Neil's Go Red Sox Page

Have you heard about the clause in Shilling's contract. He'll get a $bonus WHEN the Red Sox win the World Series! Now we're talking!

And how about the Yankees, without Petite and Wells, they have no left-handed starters!

Books about the Red Sox

Impossible Dreams: A Red Sox Collection The Red Sox have long been the favorite subject of baseball's literati, more for what they haven't accomplished than for what they have. The mystery that shrouds this storied franchise has made for great copy for more than 100 years. But much of the very best writing on the team has often been obscured by romantic tales of legend and destiny, curses and conspiracies - until now. Turning solidly to the bedrock of traditional baseball writing, Glenn Stout has collected the best writing on the Sox that best tells the story of the franchise. A veritable sourcebook of more than a century of unforgettable baseball, Impossible Dreams is a book no self-respecting Sox fan can afford to miss.



Fenway: A Biography in Words and Pictures A religious shrine or a giant pinball machine? A museum or an amusement park? The oldest ballpark in the major leagues, the last of the single-deck theaters, Fenway Park has inspired more lavish praise and outrageous comparison than any American sports arena in history. With its ominous Green Monster, the lone red seat that marks Ted Williams's record-setting longest home run, the hand-operated scoreboard at the base of the Wall, the fishbowl-style luxury "600 Club" with the press box perched high above, and the Hall of Fame faces, who could mistake Fenway Park for any other? Beautifully illustrated with Stan Grossfeld's prize-winning color photography, and written with an obvious love of the place, including interviews with an illustrious list of fans, players, coaches, and celebrities, FENWAY: A BIOGRAPHY IN WORDS AND PICTURES showcases the grand old park and memorializes it for generations of fans to come.



Boston Red Sox Fan Book: Revised and Updated Little-known facts, statistics, stories, quotes, nicknames, all-time leaders, rosters, puzzles, and more from over one hundred years of Red Sox history
The Boston Red Sox were originally named the Pilgrims—but for over one hundred years they have always been Beantown’s favorite team, with a history that has been celebrated and mourned by generations of fans.
If you love the Red Sox, you’ll find hours of challenging trivia in this book. Packed with text and information, it includes: *A history of the Red Sox from their origins to the present * Trvia questions designed to test your baseball memory * Corssword puzzles, word games, unusual quotes, funny nicknames, and anecdotes about the Sox *Complete all-time Red Sox roster of players, with stats * Comprehensive leader tables for batters and pitchers *Award winners, Hall of Famers, and other honors *And much more!
Do You Know...
- Who was the first pitcher to throw a perfect game in the twentieth century?
- Who decided to turn Babe Ruth into an outfielder?
- What was Ted Williams’s batting average with one day left in the 1941 season: .406, .399, .3996, or .4001 What happened on that day?
- How many batting titles did Carl Yastrzemski win in his career?
- Which team Roger Clemens’s had 20 strikeouts against in a 1986 game?
Bring this book to Fenway, or keep it next to your favorite armchair at home, to liven up commercial breaks and rain delays. In no time you’ll be an expert on Red Sox trivia!



Tales from the Red Sox Dugout The Boston Red Sox are one of the storied sports franchises in North America. Steeped in tradition, they represent a veritable treasure trove of baseball lore. From the earliest days of a promising young pitcher named Babe Ruth, through the glory years of Foxx, Williams, and Yastrzemski, to the present era of superstars such as Garciaparra and Martinez, the Red Sox epitomize all that is grand about the grand old game. But it isn’t just the superstars who make this team unique. Over the years they’ve been blessed with some of the most colorful and engaging characters ever to don a major league uniform–Bill "Spaceman" Lee, Dick "Dr. Strangeglove" Stuart, and Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd, to name just a few. "Tales from the Red Sox Dugout" captures the flavor and atmosphere of the Red Sox dugout–the situations, anecdotes, and atmosphere that define the Red Sox. So whether you’re a diehard Bosox supporter or just a baseball fan, you’ll find this book as irresistible as a sunny afternoon doubleheader at Fenway.


