September 10, 1978: The Boston Massacre, Game 4

September 10, 1978: On this Sunday morning, Boston Red Sox fans could have been forgiven for feeling like the narrator of Kris Kristofferson's 1969 country music classic, best known for its version by Johnny Cash:

Well, I woke up Sunday morning
with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad
so I had one more for dessert.
Then I fumbled in my closet through my clothes
and found my cleanest dirty shirt.
Then I washed my face and combed my hair
and stumbled down the stairs to meet the day...

On a Sunday morning sidewalk
I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
'Cause there's something in a Sunday
that makes a body feel alone.
And there's nothing short of dying
that's half as lonesome as the sound
of a sleeping city sidewalk

and Sunday morning coming down.

For the New York Yankees: A share of 1st place in the American League Eastern Division was on the line. For the Red Sox: Keeping themselves in good position to keep their best chance at a World Championship in 60 years.

Legend has it that, before the Sunday afternoon game, Carl Yastrzemski, as team Captain, went into manager Don Zimmer's office, and begged him to start Bill Lee against the Yankees.

Lee, part pitching ace and part mad philosopher, was known as the Spaceman. He used a sinking fastball to go 12-5 vs. the Yankees in his career. And he was a lefthander, and, thanks to the Kansas City Royals in the previous year's AL Championship Series, the word had gotten around that, "The Yankees can't hit lefthanded pitching."

It was also suggested that Luis Tiant, also with with a good record against the Yankees, start, but he was 37 years old, and would have been on 3 days' rest.

Zim refused to start Lee, and (according to the legend), to explain why, reached into his desk, and showed Yaz a bunch of newspaper clippings he had saved, in which Lee had insulted him, calling him things like "the Designated Gerbil."

Zim said he was sticking with his established choice for the game, Bobby Sprowl, a 22-year-old from Sandusky, Ohio with 1 major league game (7 innings) under his belt. To be fair, Sprowl was also a lefthander. Zim said he was told by Sox scouts that Sprowl "has icewater in his veins."

I ask you: Does this look like somebody

with icewater in his veins?

Sprowl got knocked out of the box in the 1st inning, and the Yankees took a 5-0 lead. Ed Figueroa pitched well, and Goose Gossage stopped a Sox rally in the 9th. Yankees 7, Red Sox 4.

Reggie Jackson went 2-for-5 with 2 RBIs. Yaz, who had long been one of the great clutch hitters in baseball history, went 0-for-3 with a walk.

In 4 games, the Yankees had outscored the Red Sox 42-9. The sweep was completed, and the teams were tied for 1st place, with 20 games to go, including 3 more between them, the following weekend at Yankee Stadium.

The series became known as the Boston Massacre, after the 1770 event outside what's now known as the Old State House in downtown Boston, often considered the beginning of the American Revolution.

What happened to Sprowl? The kid with "icewater in his veins" made 1 more appearance for the Sox in '78, was traded to the Houston Astros, made 3 major league appearances for them in '79, 1 more in '80, and 15 more in '81, spent the next 3 seasons in the minor leagues, and threw his last professional pitch before turning 30. He's now a college coach in Alabama.

It's become accepted Red Sox lore that Zimmer kept Lee out of the starting rotation out of spite; and that, if he'd started Lee instead, Lee would have beaten the Yankees. The truth? Rather than being the answer to the hole in the rotation that Sprowl couldn't fill, Lee was the hole in the rotation.

On July 15, 1978, Lee was 10-3, and a big reason why the Sox had a big Division lead. From then until September 7, the start of the Boston Massacre series, he'd made 9 appearances, pitching 48 1/3rd innings. He was 0-7. His ERA was 5.96 -- and that doesn't count 5 unearned runs during that stretch. And 3 of those losses were by 1 or 2 runs. Had Lee been just a little bit better in any one of those 3 games, there never would have been a Bucky Dent Game.

Throw in that blooper pitch that Tony Pérez turned into a home run in Game 7 of the 1975 World Series, and Bill Lee may be more responsible for the Red Sox not winning the World Series from 1975 until 2004 than any single person. And yet, he is celebrated by Sox fans, because no Sox player ever hated the Yankees more.

