[Nuf Ced]

Glenn Stout, perhaps the preeminent authority on Red Sox history, has published numerous historical baseball features. They have appeared in publications like The Sporting News, USA Today’s Baseball Weekly, and Baseball America. He has served as series editor for The Best American Sports Writing anthology since the inception of the series in 1991. He is the author of several books, including Red Sox Century : The Definitive History of Baseball's Most Storied Franchise. A revised edition of this book is now available at bookstores everywhere, including here.



We recently had an opportunity to talk with Glenn, who shared his thoughts on several moments -- and decisions -- that have shaped Red Sox history as we know it.

note: Kevin Vahey and Shaun Kelly contributed to this interview.


RSN: Since “Red Sox Century” (RSC) was first published in 2000, much has happened with the Olde Towne team. Can you explain why a revised edition is coming out now -- did anything serve as a catalyst, or has a 2004 update been in the works for some time?

GS: When Richard Johnson and I first conceived of Red Sox Century, our intention was to create a book that could and would be updated periodically as events merited -- we want this book to remain as the standard history for as long as possible. In regard to this franchise in particular, that meant one of three things had to happen to stimulate an update -- a world championship, a new ballpark, or new ownership. Obviously, that forces me to keep close track of what’s going on all the time just in case. The decision to update was made by our publisher quite early during last season, before any of us knew (except, perhaps, in emotional DNA) what would happen last year. Then, as the season wound down, I had to keep waiting to see how the story ended. When it ended the way it did, that determined the last half of the new chapter. I think Game 7 rendered what had been a remarkable regular season rather insignificant in the larger scheme of things, just as the playoff failure in 1999 similarly wiped out the 1999 regular season.

RSN: I believe you also added the 2000 season to the original final chapter.

GS: Yes. The new final chapter starts with Harrington announcing the team is for sale, and it continues thru the Francona hiring. There’s also a post Game 7 column by Tom Boswell. We’ve corrected a small handful of errors and made a few other revisions for consistency. All in all there are about 15,000 new words in the book, and a dozen or more photos, plus updated stats.

RSN: Interest in the team is seemingly at an unprecedented level. Can that be explained?

GS: I’m not quite sure I agree with the premise of the question. While there is certainly a great deal of interest in the team, I think it appears a bit more intense than it really is, simply because there are more ways to measure interest now than before -- and there is far more money involved. But I’m not sure either of those accurately reflects interest level.

RSN: Why is that?

GS: What I do think has happened is that it has become much easier to follow the team more closely because of the Internet, ESPN and satellite TV, particularly for fans from afar. Fifteen or twenty years ago a Red Sox fan on the West Coast was stuck with the box score, the weekly Sporting News update, and perhaps an occasional ten-second highlight on the news or a national broadcast. Today, obviously, the situation is far different. I think what is happening to the Sox is what is happening to baseball in general -- horizontally, interest is either flat or shrinking, but vertically it is now possible to feed the addiction almost 24/7 -- and everyone, from MLB to the media in all forms, is far more savvy in targeting the baseball junkie audience. And I think it is also important to remember that since 1986, which really sparked the wave the team is still riding today, at least in terms of attendance, the Boston area has boomed economically and as a tourist destination, and there are many many more people in the area than thirty or forty years ago. I believe local TV ratings for the Sox peaked in the 1970s and haven’t approached the same level since, which would also be an indicator of interest.

And let’s not forget the era of the Royal Rooters, post-WWII, and the last half of 1967. Interest was pretty high then, too.

RSN: Indeed, we have not forgotten the era of the Royal Rooters! In the new edition of RSC, you question whether last October's game seven loss might have been the worst in team history. Grady Little was subsequently quoted as saying there were players on the team who feared "being Bill Buckner" (which was ironic, because he had himself become Buckner in the eyes of many). Whether you believe in curses or not, has any team ever had more to overcome? Or ghosts to exorcise?

GS: I really think fans of most teams, in most sports, can probably recite their own unique litany of failure and pain -- Red Sox fans aren’t that special. What is unique is that since 1986 that precise emotional vibe has been exploited and marketed to make money. And too many Sox fans (and way, way too many casual fans here and elsewhere, and an absolutely obscene number of know-nothing broadcasters) have gobbled it up because it goes down quick and easy and seems to explain everything. It’s instant Red Sox history, antiseptic, without having to deal with the real nasty stuff, like racism and incompetence.

RSN: So any perceived “curse” is both fairly recent and media-driven?

GS: You can look it up, as I have, but before 1986, when George Vecsey of the New York Times first wrote about it, the entire notion that the Red Sox were “cursed” did not exist -- you’ll find no mention of it after ’67, ’75 or ’78 -- none, zero, zilch. In last years’ HBO documentary, for example, Denis Leary was talking about how much he hated the name “Nanette,” as a child. Well, he was making up a memory, because when Denis was a kid absolutely no one was yammering about the (false) Ruth/Nanette thing. If I’m proud of anything it is that Red Sox Century gave reasons for why the Red Sox have won and why they have lost without feeding such false notions or exploiting the fans. That, and they way the book caused everyone, finally, to take a close look at the Yawkey era.