The Complete Boston Red Sox



The Batter's Edge: A Year with the Boston Red Sox In 1991, Major League Baseball was low-tech. Players reviewed their performance on videotape, and computers were not a part of game preparation. Then came The Batter's Edge, a revolutionary computer video system, developed for the Boston Red Sox by Scott Olivieri and his father. The Batter's Edge provided players with instant video access to their at-bats, captured pitcher's tendencies, and changed the way baseball teams used technology.
Told in an engaging first-person narrative by a life-long Red Sox fan, The Batter's Edge describes the players' initial resistance to the system and Olivieri's struggle for acceptance. Join Olivieri as he sits in on strategic sessions with Wade Boggs, witnesses hilarious clubhouse banter, and gets to know the people behind the uniforms. Baseball fans and technology buffs will enjoy this unique perspective on life inside the clubhouse. Readers will savor the details of this special season in which Olivieri uses technology to help an adored franchise in their continuing quest to win the World Series.



When Boston Won the World Series: A Chronicle of Boston's Remarkable Victory in the First Modern World Series of 1903 This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first World Series, in which the upstart Boston squad of the fledgling American League triumphed over the Pittsburgh Pirates of the time-honored National League. Starring such legendary players as Boston's Cy Young and Bill Dinneen, and Pittsburgh's Honus Wagner and Deacon Phillippe, When Boston Won the World Series chronicles with stirring detail the events that led up to baseball's first Fall Classic: the 1901 creation of the American League, its roster "raids" against National League teams, the sea change of public interest that caused the American League to outsell the National by 500,000 tickets, and the subsequent concession of the Nationals. The resulting handshake deal established a season-ending series which would determine the best baseball team in the world.



Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston Red Sox fans, America's most passionate baseball devotees, have long blamed the team's failure to win the World Series on the Curse of the Bambino, brought on by trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920. But a more troubling losing streak began in 1945 when Jackie Robinson entered Fenway Park for a tryout and was greeted with condescension and a hostility that would define the franchise for half a century. The Red Sox failed to sign Hall of Famers Robinson and Willie Mays beginning a disturbing pattern of passing on talented black players. Since then, argues Boston native and sportswriter Howard Bryant, the team - more specifically the seventy year ownership by the Yawkey family -- has garnered a reputation as one of the most stubbornly racist teams in baseball, prompting generations of black players to view a fabled team and historically rich city with trepidation.
Controversial and gripping, Shut Out traces this haunting legacy of racism against the backdrop of Boston's struggles with race relations. Once the crucible of abolitionist humanism, the city has become a symbol of racial intolerance, and this duality, Bryant shows, is nowhere better exemplified than in the Red Sox.
As the Red Sox move to lift the "curse" with both new ownership and a diverse roster of players like Nomar Garciaparra and Pedro Martinez, Shut Out tells the volatile history of race - and the difficult healing process -- in Boston through the lens of its baseball team.



Summer of '49 David Halberstam's New York Times bestselling classic chronicle of baseball's most magnificent season, as seen through the battle royale between Joe DiMaggio's Yankees and Ted Williams's Red Sox for the heart of a nation. With incredible skill, passion, and insight, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam returns us to the miraculous summer of '49 ... and to a glorious time when the dreams of a now almost forgotten America rested on the crack of a bat.


Red Sox Century The definitive one-volume history of the most fascinating franchise in baseball
For a century now, the Boston Red Sox have meant many different things to many different people, eliciting elation, frustration, nostalgia, nausea, confidence, anger, bewilderment, love, and loss, often all at once. But no matter the ups and downs, in their long, storied history the Red Sox have always managed to provide us with one thing that is certain -- they are the most interesting team ever to have taken the field. RED SOX CENTURY: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF RED SOX BASEBALL tells the Red Sox story in its entirety for the first time, from the team's inception in 1901 and its early peak in 1918, when it won its fifth and last World Series; through the glory years, which saw the rise of such greats as Cy Young, Babe Ruth, Teddy Ballgame, and Yaz and which witnessed the "Impossible Dream" of 1967 and near misses in 1975 and 1986; to the present, when the Sox are still chasing that elusive sixth world championship -- a championship that fate seems not to want them to have. In these pages, many a Red Sox myth is debunked, and many stories are told for the first time.