And if Zim was keeping Lee out of games due to spite, why would he have brought him in to relieve in Game 2 of this series, the 13-2 Yankee win? He went 7 innings, and allowed only 1 earned run -- although he allowed 4 others that were charged to starter Jim Wright. If you had a must-win game, would you trust the start to a guy who pitched 7 innings only 2 days ago, no matter how good he was? I wouldn't. Don Zimmer didn't.

By the way, Zim did bring Lee in during that September 10 game. He pitched 2 1/3rd innings, allowing no runs -- but the game was already lost. And pitching 2 1/3rd innings effectively isn't the same as pitching 7 or more. There's no guarantee that Lee would have been the right choice to start, even if he hadn't gone 7 just 2 days before. So, obviously, Zim was willing to put his personal feelings about Lee aside.

*

Something else Yankee-related happened on September 10, 1978: For the first time, a commercial for Miller Lite beer aired. Or, as the product was then called, including in the ad, "Lite beer from Miller." It became one of the beer's "Less Filling" vs. "Tastes Great" arguments, although, Billy Martin, the once-and-four-times-future manager, who was very skinny, and George Steinbrenner, the team owner, who was already pudgy, should have reversed their positions:

Billy: Less filling, George.

George: Billy, it tastes great!

Billy: Less filling, George!
George: Billy!

Billy: Yeah, George?

George (with a big smile on his face, and his hand on Billy's shoulder): You're fired!

Billy, laughing: Not again!

The Yankees also took the 1st 2 games of the next weekend's series, to rise to 3 1/2 games ahead. In just 2 months, they'd gained 17 1/2 games. But the Sox won the Sunday game, with Eckersley beating Beattie.

And that's when things turned around again. The Sox won 10 of their last 12, including their last 8. The Yankees won their next-to-last game, against the Indians, with Figueroa becoming the 1st (and still only) Puerto Rican-born pitcher to win 20 games in a season. But on October 1, they lost the season finale, with Rick Waits, one of those lefthanded pitchers they supposedly couldn't hit, shutting them down.

The Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-0, on a shutout by Luis Tiant. The Fenway scoreboard put up, "THANK YOU RICK WAITS." 

Did you think I was kidding?

Did you think the Red Sox wouldn't be that petty?

There would be a Playoff game the next day. The Red Sox won a coin flip, and the game would be at Fenway Park.

The Sox felt like everything they'd done from April 8 to September 6 was wasted. The Yankees must've felt the same about everything they'd done from July 20 to September 30. Now, the regular season was over, and both teams had 99 wins... and neither team was guaranteed a berth in the postseason proper.

It would come down to 9 innings on an Autumn Monday afternoon at Fenway Park. And the story would get no less wild than it had already been.

*

September 10, 1978 was a Sunday. These other Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Mets beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 11-9, completing a 4-game sweep at Shea Stadium. Dwight Bernard was the winning pitcher, in relief of Jerry Koosman. Willie Stargell had an RBI single as a pinch-hitter.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Montreal Expos, 6-3 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-6 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Mike Schmidt went 1-for-4 with a walk. Ken Reitz tripled home the winning run in the top of the 10th inning.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves, 11-5 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Francisco Giants, 8-1 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Johnny Bench hit a home run. Pete Rose went 1-for-4.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 7-4 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Seattle Mariners, 2-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 3-1 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. The Twins won in spite of Rod Carew going 0-for-4. They got a home run from Glenn Borgmann. Paul Molitor went 0-for-5. Robin Yount did not play.

* The California Angels beat the Kansas City Royals, 13-3 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Carney Lansford went 4-for-5. Don Baylor went 2-for-5 with 5 RBIs, including a grand slam. Nolan Ryan went the distance, striking out 12. George Brett went 2-for-3.

* The Houston Astros beat the San Diego Padres, 3-2 at the Astrodome in Houston. Dave Winfield went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.

* A doubleheader, forced by the previous day's rainout, was split at the Oakland Coliseum. The Texas Rangers won the opener, 8-3. The Oakland Athletics won the nightcap, 2-1.

