whether I could pitch to Matsui or not.
15:56And I said, yes.
15:58Of course I can pitch to one more.
16:00He asked Pedro, he said, are you all right?
16:02And Pedro looked at him, sound fine.
16:03Well, let's go get this guy.
16:05Brady Little comes out, pats him on the backside, and returns to the third base dugout.
16:12You've got the best pitcher in baseball.
16:14Maybe 80% of the best pitcher in baseball is better than 100% of somebody else.
16:19The numbers tend to support Little's decision.
16:22Of the next three hitters he would face with one out in the eighth inning, only the first,
16:26Derek Jeter, had a career batting average over 200 against him.
16:30There was a little fatigue in the last game.
16:32But I still pushed it.
16:34My last pitch in that game was 95 miles an hour.
16:39One out of his right three.
16:41I mean, Pedro was dealing.
16:43He's the best pitcher you have.
16:45He's the best pitcher in any big game situation you'd want to have.
16:48And Grady Little understood that.
16:50I didn't question it because it was Pedro in the middle.
16:52I'd seen Pedro get out of bases loaded.
16:55Nobody out in the same situations.
16:59Swing and a miss and a high fastball.
17:01He strikes him out.
17:02Grady made the right decision.
17:03If you're going out to the mound and you've got your ace out there and he says he's okay,
17:08you're going to say, okay, let's go.
17:09And you turn around and walk away.
17:11You can't blame Grady Little for this because if you're going to entrust 85 years of history
17:16in one man's arm, who are you going to give it to?
17:19If he takes him out and the bullpen gives up the same runs and we beat the bullpen,
17:26he's fired also.
17:27He had no chance.
17:29It would be one more question in the annals of Red Sox history.
17:35Why did Grady Little take out the best pitcher that's ever worn the uniform?
17:41Aaron bleeping Boone.
17:44Like Bucky Dent had done 25 years earlier, Boone hammered the final nail into Boston's coffin.
17:54Aaron Boone has hovered on the first pitch from Wakefield and the Yankees have won the pennant.
18:02As improbable as Bucky Dent was to 1978 and to breaking Red Sox hearts all over New England in 1978,
18:10Aaron Boone was equally improbable in 2000.
18:13Aaron Boone was...
18:14Aaron Boone never had played in the postseason before.
18:18And he was batting 161 during the playoffs.
18:21Why would they not throw at him?
18:24Why would Little not throw down the middle?
18:26He was supposed to have...
18:27Equally improbable in 2003.
18:30As they say in Boston, it was Bucky bleeping Dent, Aaron bleeping Boone.
18:35Again, it turned into a case where one of the least likely guys to hit a home run was the
18:39guy who won the series for the Yankees.
18:41Boone, acquired from the Reds in late July, was only 2 for 16 in the first six games of the
18:47ALCS.
18:49Swung on a miss, strike three on the slider.
18:52This guy has struggled.
18:54He struggled most of the time that he was with us.
18:57Aaron Boone had been in a Mojave desert of no hits.
19:03He was absolutely terrible.
19:06He struck out all the time.
19:07He didn't get any clutch hits.
19:10Swung on a miss, he struck him out.
19:12Boone's hitting was so light, he didn't even start game seven.
19:15His 11th inning home run was all the most surprising because it came off Tim Wakefield,
19:20whose knuckleball had frustrated the Yankees throughout the series, and also completely
19:25confounded Boone, who was 0 for 5 against him.
19:33Tim Wakefield had made him look foolish the two times that Wakefield had started against
19:36the Yankees.
19:36I hadn't been swinging great, and I was on deck leading off the inning, and I hadn't
19:41had much success off of Wakefield.
19:44The pitch is fouled, chipped.
19:46No, he swung and missed.
19:47Tim Wakefield, who was, we couldn't sniff him at all.
19:50He said, Boone, just think about hitting the ball to right field.
19:53I was basically just trying to get ahead of him, get strike one, and he swung at the
19:58first pitch.
19:58It was just up a little bit.
20:00Got a good pitch to hit, and put a good swing on him.
20:06There's a fly ball, keeps him up, it's on its way, there it goes, and the Yankees are
20:11going to the World Series!
20:13I just had disbelief that it actually had happened.
20:17I remember, you know, around the bases and thinking to myself, you know, soak all this
20:23in, take it all in.
20:24And the New York Yankees have done it again!
20:28What was left was Aaron Bleepenboom, which was the direct descendant of Bucky Dent.
20:36Again, an unheralded infielder, getting an improbable home run in the most incredible
20:41of circumstances.
20:42If Aaron Boone hadn't come through there, maybe the game goes on, the Red Sox score,
20:47actually win the series and save Grady Little's job.
20:52So there you have it, the top five reasons you can't blame Grady Little for the Red Sox
20:56losing the 2003 ALCS.
20:59Just 11 days after being beaten by the Yankees, Boston fired its embattled manager.
21:04Of course, the very next year, new manager Terry Francona led Boston to its first World
21:09Series title since 1918.
21:11I'm Brian.
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