Did the Red Sox fix the first World Series game ever played?
What is the truth about Babe Ruth and Harry Frazee?
Did Johnny Pesky hold the ball?
Does Fenway Park have a future?
Will the Red Sox ever win a World Series again?
Drawn from countless interviews and tireless research and illustrated with more than two hundred photographs, many never seen before, RED SOX CENTURY is far more than a picture book. Glenn Stout and Richard A. Johnson have written a gripping narrative history, filled with details so vivid and accurate and irony so sharp that you think you can't possibly bear to relive some of those past moments (but you're a Sox fan, so of course you do). Your season ticket to one hundred years of thrilling baseball, Red Sox Century is a comprehensive and always colorful history of a team that helped to define not only its city but its sport.



Autumn Glory: Baseball's First World Series A suspenseful account of the glorious days a century ago when our national madness began A post-season series of games to establish supremacy in the major leagues was not inevitable in the baseball world. But in 1903 the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates (in the well-established National League) challenged the Boston Americans (in the upstart American League) to a play-off, which he was sure his team would win. They didnÂ’t—and that wasnÂ’t the only surprise during what became the first World Series. In Autumn Glory, Louis P. Masur tells the riveting story of two agonizing weeks in which the stars blew it, unknown players stole the show, hysterical fans got into the act, and umpires had to hold on for dear life. Before and even during the 1903 season, it had seemed that baseball might succumb to the forces that had been splintering the sport for decades: owners’ greed, players’ rowdyism, fans’ unrest. Yet baseball prevailed, and Masur tells the equally dramatic story of how it did so, in a country preoccupied with labor strife and big-business ruthlessness, and anxious about the welfare of those crowding into cities such as Pittsburgh and Boston (which in themselves offered competing versions of the American dream). His colorful history of how the first World Series consolidated baseballÂ’s hold on the American imagination makes us see what one sportswriter meant when he wrote at the time, “Baseball is the melting pot at a boil, the most democratic sport in the world.” All in all, Masur believes, it still is.



The Little Red (Sox) Book: A Revisionist Red Sox History Suppose, suppose, suppose. As one Amazon reviewer put it "Ever wonder how things might have been different if the Red Sox had not sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees? There might have been Red Sox players walking around with more World Series rings than they could wear on ten fingers. Bill Lee and Jim Prime float some flights of fancy here - suppose Harry Frazee didn't buy the Sox and Joseph P. Kennedy had. Suppose Ruth stayed put in Boston. Suppose the Red Sox actually signed Jackie Robinson at that infamous tryout he had in Boston. Suppose Ted Williams really had killed Adolf Hitler with a line drive. What?? You have to read the book to find out.



The Teammates Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio, and Johnny Pesky were all members of the famed 1940's Boston Red Sox. Their legendary careers led the Red Sox to a pennant championship and ensured the men a place in sports history. David Halberstam, the bestselling author of the baseball classic Summer of '49, has followed the members of the 1949 championship Boston Red Sox team for years, especially Williams, Doerr, DiMaggio, and Pesky. In this extremely moving book, Halberstam reveals how these four teammates became friends, and how that friendship thrived for more than 60 years.
The book opens with Pesky and DiMaggio travelling to see the ailing Ted Williams in Florida. It's the last time they will see him. The journey is filled with nostalgia and memories, but seeing Ted is a shock. The most physically dominating of the four friends, Ted now weighs only 130 pounds and is hunched over in a wheelchair. Dom, without even thinking about it, starts to sing opera and old songs like "Me and My Shadow" to his friend.
Filled with stories of their glory days with the Boston Red Sox, memories of legendary plays and players, and the reaction of the remaining three to Ted Williams' recent death, The Teammates offers us a rare glimpse into the lives of these celebrated men -- and great insight into the nature of loyalty and friendship.



The Red Sox Reader As John Cheever declared, "all literary men are Red Sox fans" -and certainly no baseball team has inspired more eloquence than the storied Sox. The best of those stories reside here, celebrating the team's highs, from the pennant races through the careers of Williams, Yaz, and Boggs, and eulogizing its most poignant lows, from the loss of Ruth to the ball that rolled through Buckner's legs.