* And the Baltimore Orioles and the Toronto Blue Jays were rained out at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. The game was never made up.

This was also the opening week of the NFL's regular season, and these games were played that day:

* The New York Giants lost to the Dallas Cowboys, 34-24 at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands.

* The New York Jets beat the Buffalo Bills, 21-20 at Rich Stadium (later Ralph Wilson Stadium) in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, New York.

* The Miami Dolphins beat the Baltimore Colts, 42-0 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 35-30 at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington.

* The Detroit Lions beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 15-7 at Tampa Stadium.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks, 21-10 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Cleveland Browns beat their in-State rivals, the Cincinnati Bengals, 13-10 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Don Cockroft kicked a 27-yard field goal to win it in overtime.

* The Green Bay Packers beat the New Orleans Saints, 28-17 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* The New England Patriots beat the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals, 16-6 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Houston Oilers beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 20-17 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.

* The Oakland Raiders beat the San Diego Chargers, 21-20 at San Diego Stadium (later renamed Jack Murphy Stadium, Qualcomm Stadium and SDCCU Stadium). The Raiders won it on the last play of the game, a controversial one known as the Holy Roller Play. I have a separate entry for that event.

* The Los Angeles Rams beat the Atlanta Falcons, 10-0 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* The Chicago Bears beat the San Francisco 49ers, 16-13 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

* And the next night, on ABC Monday Night Football, the Minnesota Vikings beat the Denver Broncos, 12-9 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Rick Danmeier kicked 4 field goals, including a 44-yarder for the win in overtime.

September 9, 1978: The Boston Massacre, Game 3

September 9, 1978: Despite the New York Yankees having closed to within 2 games of the Boston Red Sox with 15-3 and 13-2 wins, Sox fans weren't shaken up yet. They were up for this Saturday NBC Game of the Week. They were excited about the pitching matchup between the two leading winners in the American League that season, Ron Guidry (who came into the game with a record of 20-2) and Dennis Eckersley (16-6). As Nathan Salant put it in his book This Date In New York Yankees History:

The talk in Boston was that all the Sox had to do was win the next two, and the Yankees would have wasted all those runs and hits for nothing. Besides, today the "Eck" was on the mound, 3-0 against the Yankees in 1978. Sure, Guidry was tough, but he was a lefthander about to get his first start in Fenway, with that nice, close leftfield wall. And, the Sox were due to wake up with the bats, weren't they?

Well, for the 1st 3 innings, the game lived up to its billing: No runs. Then came the top of the 4th, and that might have been the decisive inning of the entire season, the one that showed the Sox and their fans that the 1st 2 games of the series were no fluke, and that there was no longer any reason for the Yankees to be afraid of the Sox, not even of their ace.

Thurman Munson led off with a single. Then Reggie Jackson flew to left, and Carl Yastrzemski threw back to the infield, and doubled Munson off. It seemed as though the threat was over.

It wasn't. Chris Chambliss doubled. With 1st base open and 2 outs, Sox manager Don Zimmer ordered that Graig Nettles be intentionally walked. As Salant put it, "That made no sense, because the next batter was the Red Sox killer himself, Lou Piniella." Sweet Lou had already proven himself a big clutch hitter in the previous season, against the Sox in September, the Kansas City Royals in the American League Championship Series, and the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.

Now, he delivered the sequel. He took advantage of that big space in Fenway's right field, and of Jim Rice's lead feet and his inexperience out there. (Rice was the usual left fielder, while the aging Yaz and George Scott had platooned between 1st base and designated hitter. But, here, he was subbing for the injured Dwight Evans). Piniella smacked one that Rice could only hold to a double, scoring Chambliss.

With 1st base again open, Roy White was intentionally walked. As Salant put it, "A good move because White is second to Piniella as a Sox-smasher." And because the next man up was the Yankees' good-fielding, but barely-slap-hitting shortstop, Russell Earl "Bucky" Dent. Surely, he wouldn't cause trouble at Fenway Park. Little did they know...

