Picked-up pieces while blissfully remembering what life was like when the World Series was here 50 years ago this weekend . . .
⋅ A half-century later, the October 1975 and 2025 calendars align perfectly.
Game 4 in Cincinnati was Wednesday, Oct. 15. That’s when Luis Tiant whirled and twirled for 163 pitches and went the distance in a 5-4 series-squaring victory. The Reds’ Game 5 win was Thursday, Oct. 16. Then everybody flew back to Boston for Game 6 on Saturday.
In October 1975, Kevin Paul Dupont and I were 22 years old, covering high school football for the Globe for the princely sum of $35 per game. Through the kindness of veteran Associated Press sports editor Dave O’Hara, we also were quote-runners at Red Sox games at Fenway Park ($7 per game), which is how we happened to be at the Park Plaza for the food-and-booze World Series hospitality feast on Friday, Oct. 17, the eve of Game 6 — originally scheduled as Bill Lee vs. Jack Billingham. There was a threat of rain all weekend.
While inhaling our free Lobster Newburg, we learned that the Globe was looking for Peter Gammons’s World Series notebook. Nobody on Morrissey Boulevard could find Gammons and we were tasked with cobbling together some notes for the next morning’s paper.
That’s how a pair of kids fresh out of Boston University and Holy Cross ended up with our names at the bottom of the Globe’s World Series advance on Saturday, Oct. 18.
Unfortunately, there was no Series game in Boston that day. Or the day after. Or the day after that. New England had three days of rain — not unlike what happened around here this past week — and we waited an interminable 72 hours for the start of Game 6.
Commissioner Bowie Kuhn’s daily rain updates bordered on comical. At one of them, a spokesperson said, “The commissioner would like to announce that it has stopped raining in New Jersey.”
Swell.
Carlton Fisk was photographed in the Fenway rain Saturday, jogging in front of the Green Monster, oblivious to the notion that three soggy days later, he would become forever linked with the ancient edifice. After the game was postponed Sunday, Tiant went to see the Bruins play the Maple Leafs at the Old Garden. He had to leave after the first period because he was besieged by autograph-seekers.
When Kuhn called things off for a third straight day on Monday, Reds manager Sparky Anderson took his team to batting cages at Tufts University. The front page of the next day’s Globe featured a fully uniformed Anderson coming out of a Medford gas station after getting directions to Tufts.
“Nice little place,” said Reds announcer, and former pitcher, Joe Nuxhall. “Do they have a football team?”
The third rainout gave Southern Cal alum Fred Lynn a chance to watch fellow Trojan/Bills star O.J. Simpson run for 126 yards and a touchdown in a 17-14 “Monday Night Football” loss to the Giants.
“I had to watch the Juice,” Lynn, the American League Rookie of the Year and MVP, told the media. “But it’s incredible how much of the edge is taken off this thing now. It just doesn’t seem the same as it did a few days ago. Now it just seems like any regular-season game. The atmosphere and excitement sure have changed.”
Not for long. Game 6 at Fenway started at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 21, and Lynn launched a first-inning, three-run homer to right-center. Four innings later, Lynn crashed into the unpadded center-field wall in pursuit of a Ken Griffey two-run triple. In that moment, Tom and Jean Yawkey decided it was time to pad Fenway’s perimeter walls.
When the Red Sox trailed, 6-3, in the eighth, Globe part-timer Lesley Visser (another 22-year-old who covered high school football) came up behind incomparable columnist Ray Fitzgerald and peeked at the early version of Fitz’s next day’s piece, which began . . . “You could feel it slipping away.”
Minutes later, Bernie Carbo walloped his pinch-hit, three-run, tying homer into the center-field bleachers and it was Game On for history. The Sox somehow failed to score after loading the bases with no outs in the ninth, and in extra innings we saw Dwight Evans’s fantastic over-the-shoulder grab of Joe Morgan’s 11th-inning blast bound for the right-field boxes.