The Boys of October : How the 1975 Boston Red Sox Embodied Baseball's Ideals - and Restored Our Spirits In a year when the nation sorely needed a diversion from the harsh news of the day, it arrived in the form of a Fall Classic that would live up to its name and never be forgotten.
The Boys of October takes the reader back to those 12 exhilarating days in 1975, when the field was guarded by greatness--Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Pete Rose, Johnny Bench--as the ragtag Boys from Beantown faced Cincinnati's "Big Red Machine."
Their triumphs and tribulations are all here, from Fisk's historic winning homer in the wee hours of Game Six, to the series' nail-biting finale, decided by a single, heart-stopping run. Through it all, the Boston Red Sox embodied the spirit of the game, in victory and defeat, to give us the series we needed-- and one we'll never forget. Against the backdrop of one turbulent summer, The Boys of October celebrates baseball and the heroes who made it what it is.



At Fenway : Dispatches from Red Sox Nation Seeing baseball played at Fenway is an experience like no other for Red Sox fans and rivals alike because the park reminds us of what baseball used to be. Fenway may not offer fans the best seats or even adequate parking, but when game-goers walk through the park's gate, the smell of hotdogs and roasted peanuts, the sight of Fenway's brilliant green grass and the roar of the Fenway faithful overwhelms the most jaded of baseball enthusiasts, even Yankee fans.
At Fenway celebrates the rich history of Fenway Park home to the Boston Red Sox. Told through the wit and perceptions of Dan Shaughnessy, sports columnist for the Boston Globe and one of New England's most admired sportswriters, At Fenway is the writer's hometown tribute to the park how growing up with Fenway and the Red Sox affected his life and the lives of the many die-hard fans living in "Red Sox Nation." Author of The Curse of the Bambino, Shaughnessy takes readers on a walking tour of the fabled park itself, exploring every nook and cranny that makes Fenway unique. He traces the early history of Fenway from the day owner John I. Taylor broke ground for its construction in 1911 to the building material that went into the making of Fenway's "Green Monster" wall. In addition, Shaughnessy introduces readers to some of the unrecognized figures who keep Fenway's cherished traditions alive, including Helen Robinson, who has operated the park's switchboard for more than half a century, and head groundskeeper Joe Mooney, who "protects and defends the green, green grass of Fenway Park."
A book that uniquely captures the spirit of Fenway Park and what it means to be a Boston Red Sox fan, At Fenway also explores the "good, bad, and ugly" moments that have nurtured Fenway's love-hate relationship with fans. From the dark day of January 5, 1920, when Babe Ruth left the Red Sox to play for the Yankees, to the Red Sox's 1967 Cinderella-story pennant victory; from Carlton Fisk's 1975 World Series home run to the crowd-silencing homer Bucky Dent hit that clinched the Yankees' 1978 playoff birth, At Fenway recalls the park's greatest and worst moments and talks with the players who created them.



Babe Ruth and the 1918 Red Sox 1918. When the Boston Red Sox are having a good season, there’s no escaping that date. Sports announcers talk about the “Curse of the Bambino” while fans of opposing teams taunt Boston diehards with chants of “nine-teen-eight-teen.” The year, of course, is the last season the Red Sox won the World Series. Babe Ruth and the 1918 Red Sox is the first complete account of Boston’s last championship. Though the year is famous, fans and even baseball historians know very little about the events of the season. Even the most knowledgeable baseball fan will find one revelation shocking: Wood has uncovered the possibility that the 1918 World Series may have been fixed, much like the notorious 1919 “Chicago Black Sox” scandal.
During that tumultuous summer, the Great War in Europe cast an ominous shadow over the national game, as enlistments and the draft wreaked havoc with every team's roster. Players and owners fought bitterly over contracts and revenue, the parks were infested with gamblers, and the Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs almost called off the World Series. And a Boston player known as The Colossus, 23-year-old Babe Ruth, began his historic transformation from pitching ace to the game's greatest slugger.
Allan Wood’s extensive original research and lively narrative brings to life a time when the Red Sox ruled the American League. In addition to poring over miles of microfilm, Wood spoke with descendants of the 1918 players, as well as two men who knew Babe Ruth in 1918. With 34 pages of photographs, many never-before published, Babe Ruth and the 1918 Red Sox is a must-read for Red Sox fans and lovers of baseball history.