But at this point it’s too late, almost -- a kind of historic expectation of loss has permeated both the fans and the organization, a willing desire to believe in the worst just so you can feel part of something larger. Even new ownership is affected. When they bought the club they were essentially ignorant of club history, apart from the “curse” nonsense. And any psychologist will tell you that negative thoughts can lead to negative consequences, so in a sense it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy -- it flows back and forth between fans and media and by osmosis even reaches the players, who are usually so narcissistic they aren’t affected by anything.

But that is why it is so hard for this team to win and why I think Game 7 was so disastrous. If you look at the history of this team, excruciating losses have always affected the organization for years -- the ripples take forever to dissipate. I think firing Grady Little, putting Manny on waivers and trying to trade Nomar proves this is already happening.

RSN: You also make note of the team painting the 2003 World Series logo on the field at Fenway Park before the deciding game versus the Yankees. The following day the Boston Herald's Jeff Horrigan wrote that the logo "lay beneath a blue tarp like a corpse covered with a sheet". Countless Red Sox fans know that there is no such thing as a done deal with this team -- ever. Can anyone explain how this was allowed to happen?



GS: It’s called arrogance and hubris, with a touch of the sense of entitlement that comes from being ungodly wealthy. And I think that’s the most dangerous thing in the entire new group, a top-to-bottom tendency to pat itself on the back before it is time to do so. The first rule you ever learn in sports is win first, then celebrate. If you do it backwards, well, you deserve what you get. It reminded me of when Dusty Baker took Russ Ortiz out of Game 6 in the Series two years ago and gave him the ball to keep as a souvenir. You could see the bad karma.

RSN: There was reportedly some disagreement between the team's leadership -- John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino -- in the weeks following that loss, centering on Grady Little. There had been similar discord in the days when Jean Yawkey, Haywood Sullivan and Buddy LeRoux shared power. Those times were often fraught with turbulence -- is current ownership positioned to fare any better than that earlier troika?

GS: Troikas do worry me, for the exact reason cited, and I really can’t think of any successful ownership by committee. I don’t think these guys are positioned any better -- two-to-one votes always piss someone off. In the end, one person always takes control. I think in many ways John Henry already has. Werner and Lucchino are redundant. Epstein has become the public face. Francona is impotent compared to the usual manager’s role. Henry wields the real power and he is beginning to use it. He wanted to fire Little before mid-season but was talked out of it. From here on, he won’t be very patient.

And this is a side comment, but one I find curious industry-wide. As much as MLB and ownership always bitch about player salaries, in the one area where ownership has TOTAL control over what they pay – in the front office -- the salaries have escalated right along with the player salaries. Larry Lucchino reportedly makes in the mid- seven figures annually, and many GMs are above the million mark. Why? I just don’t get it. Wouldn’t that money have been better spent on some players? I mean, for what the Red Sox pay Lucchino they could have closed the A-Rod deal. Who would you rather have?

RSN: The team suffered through some difficult seasons during the John Harrington/Dan Duquette era, both on and off the field. What do you see as the predominant reasons behind those disappointing years?

GS: That question is sort of too large to address here (I do so in chapter twenty of Red Sox Century), but in a nutshell I think Harrington was a toady for interests other than winning, namely serving Bud Selig and acting as if the Sox were a small market team to keep in Bud’s good graces because he appeared to like feeling important and having influence. He also held fast to this grotesque, moldly notion of the “Yawkey tradition,” as something worth preserving. Well, he certainly did that well enough.

Then, while the team was raking in dough and Fenway was falling apart, Harrington chose not to spend it until he made the decision to sell. Then he tried to buy a going away present, going in to debt and leaving the club in the awkward contractual situation it is in now. Duquette was hired with the directive to win cheap and build from below, but when they unexpectedly snuck into the playoffs his first season, I think it put him in a spot where he couldn’t start from scratch, so they got into a cycle of patching holes to remain “competitive” rather than building. Duquette was also unfairly made the franchise’s public face, which he clearly wasn’t equipped for. In the long run I think Harrington abused the franchise and the fans -- people were ripped off. The Sox pulled a bait and switch.

RSN: Despite all that went wrong with Duquette at the helm, there were also positives. Among them were huge strides made in integrating the team, long a sorry part of Red Sox history. Does he deserve most of the credit for that, or were others just as responsible?

