Globe-trotters
Extended road trips far from foreign ideas for Red Sox franchise
When the Red Sox play the Hanshin Tigers in Tokyo tomorrow, it will mark the eighth location where the team has played outside the United States. The Sox have held games in Canada, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. They once played in Arizona before it became a state, and will now add Japan to the list.
The first official major league game the Red Sox played outside the US was in Canada, against the Toronto Blue Jays Sunday, April 24, 1977 - a day game at Exhibition Stadium. The Red Sox won, 9-0, behind the three-hit, complete-game pitching of Ferguson Jenkins. Jim Rice's fly ball to center field helped score Rick Burleson with the first run, in the first. George Scott hit the first foreign home run for the Red Sox, a seventh-inning solo shot off Jays starter Bill Singer. Dwight Evans homered in the eighth.
When Boston plays Oakland Tuesday, Japan will become the third country in which the Sox have played a regular-season game.
The Red Sox have played a number of exhibition games outside the US. The first was in Yuma, Ariz., March 27, 1911, when the team crisscrossed the country that spring, playing an astonishing 68 preseason games. Arizona was not part of the US at the time; the Arizona Territory was first granted statehood Feb. 14, 1912. The local hosts from Yuma were unable to find sufficient players "with nerve enough" to face the touring major leaguers, so the Red Sox loaned them pitcher Hugh Bedient, catcher Red Kleinow, Duffy Lewis (who played shortstop), and center fielder Billy Purtell. Those players accounted for nine of Yuma's 14 hits off Sox starter Eddie Cicotte, but Bedient was battered for 17 runs.
The first game played in Canada was a July 24, 1916 exhibition game in Toronto against the International League's Maple Leafs, played to a 5-5 nine-inning tie. The Globe headline suggested a lack of effort by the reigning world champs: "Red Sox Loaf and are Tied by Toronto." Five years later, the Red Sox returned to Ontario and lost to the London Champs, 5-3, Aug. 30, 1921. The Red Sox played in New Brunswick Aug. 26, 1930, beating St. John, 7-5; at the time, St. John was in fifth place in the six-team Boston Twilight League (Roslindale, Dorchester, Malden, Portland, St. John, Quincy). The first Red Sox game in Quebec was June 8, 1970, against the Montreal Expos, which the Expos won, 8-6.
Cuban experience
The Red Sox made two visits to Cuba, bracketing World War II. In late March 1941, they broke camp in Sarasota, Fla., and, leaving an injured Ted Williams behind, took a 13-hour boat trip to Havana for four games. In the first, they lost to a Cuban All-Star team, 2-1, thanks to a five-hitter by curveballer Juan Decall, a telephone lineman. Boston's Woody Rich struck out 11. Cuban fans celebrated by throwing hundreds of seat cushions onto the field at La Tropical after the game, a local tradition. The Globe's Melville Webb discussed baseball as the national game of Cuba, the enthusiasm of the fans, and their attentiveness to the "inside wrinkles" of the game, concluding, "There's nothing amateurish about amateur ball in Havana." The following three games were against the Cincinnati Reds. Boston won the March 28 game, 9-2, but lost the next two, 6-3 and 2-1.The Red Sox returned to Havana after the war for back-to-back games against the Washington Senators at La Tropical, losing, 10-9, March 9, 1946, but winning the following day, 7-3. This time, they traveled on two chartered DC-3 planes and Williams was with them. He was approached by Mexican League executive Bernardo Pasquel, who reportedly offered him an unprecedented figure in excess of $100,000 a year for a three-year deal. "He promised me short right-field fences and said they've got winds down there that always blow toward the outfield," Williams had said, adding that Pasquel's "approach. . . was strictly bush league." Only a few US players took up offers to play south of the border.
The only time the Red Sox have played in Mexico was against Cleveland in Nogales, Sonora, on March 26, 1965. The Sox were training in Scottsdale, Ariz., so it wasn't difficult to dip down to Nogales. Boston prevailed, 15-9, in a game that Hy Hurwitz wrote was the biggest "shoot-'em-up" since Pancho Villa. Coming back from a 4-0 deficit, 10 Red Sox hit 10 home runs off Indians pitching, five in the fifth inning and four in the seventh.
In 1966, Boston traveled to Puerto Rico and played three games against Minnesota, losing both the March 25 and March 26 games in San Juan, 9-0 and 3-1, but salvaging a win in the finale at Ponce, 5-1, to bring their spring record to 3-15 and snap an eight-game losing streak. In the first game, three Twins combined on a one-hitter. In Ponce, Mike Andrews hit a three-run homer and Tony Conigliaro hit a two-run shot to boost Boston.
Island hoppers
In 1967, the Sox traveled outside the continental US for the third year in a row. To help celebrate the 50th anniversary of their purchase from Denmark by the US, the Virgin Islands enticed the Yankees and Red Sox to play a couple of games. Yankees second baseman Horace Clarke was a native of the Virgin Islands and collected two singles in New York's 3-1 win on a converted cricket field at Frederiksted, St. Croix, March 31. The next day, playing in Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas, Boston battered Yankees pitching for 16 hits and easily won, 13-4. Carl Yastrzemski homered and drove in five.It wasn't until 1978 that the Red Sox ventured to the Caribbean for another exhibition game. Raising money for the Roberto Clemente Sports City charity, they split 5-4 games with Pittsburgh, losing March 20 in San Juan (thanks to a Bernie Carbo error) and then winning the next day at Bayamon, in large part thanks to Carlton Fisk's three-run homer.
More than 20 years passed before the next foreign adventure, when the Sox played the Houston Astros in Santo Domingo in 2000. The two games at Estadio Quisqueya gave los hermanos Martínez (Pedro and Ramon) a chance to do their stuff before the home country crowd, and provided visiting American fans with an eye-opening look at some of the entertainment offered at Dominican ballparks - including energetic between-innings salsa dancers atop the dugout roofs. Reigning Cy Young Award winner Pedro Martínez started the first game, March 11, but only threw one inning, as did brother Ramon, who pitched the second. But Jeff Bagwell's two two-run homers, both off Sox prospect Jared Fernandez, gave the Astros the runs they needed for a 4-3 win.
The Red Sox lost the March 12 game, too, by a 3-2 score, with a two-run home run again the difference, this time a two-out blast off Red Sox pitcher Rob Stanifer. The hitter was Julio Lugo, a Houston prospect still a little over a month away from his first major league at-bat. Excited by international travel? Before heading back to Fort Myers, Fla., Boston manager Jimy Williams offered his view on the two-game set: "They told us to get on the plane to come down here. Now they're telling us to get on a plane and go back."
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