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Billy Buck...
Bill Buckner just walked from the Green Monster out to the mound. As soon as he was spotted, the crowd stood and gave him a standing ovation. He came all the way to the mound, where he stopped and the crowd continued to cheer.
Buckner threw the ball to Dwight Evans at home plate, and when Evans caught it (not a bad pitch, by the way), there was another big cheer.
Johnny Pesky then said "Play Ball."
And now ... baseball.
Thanks for forgiving us, Bill.
I'M SO PROUD TO SEE THAT BOSTON FANS GAVE BILL BUCKNER THE CLASS RECEPTION HE HAS HAD COMEING FOR ALL THESE YEARS HE NEVER LOST A WORLD SERIES HE WAS GUILTY OF TRYING TO WIN IT ALL FOR US WHEN MAYBE HE WASN,T HEALTHY ENOUGH TO DO IT AND THATS WHAT PLAYING IN BOSTON TAKES! WELCOME HOME MR. BUCKNER.
A Billy Buck ovation at Fenway. It's about time. There may be hope for this new ownership after all.
20 + years of injustice...Hope he can forgive us.
And it was an added bonus for me to see Dewey Evans catch that ball.
A class act all around!
A class act on Mr Buckner's part, as well as a class act on the Red Sox organization's part. And the warm ovation the fans gave him was very well-deserved.
People seem to have forgotten, or it's been lost in all the Buckner-as-hated-goat mythology, but Sox fans publicly forgave Buckner long ago. When the Sox re-signed him for the 1990 season, I was in the bleachers opening day when he was introduced and we all gave him a standing ovation. I will never forget it. It didn't take a WS ring for Sox fans to forgive him. They already had. It was my proudest moment as a sox fan.
I remember it like it was yesterday, and Buckner couldn't move either achilles tendon. I can still see him in my mind's eye trying to run the bases without being able to move his feet. He missed the ball at first because he couldn't bend down.
As much as the loss hurt -- and it hurt -- it was never right to blame him. He was playing hurt. Maybe he shouldn't have been in there, but that wasn't his decision.
I remember game 6 - Clemens started that game, and had a 1-0 lead, as I recall. He was due up at the top of an inning (the fifth?) and McNamara put in a pinch hitter to try and get insurance runs. Nobody on, nobody out. Roger had been running out of gas, but I don't think his tank was empty.
In his previous WS game, Roger had sucessfully laid down a sacrifice bunt.
Instead of having Roger take three strikes and be able to go back to the mound, someone else got an out.
I never, ever blamed Billy Buck for losing game six. 21 years later, I still think pulling Roger early was a bad idea.
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