Finally, we had Fisk’s homer off the foul pole at 12:34 a.m. — a shot that was not seen by “Good Will Hunting” court-ordered therapist Sean Maguire, who had “gone to see about a girl.”
With that, Fitz twirled the cylinder knob of his Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter, ripped out the useless lede, tossed it to the floor (Visser scooped it up and still has it), and inserted a new piece of paper.
“ . . . the most exciting game of baseball I have ever seen,” concluded the great Ray Fitzgerald.
It was.
And still is.
You know how it ended. The Sox lost Game 7 the next night when Tony Perez launched a Lee eephus pitch into the Charles River and Red Sox manager Darrell Johnson lifted Jim Willoughby for a pinch hitter, summoning rookie Jim Burton to pitch the ninth and . . .
Oh, never mind. Why get all lathered up thinking about almost winning a World Series a half-century ago?
Because that’s who we are.
It’s also why . . . 50 years later . . . those of us who write sports for the greatest fans in America still do what we do.
⋅ Quiz: 1. Name five pitchers on the 1975 Sox who won 10 or more games. 2. Name four NFL head coaches who lost four Super Bowls. (Answers below.)
⋅ Contrary opinions notwithstanding, the Patriots docuseries “The Dynasty” was a farce when it came out and is no less a farce today because Bill Belichick is tanking in North Carolina. Jeff Benedict, author of “The Dynasty” book, was granted total access by Bob Kraft to write Kraft’s history of the Patriots (which was mailed to season-ticket holders as a gift from the team). Benedict worked with Apple as a producer and writer on the doc — a 10-part series that came under the imprint of “Kraft Dynasty LLC 2024.” Belichick’s poor job in North Carolina thus far stands on its own, but has nothing to do with the Kraft-spun, revisionist history we saw.
⋅ Speaking of Kraft, his quixotic quest to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame (not unlike President Trump’s embarrassing campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize) continues next week with the anticipated announcement of the Hall’s “contributor” candidates. Kraft is expected to be on the list of 20 nominees. The Patriots owner has had trouble moving into later rounds of contention in recent years. In the last two annual cycles of early-round balloting, Kraft was snubbed by committee nominators in favor of Buddy Parker (NFL player and coach, 1935-64) and leather-helmet-era legend Ralph Hay. Neither Parker nor Hay advanced on subsequent ballots.
⋅ There was a lot of levity around here when the Blue Jays wiped out the Yankees in four games of their AL Division Series. “Yankee Elimination Day” is always a party in New England. New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro notes that New England teams (four traditional men’s pro sports) have won six championships since the 2011-12 New York Football Giants beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI. By Vaccaro’s count, New York’s championship drought as of Sunday is 5,006 days.
⋅ The shocking news of the cancer-related death of former Red Sox star Mike Greenwell at the age of 62 kindled memories of some very good Boston teams that failed to win championships. The Greenwell-led Sox won the AL East in 1988 and ’90, but were swept in the AL Championship Series by the mighty A’s both times. Here’s the Red Sox lineup for Game 1 of the ’88 ALCS: Wade Boggs, Marty Barrett, Evans, Greenwell, Todd Benzinger, Ellis Burks, Jim Rice, Jody Reed, Rich Gedman. That’s two Hall of Famers, plus MVP runner-up Greenwell, Evans (who still might make the Hall), Burks (352 career home runs), Barrett (who hit .433 with 13 hits in the 1986 World Series), Reed (45 doubles in 1990), and Gedman, a two-time All-Star. Contrast that with Alex Cora’s Game 1 lineup against the Yankees this month: Rob Refsnyder, Trevor Story, Alex Bregman, Romy Gonzalez, Carlos Narváez, Nate Eaton, Jarren Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Nick Sogard. It’s not even close. What has happened to Major League Baseball?
