Red Sox Diaries

Back before the Red Sox finally won the World Series in 2004, they were widely regarded as the unluckiest team in baseball. Of course Cubs, White Sox or maybe even Indians fans will vehemently object to this, but none of those teams had gotten as close to winning it all as many times as the Sox had.

Boston lost four World Series in the 86 years in between titles, each one (1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986) drawn out to the full seven games. Plus, taking into account the way the Sox lost in some of the franchise's defining moments--the groundball between Buckner's legs, leaving in Pedro too long, Bucky Dent's home run, and so on--made some fans actually think that the team was cursed (thanks a lot, Dan Shaughnessy, for planting that seed).

But all of those bad memories are (hopefully) buried, replaced by Curt Schilling's bloody sock and Dave Roberts' stolen base and David Ortiz's countless walk-off hits, so what's the point of bringing them up again?

Well, because Boston's second opponent of the 2009 season, the Los Angeles Angels, are going into Friday's three-game series with the Sox reeling from an actual tragedy: the death of one of their bright young prospects, 22-year-old rookie starting pitcher Nick Adenhart, in a hit-and-run car accident following his season debut Wednesday night (he threw six scoreless innings). Touching tribute pieces were written by Jerry Crasnick of ESPN and Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated.

While the Red Sox have historically been regarded as the standard for snakebitten teams, the Angels are actually head-and-shoulders above everyone else in that very unfortunate category.

The most well-known of these tragic events was the fatal shooting of 27-year-old outfielder Lyman Bostock in late September of 1978. He was just wrapping up his first season with the team and, after completing a road series with the White Sox, he went to visit some old friends in Gary, Ind. Bostock was riding in the back seat of a car when the estranged husband of one of his companions fired a shot at the car, trying to shoot his wife. Instead he hit Bostock, who died later that night. You can read a detailed account of the circumstances of the incident here in a story written by Jeff Pearlman of ESPN. I remember first learning about it in the autobiography of Don Baylor, one of the Angels' other star players at the time and a future manager for the Rockies and Cubs. Another Bostock anecdote: he was so upset by his performance in the first month with the Angels that he tried to return his paycheck to owner Gene Autry, feeling like he hadn't played well enough to earn it. When Autry refused, Bostock donated it to charity.

Then there was the sad situation of former Angels relief pitcher Donnie Moore, who gave up Dave Henderson's home run in Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS against Boston. The Red Sox were down 3-1 in the series and trailing in the game at the time, but rallied to win that game and the following two, advancing to the World Series. Moore was never the same pitcher, and the Angels got rid of him two seasons later. In 1989, he shot his wife multiple times during an argument before taking his own life.

Earlier, in the mid-1970s, three Angels players--Chico Ruiz, Bruce Heinbechner and Mike Miley--were killed in car accidents. ESPN's Rob Neyer has compiled a list of these, also including brief accounts of two similarly tragedies in the 1960s: one player who died of a brain tumor and another who was paralyzed in an offseason accident that was fatal for three members of his family.

Sports are supposed to be fun, light and enjoyable. Our heroes seem almost larger-than-life. But they aren't invincible and immune to freak accidents like Adenhart's or crazies in society like the one who killed Bostock. No one is. And the Angels know the devastating consequences of these tragedies as well as anybody. Fans get emotionally attached to their favorite teams to the point where winning and losing is like a matter of life and death. But context and perspective are incredibly important--in the end it's just a game, and sometimes actual life and death interjects itself into the world of sports, unfortunate as that may be.

Makes me feel pretty ridiculous for getting all worked up about Grady Little.

--Danny Daly (ddaly06)