Just read that Bill Buckner has died after a battle with Lewy Body Dementia.<\/p>\n
I’ve always had mixed feelings about Buckner, because although I did not care for him as a player — particularly when he was with the Dodgers — I felt that he got a terrible, undeserved rap for his part in the Red Sox’ collapse in Game Six of the 1986 World Series.<\/p>\n
No one — and I mean NO ONE — deserves the kind of endless roasting he got as a result of a single muffed ground ball; one he may very well have had no play on anyway.<\/p>\n
People don’t want to remember that the Red Sox had a two-run lead with two outs, two strikes, and no one on base in the tenth inning of that game — and lost. All that seems to matter is that Buckner made an error.<\/p>\n
Big effing deal.<\/p>\n
What about the fact that Dave Stapleton should have gone in for Buckner on defense before that half-inning began? That’s directly on John McNamara, but he seems to get a free pass.<\/p>\n
And what about the spitter that Bob Stanley threw, and Rich Gedman couldn’t handle, that tied the game earlier in that sequence?<\/p>\n
Buckner’s non-play was merely the last one in that game, and that’s all people wanted to remember. It didn’t cost the Red Sox the World Series; hell, they had a lead in Game Seven, and spat that one up too.<\/p>\n
No one would let Buckner get over it; he even moved to Idaho to get away from the unrelenting idiocy of all this.<\/p>\n
Billy Buck, wherever you are now, I hope you can finally get some peace.<\/p>\n
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