GS: Well, I think he deserves a great deal of credit for it, although there were certainly others in the past, such as Dick O’Connell, who did their part, but under Duquette’s watch the most onerous aspects of that repugnant tradition were put to rest -- hopefully for good (but racism, like alcoholism, requires constant vigilance). That’s not a small accomplishment. You know, I grew up in the Midwest and didn’t come to Boston until 1981. Coming from elsewhere the racism in Boston was palpable and unmistakable from the first day. I mean, I eventually worked for the city and had bosses try to stop me from hiring minorities, then tell me with a straight face they weren’t racists. And I sat in the bleachers about thirty times a year in the early to mid-eighties and was absolutely stunned by what I would hear people yell at Jim Rice, and no one, (myself included, I’m ashamed to say) would ever tell people to knock it off. Later, when I started writing for Boston Magazine and other places, many of my first stories were about African American athletes from Boston’s past -- Sam Langford, Will Jackman, Lou Montgomery, Louise Stokes. Why? Because in this town they had been totally overlooked (and I’m sure most readers of this will have no clue who they are, even now). As Howard Bryant points out in his book “Shut Out”, the local press played a role in ignoring race as an ongoing story in regard to this franchise.

RSN: It has been written that the team had an opportunity to sign both Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays, but declined due to their skin color. Is it fair to label Tom Yawkey a racist, or would it be more accurate to say that he was simply adhering to the social norms of his times?

GS: I think it is interesting that the entire question of racism and the Red Sox is so often distilled down to the question of whether or not Yawkey was a bigot. It is as if people think the answer to that question also answers the entire question of racism and the Red Sox. That kind of thinking searches for some kind of “smoking gun,” a statement or a piece of paper in which Yawkey said something overtly racist. The logic goes, “Well, if he did, then the problem is his, and his alone, not the ballclub’s.” And if there is not, “Well, that provides absolution to both Yawkey and the Red Sox because they were just a product of the times.” I reject that. The question of Yawkey’s personal racism isn’t irrelevant -- after all, the buck always stops at the top -- but it is not all encompassing either.

RSN: So, does a smoking gun exist?

GS: Of course there is no smoking gun as described above -- most bigots are too cowardly to leave behind evidence like that. My father was a “product of the times” in regard to his attitudes, but he didn’t leave behind any kind of “smoking gun” evidence like that either, and on an individual basis he was fine with African Americans, as was Yawkey. But one must also remember that Yawkey was a willing participant in all the back room meetings MLB owners had after WWII to try to block Branch Rickey -- they didn’t take minutes of those meetings, either, and there’s a reason for that.

But I think there is a smoking gun, one much more powerful and definitive, and always was. All anyone ever had to do was look on the field while every other team in baseball integrated, even ballclubs like the Phillies and Cardinals who had been aggressively racist -- but there were no African Americans wearing a Red Sox uniform. That was the evidence, the smoking gun, the irrefutable statement, and it was there for years, for every one of 154 or 162 games a year, and hardly anyone ever, ever mentioned of it. It was the elephant in the corner of the room that no one talked about. It is not just the individual instances of racism in the history of this franchise that is troubling -- the fact the Sox didn’t sign Robinson, or waited until 1959 to bring up Pumpsie Green, or didn’t make a trade for a black player from 1947 to 1960 (Willie Tasby). It is the enduring pattern, the fact that the Red Sox continued to have problems for five decades -- even after Yawkey’s death -- from the Elks’ Club all the way up to Thomas Sneed. The Yawkey tradition, from the top down, created an institutional culture that not only allowed racism to remain in place, but didn’t easily admit its existence when it was uncovered and frankly didn’t consider the issue very important. It was not surprising to us at all that when Red Sox Century was published, the ballclub -- John Harrington specifically -- went on the attack about that issue. Personally, Tom Yawkey was rarely confronted about this during his lifetime. Because of his wealth, he had the whole town cowed. Even the most basic facts of his biography were never ever reported until our book (as an aside, I find it interesting that John Henry has been here two years now and like Yawkey, has faced no scrutiny at all).

RSN: It sounds like you’re saying Yawkey liked to keep the whole thing swept under the rug and out of sight.

GS: Clearly, the entire issue just wasn’t very important to Yawkey, except to dodge the question and dodge his personal culpability. The racial story of the Red Sox was a hard, hard part of the book to write, because we knew if we weren’t careful, readers would reject conclusions before we made our case -- how do you tell people their favorite team has a rotten spot that shouldn’t be ignored any longer? Well, we did it by laying out the facts, the evidence. That’s why we avoided making the question of Yawkey’s personal bigotry the central question -- it was the wrong question to ask. If anything, at the time I think we may have been too soft and cautious on the issue. That’s why I was happy Howard Bryant's book -- Shutout -- was being done, to carry the story further. History is cumulative, and I think RSC moved the discussion forward in a very substantive and useful way.

RSN: What about the societal aspect?