Dent singled to left, scoring Nettles and Piniella, making it 3-0 New York. Given the emotional impact that this game had, this might have been the Yankees' most important hit of the season, never mind Dent's most important RBI hit of the season at Fenway Park. And Dent got to 2nd on an error. Mickey Rivers singled home White and Dent. 5-0. With Willie Randolph up, Eckersley threw a wild pitch that advanced the runners. Randolph drew a walk. The Yankees had batted around. Munson singled Rivers home.

Finally, Zimmer took Eckersley out of the game. One of the best starters in baseball at the time -- he had gone 14-13, including a no-hitter, for an awful Cleveland Indians team the year before, but had to be traded, for reasons that I won't get into here -- he had already developed a drinking problem that would nearly ruin him. Eventually, he would be turned into one of the best relief pitchers ever, finishing a Hall of Fame career with 197 wins and 390 saves. But now, he had to be removed.

Zimmer brought the lefthanded Tom Burgmeier in, to face the lefty Reggie, and, if he got on base, the lefty Chambliss. A good reliever who would make the All-Star Team in 1980, here he was betrayed by the injury to catcher Carlton Fisk, who allowed a passed ball that scored Randolph. That might have rattled him, because he walked Reggie. But he settled down, and got Chambliss to fly to center.

This inning was the Red Sox' season in a nutshell: Seemingly getting into and out of trouble, and then, after there were already 2 outs, came 7 runs, on 5 hits, 3 walks (not counting the last, to Reggie), an error, a wild pitch, and a passed ball.

Meanwhile, Guidry cruised, pitching as well as he had all year. He allowed 2 singles in the 1st 3 at-bats of the game, to Rick Burleson and Rice, and then allowed no hits and just 4 walks the rest of the way.

Yankees 7, Red Sox 0. The Yankees were now only 1 game back.

Reggie Jackson and Carl Yastrzemski both went 0-for-4, although Reggie did draw a walk.

This game inspired 2 legendary quotes, for both of which I was unable to find a source. Supposedly, a sportswriter wrote, "This was the first time that a first-place team had been eliminated from a pennant race."

And, supposedly, someone stood up in a Boston bar, and said, "They killed our grandfathers, they killed our fathers, and now, the sons of bitches are coming for us." Meaning the Yankees had taken the heart of the 1910s Red Sox champions for their own 1920s champions, they'd broken New England hearts in the 1949 AL Pennant race, and now, it was their own generation's turn.

The series ended up being given the name given to the shooting of 5 locals by British troops in downtown Boston on March 5, 1770: "The Boston Massacre."

*

September 9, 1978 was a Saturday. Basketball star Shane Battier was born.

These other games were played in Major League Baseball that day:

* The New York Mets beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-1 at Shea Stadium. Kevin Kobel went the distance for the win. The Pirates' lone run came on a solo home run by Willie Stargell.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Montreal Expos, 6-3 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Garry Maddox and Richie Hebner hit home runs. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-3, but had an RBI on a sacrifice fly.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-4 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 4-0 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. Scott McGregor pitched a 3-hit shutout. Eddie Murray and Ken Singleton hit home runs.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-3 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Pete Rose went 1-for-3 with an RBI. Johnny Bench went 1-for-3 with 2 RBIs.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 5-2 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Seattle Mariners beat the Chicago White Sox, 9-6 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-0 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Houston Astros beat the San Diego Padres, 10-4 at the Astrodome in Houston. Dave Winfield went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* The California Angels swept a doubleheader from the Kansas City Royals at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim), 3-2 and 4-2. George Brett went 2-for-8 with an RBI over the 2 games.

* And the Oakland Athletics and the Texas Rangers were rained out at the Oakland Coliseum. It would be made up as part of a doubleheader the next day.

Being a Saturday, there were college football games played. Among them:

* Number 3 Penn State beat Rutgers, 26-10 at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania.

* Number 4 Oklahoma beat Stanford, 35-29 at the old Stanford Stadium in the San Francisco suburb of Palo Alto, California.

* Missouri upset Number 5 Notre Dame, 3-0 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana.

* Number 9 USC beat Texas Tech, 17-9 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* Number 10 Nebraska beat the University of California, 36-26 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska.

