Is This The Year of the Improbable Dream?

by admin | August 8, 2025 9:03 am

I maintain a small Red Sox shrine near my desk, acquired over the years. There’s a Mr. Potato Head in uniform, holding a baseball glove in his right hand and a ball in his left. I was a left-handed baseball player, both batting and throwing, even though I do everything else right-handed — eating, playing tennis. That is why my Mr. Potato Head Red Sox guy is also left-handed. His arms are detachable.

A Big Papi bobblehead doll resides in the shrine. David Ortiz was a key player in the 2004 championship season that ended an 86-year World Series drought for the Red Sox. He went on to help the team win two more World Series championships in 2007 and 2013. We love Big Papi in this household and enjoy listening to him now in the broadcast booth. He is considered the greatest designated hitter in MLB history and was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

On the wall above the shrine is my framed ticket from Game One of the 2007 World Series at Fenway, along with a photo of the first pitch, which I snapped from my seat. Scratched that off the bucket list. Above is a classic black-and-white poster of left-fielder Leon Culberson making a leaping catch in front of the park’s iconic scoreboard in the left-field wall in 1943. The scoreboard’s numbers and letters are still turned by hand from inside the Green Monster. That could have been a fun retirement job.[1]

Below that poster is another of Carl Yastrzemski, my childhood hero, making a leaping catch in August 1967. That is the season known to Red Sox fans as the Impossible Dream. The team was a perennial American League doormat and had not made it to the World Series since 1946. As I have written before, my dad bought tickets to the second-to-last game of the season way back in April or May. We were inside Fenway for the September 1967 game in which the Red Sox pulled into a tie for first place with the Minnesota Twins. They won the next day and headed to the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Our principal at tiny Allenstown Elementary (13 in my seventh-grade class) set up a television in the cafeteria so we could watch the afternoon games. Those were the days, watching the Red Sox when we were supposed to be studying American history.

Alas, they lost. The Curse of the Bambino continued.

Yaz had his greatest season in 1967, the year the photo on my wall was taken. He won the Triple Crown, leading the league in batting average, home runs, and RBIs. I have a lucite-encased autographed baseball in the shrine: Carl Yastrzemski, TC 1967. Like Big Papi, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

I pretended to be Yaz as a kid, bouncing a rubber ball off our neighbor’s barn wall, making leaping catches, or bouncing a Super Ball as high as I could and trying to gather in a fly ball. Yaz and I practically share a birthday, just a day apart. He will be 86 on Aug. 22, the day before my birthday. That was my paternal grandfather’s birthday as well. Neither he nor my grandmother — both of whom indoctrinated me into the Red Sox Nation long before it had that name — lived long enough to see the team win a World Series.

We are again headed to New England this weekend, which in my heart will forever be home, to enjoy fresh seafood, cooler climes (fingers crossed on that one), visit new places, and treasured old ones. Like Fenway Park, where once again we will be seated, a few days before Yaz and I clock another birthday. It is a shrine I intend to visit at least annually as long as I am able. I feel as if I am home when inside the park, drinking a Sam Adams beer, maybe eating a hot dog.

The Red Sox have been on a tear in July and through early August. As of this writing, they have risen from the cellar of their division to just three games out of first. I have a good feeling about this season. As a lifelong fan, I know they could once again break my heart.

Let’s just call it the Improbable Dream for now, hope still beating strong in these dog days. In a few days, we’ll be sitting in Fenway, chanting while clapping, “Let’s Go Red Sox!” Life will be good.

Source URL: https://garyborders.com/pages/is-this-the-year-of-the-improbable-dream/

---