Boston Red Sox Quotes

“It’s Curt Schilling and his bloody sock staring down the Yankees in the Bronx. It’s Derek Lowe taking the mound the very next night to complete the most improbable comeback in baseball history—and then seven days later clinching the World Series. It’s Pedro Martinez and his six hitless innings of postseason relief against the Indians. Yes, it is also Cy Young and Roger Clemens, and the 192 wins in a Red Sox uniform that they share—the perfect game for Young, the 20 strikeout games for Clemens—but it is also Bill Dinneen clinching the 1903 World Series with a busted, bloody hand, and Jose Santiago shutting down Minnesota with two games left in the season to keep the 1967 Impossible Dream alive, and Jim Lonborg clinching the Impossible Dream the very next day, and Jim Lonborg again, tossing a one-hitter and a three-hitter in the 1967 World Series, and Luis Tiant in the 1975 postseason, shutting out Oakland and Cincinnati in back-to-back starts. They are all winners.”
― Tucker Elliot, Boston Red Sox: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports

“... there’s almost nothing worse than spending an entire day anticipating watching a Yankees vs. Red Sox game, only to have the score be 9-0 in the third inning.”
― Tucker Elliot, Major League Baseball IQ: The Ultimate Test of True Fandom

“He [Ted Williams] was only a 23-year-old kid when he batted .406 in 1941, but then the season ended and our country came under attack at Pearl Harbor—and by 1943 he was a Marine fighter pilot serving overseas who cheated death on several documented occasions. He came back in 1946, and he won his first career MVP after hitting 38 home runs.”
― Tucker Elliot, Boston Red Sox: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports

“If there are any curses left in baseball, they are all on the north side of Chicago.”
― Tucker Elliot, Boston Red Sox: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports

“Ted Williams hit 17 career grand slams. He is the toughest batter to get out in major league history. It was never fun for opposing pitchers to have to face him, but that was never more true than it was when there was nowhere to put him—and his grand slam total is only one of the many franchise records that he owns.”
― Tucker Elliot, Boston Red Sox: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports

“Ortiz is now synonymous with walk-off homers. After all, he hit a total of nine game-ending blasts from 2002-07. And that was just in the regular season. It was his blasts in the 2004 postseason that cemented his legacy in Boston.”
― Tucker Elliot, Boston Red Sox: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports

“Boston got Roberts on the July 31 trade deadline—exchanging prospect Henri Stanley for the fleet-footed outfielder. Roberts fittingly got 86 at bats for Boston, but it was his speed on the bases that the Red Sox sought—and it was his speed that brought to an end 86 years of frustration for the Fenway Faithful.”
― Tucker Elliot, Boston Red Sox: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports

“Big Papi placed among the top five in Most Valuable Player balloting during his first five seasons with the Red Sox. His best finish in that span was second place in 2005, just losing out to Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees. It was A-Rod, however, who suggested he’d gladly trade his hardware for the ring Ortiz won in 2004. A-Rod got the hardware for MVP again in 2007, but it was Ortiz who got another ring.”
― Tucker Elliot, Boston Red Sox: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports

“Seemingly every year at least one of the league’s top sluggers can be found in Boston’s lineup—and often times more than one. David Ortiz was second or third in slugging five consecutive seasons from 2003-07. Manny Ramirez was in the top five in slugging six consecutive seasons from 2001-06. Manny and Big Papi were one-two in slugging in 2004, and from 2003-06 Boston’s big bats gave the club two of the league’s top five sluggers—something no other team in the league could boast.”
― Tucker Elliot, Boston Red Sox: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports

“It took only three years for Jonathan Papelbon to surpass Bill Campbell, Lee Smith, Tom Gordon, Sparky Lyle, Derek Lowe, Jeff Reardon, Ellis Kinder, and Dick Radatz as he climbed the franchise leader board into second place all-time for saves. Papelbon closed out 2008 with 113 career saves—and on July 1, 2009, with his 20th save of the season he surpassed Bob Stanley to become the all-time franchise leader in saves.”
― Tucker Elliot, Boston Red Sox: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports

“Joe DiMaggio batted safely in 56 consecutive games in 1941, the same season Ted Williams batted .406—but did you know that also in 1941, Jeff Heath, an outfielder who spent a decade playing for the Indians, became the first player in AL history to hit 20 doubles, 20 triples, and 20 home runs in the same season? It’s true.”
― Tucker Elliot

“The affair between Boston and Ted Williams has been no mere summer romance; it has been a marriage, composed of spats, mutual disappointments, and, toward the end, a mellowing hoard of shared memories. It falls into three stages, which may be termed Youth, Maturity, and Age; or Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis; or Jason, Achilles, and Nestor.”
― John Updike, Great Baseball Stories

“Perhaps that wasn't the brightest parenting decision that I've made in the last ten years." -- (From TRADING MANNY, on letting my 7-year old son emulate Manny Ramirez)”
― Jim Gullo

“Boston and Chicago are two great seats of mathematical research located in major American cities. Until they won in 2004, if you asked a baseball fan in Boston what they most hoped to see in their lifetime, they would have answered a World Series win for the Boston Red Sox. Chicago Cubs fans are still waiting. Ask a mathematician in either of those cities or anywhere else in the world what they would most hope to see in their lifetime, and they would most likely answer: "A proof o the Riemann hypothesis!" Perhaps mathematicians, like Red Sox fans, will have their prayers answered in our lifetimes, or at least before the Cubs win the World Series.”
― Stephen Hawking, God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs That Changed History