* Number 12 UCLA beat Number 11 Washington, 10-7 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

* The University of Illinois and their arch-rivals, Northwestern University, played to a 0-0 tie at a rain-soaked Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois.

* In another arch-rivalry game, Southern Methodist beat Texas Christian, 45-14 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

* Number 1 Alabama and Number 2 Arkansas did not play that week.

Also, in English soccer, Arsenal lost to defending Football League Champions Nottingham Forest, 2-1 at the City Ground in Nottingham.

September 8, 1978: The Boston Massacre, Game 2

Carl Yastrzemski

September 8, 1978: The injury bug had hit the Boston Red Sox' pitching staff as well, as unheralded Jim Wright started at Fenway Park. But the New York Yankees' starter didn't seem to be much better: Rookie Jim Beattie. But Sox fans were calm: Surely, the Yankees couldn't unleash another 15-3 beating like they did the next before.

Close enough: The Yankees scored 2 runs in the 1st inning, and 6 in the 2nd. Wright was chased in the 2nd, and Tom Burgmeier was brought in to pitch. He gave up a home run to Reggie Jackson -- incredibly, the only home run the Yankees hit in this series, in which they instead singled and doubled the Sox to death.

This was the 1970s. It wasn't yet considered permissible to say the word "sucks" in public. "Stinks" was the preferred term. Yet, whenever Mr. October came to the plate, the Fenway bleachers rang out with a chant of "Reggie sucks!" Eventually, the Bleachers at Yankee Stadium would resound, countering the Fenway chant of "Yankees suck!" by delivering "Boston sucks!" And considerably cringier chants than that.

As with the night before, a Yankee hitter, in this case Mickey Rivers, got 3 hits before Butch Hobson, the Sox' 9th-place hitter, could make his 1st plate appearance. This time, Mick the Quick also did so before the 8th hitter, George Scott, could do it.

Ordinarily quite the power hitter, Scott was in the middle of a slump that would eventually reach 0-for-36. When asked about it after the game, he said, "Some of these guys are choking, man." And the word "choke" became forever associated with the Red Sox. Even the events of October 2004 couldn't remove them, as the events of September 2011 would prove.

(Scott batted .233 in 1978. Take out the 0-for-36, and it would have been .255.)

In contrast, Beattie cruised, pitching what turned out to be the best game of his life, allowing 2 runs, both unearned, and only needed Ron Davis to get the last out.

Yankees 13, Red Sox 2. The Yankees were now 2 games out, after being down 14 on July 20. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4.

The series ended up being given the name given to the shooting of 5 locals by British troops in downtown Boston on March 5, 1770: "The Boston Massacre."

*

September 8, 1978 was a Friday. Baseball player Gil Meche and hockey player Marco Sturm were born that day.

These other Major League Baseball games were played that night:

* The New York Mets beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-2 at Shea Stadium. In support of Tom Hausman, Willie Montañez went 3-for-4 with 3 RBIs, giving him 7 in the last 2 days.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Montreal Expos, 4-2 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Rodney Scott doubled home the winning run in the top of the 10th inning.

* The Philadelphia Phillies swept a doubleheader from the St. Louis Cardinals at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, 1-0 and 2-1. Dick Ruthven pitched a 3-hit shutout in the opener. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-3 in the opener, but 2-for-3 with a walk in the nightcap, in support of Jim Kaat.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Atlanta Braves, 8-5 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-4 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. Eddie Murray went 1-for-4.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Dave Winfield went 1-for-4. Pete Rose went 1-for-4. Johnny Bench went 2-for-3 with a walk.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 6-3 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Seattle Mariners, 3-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-0 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Robin Yount went 1-for-4 with an RBI. Paul Molitor went 0-for-4, but did draw a walk. Rod Carew, uncharacteristically, went 1-for-4.

* The Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-0 at the Astrodome in Houston. Ken Forsch pitched a 2-hit shutout.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the California Angels, 9-7 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). George Brett didn't drive in any of those 9 runs, going 0-for-4. Lyman Bostock hit a home run for the Angels. Just 16 days later, he was dead.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Texas Rangers, 11-4 at the Oakland Coliseum.