The Year the Red Sox Won the Series: A Chronicle of the 1918 Championship Season When Babe Ruth pitched and slugged the Boston Red Sox to a six-game World Series victory over the Chicago Cubs in 1918, there was every expectation that the team would continue to dominate the national pastime. Over eighty years later, long-suffering Red Sox fans are still waiting for another championship and deliverance from the Curse of the Bambino. Now they-and baseball fans everywhere-can relive that glory season as told by the sportswriters and cartoonists of the day. In this thoroughly entertaining and informative chronicle of the last year Boston won the Series, the reader is transported back to a time when the nation was at war, dozens of baseball players were enlisting in the armed services or jumping their teams to play for shipyard clubs, and the government shut down the season a month early to draft all eligible players. Here one will meet a host of memorable characters-Harry Frazee, Ed Barrow, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Harry Hooper, Tris Speaker, Carl Mays, and the young Babe Ruth-and experience first-hand the heroics and antics of the Sultan of Swat and other baseball greats. Here, too, are the colorful and partisan baseball scribes, who themselves become part of the championship story.
This lavishly illustrated work offers illuminating detail on the games, the players, and the times, and it contains a treasure trove of baseball lore. Readers will find out why and when the Star Spangled Banner (before it was the national anthem) was played before games and they will learn why the threatened player strike over the World Series' low purse left hard feelings that reverberate today.
Baseball enthusiasts, woebegone Red Sox fans, and historians will delight in this fascinating journey through the remarkable 1918 championship season.



A Day of Light and Shadows: One Die-Hard Red Sox Fan and His Game of a Lifetime: The Boston-New York Playoff, 1978 DESTINY 5 - RED SOX 4 declared one Boston headline after Bucky Dent's unlikely home run had cost the Red Sox the dramatic 1978 playoff game at Fenway Park against the Yankees for the Eastern Division title of the American League. No one has commented more eloquently and openly on destiny's victories over the Sox and their devoted fans through the years than writer and New York radio personality Jonathan Schwartz, who left his heart in Fenway at an early age. Schwartz's stirring and unusually intimate account of the beauty and heartbreak of that resplendent day in '78 appeared in Sports Illustrated in 1979. It is now issued, on the 25th anniversary of the game, with a new autobiographical essay in which Schwartz reflects on the Sox, his life, and destiny's various line-ups in the two decades since Dent. With an Introduction by Boston Globe sports columnist Bob Ryan.


Lightning in a Bottle: The Sox of '67



The Long Ball: The Summer of '75--Spaceman, Catfish, Charlie Hustle, and the Greatest World Series Ever Played The 1975 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds is generally considered the best of all time, and baseball historians often rank its sixth game as the greatest single game ever played. Adelman opens his story of this epochal summer with the dramatic preseason showdown between owners and players that catalyzed free agency, increased player salaries, and launched an age when baseball would be less about the game and more about "the green." THE LONG BALL then tells the dramatic story of the star-studded season that followed and the heart-stopping series itself. With unforgettable portraits of some of baseball's most colorful characters, this is an affecting look at baseball's last great days--all of it leading up to a magical home run that wins a game for a losing team and leaves the bat with the thump of a heartbeat.



Fenway In Your Pocket: The Red Sox Fan's Guide to Fenway Park It's here--the pocket guide to America's best baseball park. The A-Z authority on "going to the game". With this handy, one-of-a-kind guide, you too can master the trip to Fenway Park like a pro and enjoy the game hassle-free (while keeping your wallet intact!). Complete with humorous illustrations and a challenging Fanhood Quiz. Fenway in Your Pocket helps you save time, money and aggravation with tips on how to pick the best seats, how to avoid traffice, where to park, and what (and what not) to eat. Fenway in Your Pocket also helps you have fun by teaching you the Fenway "Beer Rules", Fenway slang and lingo, how to interact with umpires and opposing pitchers, the hidden meaning behind the retired numbers, and much more!