GS: Was Yawkey adhering to norms of his time? Of course he was -- but he was adhering to the norms of bigots and racists, who were in the majority. Listen, there were plenty of men and women of courage and conviction during Yawkey’s reign, and much farther back, who didn’t “adhere to social norms,” but followed moral truth. Yawkey simply didn’t have that kind of courage. But I don’t think you can give anyone a total pass because “those were the times.” Tom Yawkey was rich enough that he didn’t have to adhere to any social norm if he didn’t want to or if he didn’t believe it. As a result Red Sox fans got screwed -- totally screwed -- by this policy. No one should ever yammer about 1918 without thinking that if not for racism that season probably wouldn’t even matter. And for the record, another question that is often asked in follow-up, the argument Will McDonough always tried to make, was “What about the Yankees and race? Well, I address the Yankees and racism in Yankees Century and they don’t get a pass on the subject either, but that’s another story. That the Yankees were racist too doesn’t justify what the Red Sox did, or make it better.

RSN: Is there anything you want to add regarding Robinson or Mays?

GS: In the waning days of the 1967 season Jackie Robinson was asked which American League team he wanted to win the pennant. Even though Dick Williams had been his teammate, he said anybody but the Red Sox, because “Tom Yawkey is one of the most bigoted men in baseball.” Robinson didn’t throw charges like that around lightly.

And Tom Yawkey is in the Hall of Fame. For what? He didn’t win and he was behind the curve on every issue baseball faced during the time he owned the team. Well, once I asked someone who worked at the Hall that very question. And they said it was because he contributed a lot of money, and that’s a fact. For him to be the first man inducted solely for being a team owner is repugnant.

RSN: Do you think the integration of the National League hastened the demise of the Boston Braves in 1953? Their attendance fell by nearly a million from their high water mark of 1948, while the Red Sox attendance remained the same. Is there an explanation for this?

GS: Years ago I wrote a long story about this for Boston Magazine, but in a nutshell, the reasons of the Braves demise are many and various, ranging from a ballpark with bad sightlines, bad trades after 1948, the sudden availability of Milwaukee with a sweet deal, bad spring weather several years in a row, no cooperation from Yawkey, etc, etc, etc. I don’t think the integration of the NL had a lot to do with the Braves demise -- Brooklyn drew well in that era and like the Braves integrated rather quickly themselves. Had they hung on in Boston for just a few more years, til Aaron was up and Mathews and Adcock matured, you may have seen the Braves stay and Sox leave. Yawkey hated Fenway Park by the 1960s and threatened to leave on several occasions himself.

RSN: That’s certainly a fascinating scenario to ponder -- no Red Sox in Boston! Switching gears, the sale of the team was by no means a simple undertaking, with innuendoes of back-room dealings running rampant. Among the perceptions was that there were groups Harrington did not want to sell to, and money wasn’t the only issue. What are your views on this?

GS: Money is never the only issue in the sale of a major league baseball franchise. It is a private club that gets to choose who to let in. John Henry had paid his dues, buying a small piece of the Yankees to give the other MLB owners and officials time to get to know him and feel comfortable, then buying the Marlins, then helping to facilitate the bailout of Jeffrey Loria in Montreal. He was the guy MLB wanted and Harrington always did what MLB wanted. Personally, I find it interesting that John Hancock’s Dave D’Allesandro reportedly bought a small piece of the Red Sox recently, which makes me wonder if he’s beginning the same process, you know, getting to know the other MLB owners so he can buy a team one day -- he’s a big Yankee fan and Steinbrenner isn’t getting younger.

RSN: Since the current ownership came on board, much work has been done to create a more "fan-friendly" atmosphere. These improvements have been greeted with open arms by a fan-base long deserving of such treatment. Why did previous administrations do so little in this regard?

GS: Because under Harrington they didn’t care about making fans feel comfortable or appreciated, because they could make money anyway and they wanted the building to deteriorate past the point of renovation so they could squeeze $$ from the state and city for a park. Back in 1987 I wrote a story for the Red Sox yearbook that mentioned that when Fenway was built the foundation was designed to support a second deck, and that when Yawkey renovated the park that foundation was reinforced -- the Red Sox were not happy that information was included. I’ve always thought they added the 600 Club solely to prevent the addition of a second deck, because they wanted the park to become obsolete and adding the 600 Club made it impossible to add a complete second deck. Remember, too, that before 1986 there wasn’t the constant attendance pressure that today makes Fenway’s worst aspects stand out in terms of comfort. The best years I spent in Fenway were 1982-1985, years where the crowds were small and for three dollars you could get a bleacher seat, put your feet on the bench in front of you, lean back on the bench behind you and watch the game like sitting in a recliner. Perfect. I was broke but for about ten bucks I could see a game and drink beer about thirty times a year.