September 7, 1978: The Boston Massacre, Game 1

September 7, 1978: The New York Yankees go into Fenway Park on this Thursday night for a 4-game series against the Boston Red Sox, who lead them by 4 games in the American League Eastern Division -- having led them by 14 games on July 20. This 1st game was a makeup of the rainout of July 4.

It is generally agreed at the time that, to really make it a race, the Yankees will have to win 3 out of 4. Sox fans are confident their boys can take 3 out of 4 and finish the hated Yankees off.

But, just as the Yankees had been riddled with injuries in June and July, their bench barely keeping their heads above water, now, it was Boston's turn to see if they could overcome injuries. Carlton Fisk was catching with bad ribs. Butch Hobson was playing 3rd base with bone chips in his elbow, leading the former rocket-armed University of Alabama quarterback to made an alarming 43 errors before he finally got benched.

1st baseman George Scott, known as Boomer for his usual heavy hitting, was playing with a bad finger. 2nd baseman Jerry Remy, a particular pain in the neck in games with the Yankees earlier in the season, was out with a hand injury.

And right fielder Dwight Evans had been beaned, and was having what we would now call post-concussion syndrome. This forced the moving of the Sox' Most Valuable Player candidate, Jim Rice from left field to right field, and the team's greatest legend among active players, Carl Yastrzemski, away from the 1st base-designated hitter platoon he'd been in with Scott, and back to his former position of left field. And he was wearing a back brace.

The Yankees' biggest star at the time, Reggie Jackson, said:

It's hard to explain, but, somehow, we all seemed to believe we would win up there. Sure, we had our work cut out for us, and we knew it wouldn't be easy. But there was something in the air which made everyone even more confident.

On the 2nd play of the game, Hobson made a throwing error. This led to the Yankees scoring 2 runs in the 1st inning, 3 in the 2nd, 2 in the 3rd, and 5 in the 4th, knocking out Mike Torrez, who'd signed with the Sox in the off-season, after being one of the Yankees' own heroes in the previous year's World Championship season.

Yankee catcher Thurman Munson collected 3 singles and an RBI, and 2nd baseman Willie Randolph reached base 3 times, all before Hobson, the 9th and last man in the Sox batting order, even came to bat for the 1st time.

In spite of a 12-0 lead going into the bottom of the 4th, manager Bob Lemon, himself a Hall of Fame pitcher, took Catfish Hunter out, due to a pulled groin muscle. Ken Clay relieved, and got the win despite giving up a home run to Fisk. Yankees 15, Red Sox 3. The Yankees are now 3 games back.

Reggie had an RBI single in the 1st. Yaz hit a triple off Catfish.

What the heck, it's only one game, right? In the words of Nathan Salant, in a book he wrote after the season, put it, imagining what a Sox fan would think, "After all, 15-3 losses were made to be laughed at. It couldn't happen again... "

The series ended up being given the name given to the shooting of 5 locals by British troops in downtown Boston on March 5, 1770: "The Boston Massacre."

*

September 7, 1978 was a Thursday. This was also the day Keith Moon, the drummer for The Who, died of a mix of drugs and booze. And Canadian actor Devon Sawa was born.

These other games were played in Major League Baseball that day:

* The New York Mets beat the Montreal Expos, 9-4 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Joel Youngblood and Willie Montañez hit home runs, in support of Nino Espinosa. Montañez had 4 RBIs. Gary Carter, with the Expos at the time, went 0-for-3.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-5 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-4 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. Robin Yount went 2-for-5 for the Brewers.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Diego Padres, 6-2 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Ken Griffey Sr. all hit home runs for the Reds. For the Padres, Dave Winfield went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Mike Schmidt went 1-for-3 with 2 walks.

* The Seattle Mariners beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Yes, both Chicago teams were at home on the same day, and both lost.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-4 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Neither the Cardinals' Lou Brock nor the Pirates' Willie Stargell played in this game.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Houston Astros, 3-2 at the Astrodome.

* The California Angels beat the Texas Rangers, 7-6 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).

* Not scheduled to play that day: The Baltimore Orioles, the Cleveland Indians, the Detroit Tigers, the Kansas City Royals, the Minnesota Twins, the Oakland Athletics.