⋅ Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh this season became the seventh member of baseball’s 60-home run club. MLB’s first six players to hit 60 or more in a season were Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, Mark McGwire (twice), Sammy Sosa (three times), Barry Bonds, and Aaron Judge. Ruth is the only one in the Hall of Fame. Judge and Raleigh are active and haven’t come up for a vote.
⋅ Dodger Freddie Freeman is baseball’s active leader in hits, doubles, RBIs, and runs.
⋅ John Streicher appears to be the new Ernie Adams in town. For decades, Adams served as Belichick’s research director. More critically, Ernie was the guy in Bill’s ear during games, telling the Hoodie when it was wise to throw the challenge flag. Ernie was the power behind the throne in Foxborough. He knew everything. In 2025, the guy in Mike Vrabel’s ear is Streicher, officially listed as “vice president of football operations and strategy.” He most recently worked under Sean McVay with the Rams, and before that spent six seasons with Vrabel when Vrabel was coach of the Titans. Streicher was behind those two critical challenges that closed out the Patriots’ win in New Orleans last Sunday.
⋅ Vrabel has made everyone forget that he was 7-18 in his final 25 games with Tennessee. And who knew that Jets rookie coach Aaron Glenn would make Jerod Mayo look like Vince Lombardi?
⋅ It’s possible we could see Shedeur Sanders in his NFL debut a week from Sunday against the Patriots at Gillette. With Joe Flacco traded to Cincinnati, the overrated, entitled, fifth-round Sanders has moved into the Browns’ backup quarterback role behind Dillon Gabriel. Gabriel makes his third start this Sunday at home against the Dolphins. Cleveland was routed, 23-9, in his second last Sunday.
⋅ USA Today put together 12 experts to rank the top 20 NBA players for 2025-26. Jayson Tatum was not eligible because of his injury status. The only Celtic who made the list was Jaylen Brown, who came in at No. 20 behind, among others, Jalen Williams, Paolo Banchero, Devin Booker, Cade Cunningham, and Jalen Brunson.
⋅ UMass (0-7, outscored 249-79, 222-53 vs. FBS schools) squandered a last-minute lead in losing, 28-21, to Buffalo in Amherst as a 16½-point underdog on Saturday. The Minutemen were 2½-point underdogs last Saturday at Kent State, but lost, 42-6.
⋅ Rick Pitino’s St. John’s men’s basketball team is No. 5 in AP’s preseason rankings.
⋅ Albert Pujols or Torii Hunter for next Angels manager?
⋅ Female baseball reporter pioneers Melissa Ludtke and Jane McManus will speak at the annual SABR event at 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 25, at the Richard Salter Storrs Library in Longmeadow.
⋅ Tickets are on sale for one of the best nights of the year — The Sports Museum’s “Tradition,” which will be held at the Garden at 6 p.m. Nov. 18. This year’s honorees include Lynn (presented by Rice), Isaiah Thomas, Vince Wilfork, Tim Thomas, Keegan Bradley, and Gabby Thomas. For information on purchasing tickets and sponsorship, contact rgoldberg@sportsmuseum.org.
⋅ Women’s Health, Sports & Performance opened in Brighton in early September and promises to redefine women’s sports medicine, linking world-class care directly to live research. Founded by female athlete pioneer Dr. Kathryn Ackerman, WHSP brings together specialists in sports medicine, internal medicine, endocrinology, rehabilitation, nutrition, and mental health as one coordinated team. “It’s a place where women can come and get all the services they need,” Ackerman said at a facility event Thursday night. WHSP will address the full spectrum of long-term health care — from adolescence through postpartum, perimenopause, and beyond. Learn more at whspmedical.com.
⋅ Quiz answers: 1. Rick Wise (19-12), Luis Tiant (18-14), Bill Lee (17-9), Rogelio Moret (14-3), Reggie Cleveland (13-9); 2: Don Shula, Bud Grant, Marv Levy, Dan Reeves.
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him @dan_shaughnessy.