RSN: Whether or not the team stays in Fenway Park or builds a new home is a huge question for ownership. You comment in the updated edition of RSC that the current regime has distanced itself from the Yawkey era, and Fenway is in many ways representative of the past. Although there seem to be indications that they want to stay in Fenway, do you see it as being a feasible long-term commitment?

GS: When I decided to move about a year after I got out of college, I was torn between going to Chicago because of Wrigley Field or Boston because of Fenway -- but I was determined to come to a city with an old ballpark. I had more friends in Boston so that’s where I went. But personally, at this point I think Fenway may make it harder for the team to win. I’m not sure that it’s a coincidence that the two teams in the two oldest Dead Ball Era ballparks have both been shutout from championships since the lively ball. Fenway, in particular, is very demanding -- huge in right, small in left, and far too tempting to tailor a team to the ballpark, one with right-handed power and left-handed hitters who can go the other way, both of which don’t translate as well on the road. I think staying in Fenway is feasible financially -- people will pay any price now that Fenway has morphed into a tourist destination like a museum, despite the fact that it is horribly uncomfortable and hard to take little kids or the elderly to -- but it may not be feasible in terms of the larger goal, which presumably is to win.

RSN: You talk about that in RSC, how Wrigley and Fenway have come -- for some -- to personify the teams, and that perhaps winning is secondary to the experience of a day spent at the ballpark. Most “true” fans don’t think that way, but doesn’t it still seem that something would be lost -- at least in a poetic sense -- if the Series was finally won in a park other than Fenway (or Wrigley)?

GS: They didn’t complain in Pittsburgh when they won in Three Rivers and not Forbes Field; they didn’t complain in Cincinnati when they won in Riverfront and not Crosley Field; they didn’t complain in Philly when they won at the Vet and not in the Baker Bowl. I think most Sox fans would trade Fenway for a championship, straight up. And if you look at it historically, there has never been a big world championship celebration in Fenway -- shenanigans in both 1912 and 1918 made those victories less than satisfactory (Fenway wasn’t full either time) and in 1915 and 1916 they played at Braves Field. Maybe it’s not meant to be in Fenway.

RSN: A Red Sox vs Cubs World Series could be the best theater the game has ever seen. RedSoxNation.net's fearless leader, Nuf Ced McGreevey, has opined that such a match-up would have the networks portraying the Billy Goat playing Babe Ruth's piano -- and that may be an accurate projection. But would losing the Series to the Cubs be the worst thing that could happen to this franchise?

GS: I think a Cubs/Sox World Series would be over-hyped to the point it would almost be unendurable -- definitely a Series to watch only with the sound off and with the newspapers left piling up in the driveway. But I don’t think losing to the Cubs would be worse than what happened last year -- let’s face it, the ALCS was the World Series last year, the Red Sox and Yankees were the two best teams in baseball and that series was one of the most compelling in the history of the game.

RSN: When Pedro Martinez left the mound for the final time in 2003, he had just given up a game-tying bloop hit on his 123rd pitch. In game 4 of the 1975 World Series, Louis Tiant constantly worked himself out of jams in throwing a 163 pitch complete game victory. What was the difference between those two pitchers, and the outings themselves?

GS: The difference is the difference in salary between Pedro and Tiant -- $17 million dollars? Tiant was disposable -- back then, most players were, and you were expected to finish what you started if you could and there was no attendant dependence on a “closer.” But today, players like Pedro are investments that must be protected. As a result today’s pitchers are babied to protect the investment. They don’t have any experience pitching with the kind of fatigue that happens when you throw that many pitches. Pedro was still throwing hard in the eighth inning, but his location was off and he couldn’t put people away. Tiant, even wasted, had the guile to get guys out. Pedro has a smaller bag of tricks. Until very recently I pitched a lot of amateur baseball, and believe me, if you don’t learn to pitch differently above 100 pitches or so, you get shelled. Tiant knew how; Pedro didn’t. For me, the real key play was actually Wilson’s ground ball to Millar in the seventh, that tough play where the ball bounced foul after passing the bag. Instead of just flipping the ball to Pedro, Millar slipped and fell down.. That forced Pedro to face Soriano and throw another six or seven pitches, tough pitches, at the end of an inning where his fatigue was already starting to show. Then Johnson really worked him to lead off the eighth. By then, he was gassed.

RSN: The 1967 “Impossible Dream” team was as beloved and storybook as any in team history. How do they compare to the 2003 squad in terms of team chemistry and the adoration of the fans?

GS: I don’t think the 2003 team compares at all, really. I think much of the vaunted “chemistry” was marketing BS, the result of a protective press and the club’s ability to keep problems below the radar. 1967 was real and genuine and happened all on its own. 1967 will never be forgotten; 2003 will just be another year in the larger view, albeit a painful one.

RSN: What is your opinion of the 2003 Red Sox?