My Turn at Bat: The Story of My Life Now available for the first time in years, My Turn at Bat is Ted Williams' own story of his spectacular life and baseball career.
An acclaimed best-seller, My Turn at Bat now features new photographs and, for the first time, Ted's reflections on his managing career and the state of baseball as it is played in the 1980s. It's all here in this brilliant, honest and sometimes angry autobiography -- Williams' childhood days in San Diego, his military service, his unforgettable major league baseball debut and ensuing Hall of Fame career that included two Triple Crowns, two Most Valuable Player awards, six batting championships, five Sporting News awards as Major League Player of the Year, 521 lifetime homeruns and a .344 career batting average. And Williams tells his side of the controversies, from his battles with sportswriters and Boston fans to his single World Series performance and his career with the declining Red Sox of the 1950s.
My Turn at Bat belongs in the library of everyone who loves Ted Williams, baseball, or great life stories well-told.
Red Barber proclaimed My Turn at Bat to be: "One of the best baseball books I've ever read." John Leonard of The New York Times said My Turn at Bat was "unbuttoned and wholly engaging...the portrait of an original who is unrepentant about being better than anyone else."



Hitter: The Life and Turmoils of Ted Williams This definitive biography of Ted Williams provides a balanced portrait of the man, the ballplayer, the war veteran, and the hitter. This last side of Williams--the man in the batter's box, the last player to hit .400, the Splendid Splinter--is the most widely and fondly remembered. But Linn also gets beneath the varnish on the bat, examining the Williams known by teammates and sportswriters as difficult and moody. Finally, this is an assessment of a ballplayer who was frequently ignored by the press, despite accomplishments the likes of which we may never see again on a professional diamond.




Ted Williams: My Life in Pictures To many fans, Hall of Famer Ted Williams is baseball. The Boston Red Sox left-fielder dominated the game in the 1940s, achieving astounding hitting records, including 521 home runs and a career .344 batting average; he was also the last player to bat .400 in a season. As good as he was, many wonder what the Splendid Splinter could have been if he hadn’t missed five years of the game serving as a pilot in World War II and Korea and two seasons due to injuries. In addition to hundreds of photographs, this attractive volume includes Williams’s candid words about his life on the field and off, a firsthand account that will certainly become a collector’s item for all baseball fans.



Science of Hitting Ted Williams is our greatest living expert on how to hit a baseball -- the last baseball player to hit .400 in the major leagues. Williams's career hitting statistics will stand forever as a monument to his complete mastery of the single most difficult thing to do in sport: .344 lifetime batting average, 521 home runs, 1839 RBI and 2654 hits.
The Science of Hitting has reigned as the classic handbook on hitting since being published in 1971 -- and now it's even better! Ted's hitting advice has been updated, and exciting new color graphics and photos have been added to enhance your reading pleasure. The Gallery of Great Hitters has been expanded to include Ted's choices for the best hitters of the '70s and '80s: look inside to see who made the cut!



Real Grass, Real Heroes: Baseball's Historic 1941 Season



YAZ: Baseball, the Wall, and me


Nomar Garciaparra: Fenway Favorite Drafted by the Boston Red Sox in June 1994, Nomar played in the minor leagues for only two years. His major league debut was on August 31, 1996 and he hit a home run in his first at-bat. This phenomenal start was a sign of the sort of play to come from Nomar the following seasons. Since then, he has played on numerous All-Star teams, annihilated major league records, and become a fan favorite. This book, with its full-color photography and award-winning writing, illustrates what makes Nomar Garciaparra one of baseball's most recognizable and popular superstars.

Red Sox links

MLB: Major League Baseball: Stats, live games, game summaries. Great site to watch the games (lots of bells and whistles!)
ESPN. There's a Red Sox page and, like MLB, free pitch-by-pitch broadcasts of every game.
Official Red Sox page

visitors since January 24, 2004