GS: Personally, I never bought into last years’ team. I never saw they were all that different from dozens of Sox clubs’ over much of the last century -- they were a slow, poor defensive team built around hitting and self-obsessed stars with not enough pitching. I didn’t see anything new in any of that.

RSN: Of the last 50 years, which Red Sox team do you feel was the most talented?

GS: I think it’s the 1986 team, although the 1975 Sox had a better lineup and batting order, they didn’t have the pitching of the ’86 team. It seems that every time the Sox have a really talented team, so does someone else. And when there really is no dominant team, the Sox haven’t been able to take advantage. For some reason, this team always stops a player or two short. Last years’ club reminded me a lot of the Sox of ’46 or ’48, a club that was the equal of any for the first 19 or 20 spots on the roster, built to win over the long haul or a regular season, but one that didn’t have the full roster needed to win the close games in the post season, when everyone has to contribute. I mean, Little was afraid to use guys like Sauerbeck and Suppan at the bottom of the roster. The Yankees played with 25 men, the Sox played with 20. The Yankees final at bat went to Aaron Boone and they still had a stud on the mound. The Sox last at bat went to Doug Mirabelli and they were forced to use a starter, Wakefield, at the end of the game. It never should have come down to that.

RSN: If you owned the team, whose numbers would be added to those retired on the facade in right field?

GS: In some way, and this is before they wore numbers, I think you need recognize the most successful manager in the history of the franchise, Bill Carrigan; the clubs’ first manager/GM and greatest third baseman, Jimmie Collins; and pitcher Cy Young. Then you put up Jimmie Foxx’s number, and Tony C’s because of the tragedy and his local ties, and then Johnny Pesky for the lifetime achievement of being a human being. I’m against arbitrary rules that determine who can and who can’t get his number retired, particularly since they rigged it for Fisk. It’s more of a feel thing. Rice probably makes it someday, as do Tiant and Evans. And like it or not, eventually Boggs and Clemens have to be there or their absence will become an even bigger story. But I would paint over the Morse code on the scoreboard.

RSN: Red Sox fans have been lucky to experience games through the eyes and voices of a wonderful array of announcers. Among them are Ned Martin and Ken Coleman, neither of whom -- for almost inexplicable reasons -- has won the prestigious Ford Frick award for excellence in broadcasting. Is this a wrong that you see someday being righted?

GS: Well, I wouldn’t call anything named after Ford Frick necessarily prestigious. And although I realize many people feel differently, the whole question of “who makes it into the Hall of Fame,” in any category -- as player, broadcaster, or journalist -- is something that doesn’t really interest me. I appreciate the Hall for the library and the photo archive, period. All the “stuff” leaves me a little cold, and the politics behind the way the Hall is operated, who is enshrined and who isn’t, for me makes those kind of honors sort of meaningless. Merit isn’t as important as other factors.

RSN: Did you grow up listening to Coleman and Martin?

GS: I grew up in Ohio and really didn’t live up here when Coleman was broadcasting. I knew him primarily as the voice of the Cleveland Browns. I hated the Browns, so I never heard much of Coleman. Ned Martin didn’t bother me, but I think it makes a real difference if you grew up with a broadcaster. I listened to Bob Prince do Pirate games as a kid, and have always though he was the best I ever heard. I think baseball announcers today are generally awful across the board, but particularly on network TV. Excruciating.

RSN: The team has also been covered by an outstanding array of journalists. That said, these knights of the keyboard have not always been on the best of terms with the men they cover. How do the Dave Egans of yesterday compare with the writers covering the team today?

GS: In this instance the times do make a difference, because their roles have changed so much that it is really impossible to compare eras. And, because of my role as Series Editor of the Best American Sports Writing series, it really isn’t appropriate for me to get too specific about the guys writing today. But I will say that as far as I’m concerned the Golden Era of Boston baseball writing was from the turn of the century to about 1920 -- there were eight or nine daily papers in town plus Baseball Magazine, which was published here. Boston had the best baseball writing and reporting in the country then -- Tim Murnane, Walter Barnes, Shannon, a guy named Frederic O’Connell who died young, and others -- even Ring Lardner was here for a while. But in the 1920s the New York writers were the best of the group -- Broun, Runyon, Kieran, etc etc, then later Red Smith, Dick Young and others. The best writing was in NY from the 1920s into the 1970s. During that same time period sports writing in Boston was very parochial. Guys like Harold Kaese were ahead of their time -- he kept incredible stats -- but most of the columnists, like Bill Cunningham and Austen Lake, weren’t stylish writers. They were entertaining if you lived here, but almost impenetrable from the outside, self-obsessed with their own role. I think some of that self-obsession still exists. In general, Boston spends far too much time looking inward, reporting on itself, with the media looking at the mirror and making itself the story. In the 1970s, with Gammons and Montville, plus Collins and others, the Globe obviously made great strides and became relevant again, as did the Herald behind people like Tim Horgan and Charlie Pierce, who, like George Kimball, came from the alternative press. Thank god it’s still a two-paper town, particularly now that the Times owns part of the Sox. Many Boston writers of that era became national figures not so much because of their ability, but simply because there were former Boston people in places of authority at Sports Illustrated and ESPN -- they had the connections, and to some degree that’s still true today. But I think it is also significant that there’s room enough for other Boston-centric writers not completely dependent on the newspapers -- and still enough left unwritten to write about, and obviously a sizable enough market, to keep guys like myself, Charlie Pierce, Bill Littlefield, Bill Simmons and some others busy.

RSN: What about your own writing? Is there anything you’d like to share on that?

GS: I’m asked a lot why I never wrote for the newspapers. Well, when I got out of college I gave that a shot, but unemployment was about ten percent and it was impossible. Sort of by accident I started free-lancing while I was working at the Boston Public Library and I got incredibly lucky – I’ve sold everything I’ve written, have never been without an assignment for eighteen years and have either written, ghostwritten or edited nearly sixty books since 1991, some two million published words. I’m damn proud of that. At one point a long time ago I was asked by a person with juice enough to have made it happen if I wanted a job with the Globe. I said no because and I have never wanted any job just because I knew somebody and didn’t want to give up my independence for a grind. Now I’m too busy with books to even write articles. I’ve been a full-time writer since 1993, moved to Lake Champlain in Vermont last year and have the best life possible. My commute is about fifteen feet to my office and my seven-year old daughter plays on the floor while I work. I have been incredibly lucky, but I’ve worked for it, too.

RSN: Although Egan was well known for his feuds with Ted Williams, you wrote in Impossible Dreams of how he also had a side many aren’t aware of -- a more compassionate one that was sympathetic to Ted and championed the integration of the game. Can you tell us a little about that?

GS: Egan, like Harry Frazee, is always vilified by people who simply don’t know the facts and don’t care to check. In Egan’s case it’s primarily because of Ted Williams’ ghostwritten and error-filled “My Turn at Bat,” which throws a lot of blame Egan’s way for “mistreating” Ted. Well, I’ve actually read Egan and spoken to people who knew him and that portrait is incomplete. Like all the other writers of the time Egan was usually positive, but with six or seven newspapers being published at the time someone was always blasting Ted. Egan was probably the best pure writer in the sports pages of his era, so his words got remembered. He made many of his contemporaries jealous, but sadly, he was also something of a troubled guy, an alcoholic. But he steered the ship and the other writers wrote in his wake. Ted, really, was one of the guys the local media most protected, but he couldn’t stand a single word of criticism. If they had written all that they could have, they could have destroyed Ted – he wasn’t a particularly nice or good guy all the time – today, he’d never survive it. Egan’s criticisms stuck because they were the most pointed.

But Egan was also fearless, with an extraordinary moral sense for the time. He didn’t care what people thought of him. In 1945 he started taking baseball on in regard to integration and pointing the finger at Tom Yawkey -- no one else in Boston did. The NAACP even honored him for his efforts in this area. I’m convinced that’s one reason why Egan’s reputation suffered the way it did later. He pissed powerful people off so after he died they trashed him.

RSN: In Impossible Dreams : A Red Sox Collection you document the relationship between the media and the Red Sox over the last 100 years. I found of interest Paul Shannon's column in the Boston Post from January 5, 1920 that indicated that the players on the Red Sox were overjoyed Ruth had been sold. Eighty-four years later, can we put that in perspective?

GS: Hey, over the winter Kevin Millar seemed pretty happy Nomar was going, so some things never change. Ruth was a huge talent but also a huge pain in the ass. He didn’t follow the rules that everybody else had to. That always makes teammates mad, particularly when he skipped out on them at the end of the season to play exhibitions to fill his own pockets. Besides, without Ruth there was more money to pay the rest of them. The fact is, no Sox players really complained at the time.

In a way, Impossible Dreams is sort of a “source book” for RSC. It lays out some of the evidence, provides what I think is some of the most essential writing about the team, by the people that actually reported on them. I purposely did not include any of the overtly literary garbage that has been draped over the Red Sox. It’s not genuine, and doesn’t reflect reality.

RSN: In RSC you estimate that the $250,000 Tom Yawkey paid for Joe Cronin would be equal to $37,500,000 in 1999 dollars. Given this, just how wealthy was Tom Yawkey? And using the same formula, did Harry Frazee really have any choice not to accept Ruppert’s offer to buy Ruth?


Harry Frazee, center, with two stars from the 1918 Red Sox, Stuffy McInnis (left) and Jack Barry.

GS: Just to be clear, that’s when compared as a percentage of the national GNP, rather than cost of living, but still an accepted way to measure wealth. It’s a good question, but since Frazee wasn’t broke, he didn’t absolutely need to sell for financial reasons, but the sale served purposes beyond the financial as well, particularly in regard to his long complicated political war with the powers that be in the American League. The whole sale, as outlined in RSC, is far more complicated. You have to understand that Frazee was already a millionaire, already a success.

RSN: Was there ever any discussion of bringing the Babe back as either a coach or manager?

GS: Only press speculation. By the time Ruth retired, Yawkey owned the Red Sox and he had no interest in bringing Ruth back.

RSN: Among your books is -- dare I say it -- Yankee Century. Given your obvious affinity for the Red Sox, how difficult was it to write?

GS: Not at all . Of the nearly sixty sports books I’ve either edited, written or ghostwritten, I’ve done four Red Sox related books, four Yankee related books, and two Dodger related books. If I do another team history it will probably be about the Giants, which will lead Dodger fans to ask a question similar to yours. I am a writer, and I take that very seriously. You can’t write as a fan and I don’t -- there’s no room for that, it is inappropriate, and just doesn’t work. If you do, you’ll write a bad book and there are plenty of those out there and more on the way, because if you write as a fan you are going to skirt the truth of things.

RSN: Can you elaborate on that?

GS: I think this is an area where fans just don’t understand how the media has to work. You do your job and you try to do it without prejudice, no matter what your background. Plus, when you either report on a team full-time or research the history of a team to the degree I do, the whole “fan” thing drops away -- you end up knowing too much to be a fan in the same way most fans are fans. You start to take an intellectually critical view of things (which is not the same as criticism). The integrity of the work becomes the goal and you become a fan of the game or a fan of the moment, not a fan based on the question of who wins and who loses and who you like best. But unless and until you’ve done it that may be difficult to understand. It is not dissimilar to the emotional distance a doctor has to develop to treat his patients.

In regard to both the Red Sox and the Yankees, in the wake of both Red Sox Century and Yankees Century, at times each organization has tried to pull some pretty nasty stuff to deep-six the books and screw up my ability to make a living. That tends to eradicate any soft and fuzzy feelings. They are both extremely uncomfortable with any book that isn’t a complete Valentine.

RSN: Is either team more interesting to write about?

GS: I think the Red Sox are, which is why I enjoy writing about them. Their history and ongoing story are incredibly rich. The Yankees, obviously, are the most successful team, so they demand to be written about. And the Dodgers are perhaps the most essential team to the history of the game. And when you do Red Sox history, in many instances you are doing Yankee history and when you do Yankee history you’re doing Red Sox and Dodger history and when you’re doing Dodger history you’re doing Giants history. There’s so much overlap you become interested and form questions you want to answer. I have written the big team histories because there simply weren’t books out there that answered the questions I had -- you write the books you hope to read. And I hope that each leads to other books written by other people so the pool of knowledge increases.

RSN: How do you decide what goes into a book?

GS: I just try to write what I find. I try not to have any preconceptions. For example I didn’t set out to debunk the curse -- I expected to write that story. But since I begin at the beginning, and don’t base what I write on what others have written in books, but on primary research, I simply found that the facts told a different story. What is gratifying is that I’ve had Red Sox fans tell me they like the Yankee book better, and Yankee fans tell me they like the Sox book better. And Yankee fans accusing me of being a Red Sox guy and Sox fans accusing me of being a Yankee guy. For fans of each, you have to know your enemy, right? And since each book was detested by the organizations themselves, I must be doing something right. I actually grew up a Pirates fan, watching the Columbus Jets in the International League -- Pesky managed their 1968 team, which included Richie Hebner, Dave Cash, Bob Robertson, Al Oliver, Manny Sanguillen and Freddie Patek -- six solid major leaguers. But they had no pitching, and finished second. The Pirates, unfortunately, haven’t given me anything to cheer about since Tim Wakefield was clean-shaven. Then later, after college, I spent the 1981 strike season selling tickets over the phone for the Columbus Clippers (the Jets were gone by then) -- the Yankees farm club. I didn’t make any money, but got to watch every game from a box seat behind the plate for free.

RSN: Baseball is obviously important to you.

GS: For some reason, as long back as I can remember, baseball has always been a big part of my life. I played until two years ago and really want to start again, if my body can take it. The best thing I ever ever did was start playing again when I was about 34 -- I realized I didn’t know jack about the game. I like playing far far more than watching it. There is nothing as challenging physically, emotionally and spiritually as pitching. It takes everything. Anything less, and you fail. Writing is like that, too.

RSN: Last question: Can we expect to see another edition of Red Sox Century next year if we win the Series in 2004? And after that chapter has been added, will it ever be necessary to write more?

GS: If it happens, you will -- but I don’t think it will happen. There are, by my count, seven books already in the works about either the Sox/Yankees rivalry or this season. That’s the kiss of death, like painting the logo on the field.

But there’s always more to write. Always.





Other books by Glenn Stout include