Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Grady Little (2003 ALCS)

[Music] hi everybody I'm Brian Kenny and welcome to ESPN classics top five reasons you can't blame in 2003 the Red Sox had their best shot in almost two decades at breaking the curse of the Bambino with 95 regular season wins under manager Grady little Boston met the Yankees in the ALCS fast-forward to Game seven the Red Sox up 5-2 and little sends out his ace Pedro Martinez to pitch the eighth inning with one out the Yankees pull within two runs although Martinez has thrown more than 100 pitches little leaves him on the mound and at this point you know the rest New York ties it up and goes on to win the pennant on Aaron Boone's 11th inning home run before we count down the top five reasons you can't blame Grady little for the Red Sox losing the ALCS let's take a look back at why nearly all of New England did [Applause] it was the time when the Red Sox looked like they were ready to overtake the Yankees one to nine Muses tubs alive as your fine Phil Miller that third base Nomar Garciaparra at shortstop Ortiz Manny Nixon Varitek that was a line up to top to bottom was just stacked in 2003 the Red Sox led the majors in runs and batting average earning a wild-card berth they rallied from a 2o deficit to beat Oakland in the American League Division Series next Boston's bitter rival the New York Yankees they met four years earlier in the American League Championship Series there's kind of a one-sided deal the Yankees won out in five this is kind of both teams finally being on a level playing field these swings and it's a long high drive deep down the left-field line hooking into the corner that ball is gone not personality is that we didn't fear anybody we had our own swagger I think that we carried with us and we expected to go in there and win that series head to head during the regular season the Yankees held a 10-9 edge but when the Red Sox came back in the Bronx to tie the playoff series at three games they looked like a team of destiny when they won Game six all of a sudden there was this tremendous belief that the Red Sox could win Game seven they had their ace on the mound game 7 was I mean it was a matchup that you could only ask for you got to Hall of Famers going at each other Pedro Martinez Roger Clemens in Yankee Stadium it was huge the Red Sox jumped ahead three nothing off Roger Clemens in the second inning going into the bottom of the eighth the Red Sox had a comfortable 5-2 lead with seven strong innings from Pedro Martinez he cranked it up for the last hitter he points to this guy he embraces teammates mentally he had hung up his spikes I was actually told I wasn't gonna go back out you ever seen a gutsy ER performance when Pedro is shown tonight they had a lead going into the egg they had a three-run lead going into the eighth and it seemed like there was no way they could lose and even the most optimistic Yankee fan is figure in dishes the year tension mounting at Yankee Stadium first better than the offending Nick Johnson pops up so now it's five outs to go to get to the World Series pitch is swung on at 1:00 a deep grape field lichte going back away back and over his head I felt like that we were gonna win no matter what happened something always magical seems to happen at Yankee Stadium [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the Red Sox bullpen had performed superbly throughout the postseason and you had three guys out there when Mike Timlin had basically pitched a perfect game in the postseason Williamson is probably gonna be your closer Embry's an option and that had been the formula [Music] when he first came out when he first appears out of the dugout people assumed that that's it Patos coming out of the game I wrote the change in my score book I assumed there was gonna be changed in score book he asked if he's alright I was right there and Pedro said I'm fine you know cuz he's the champion he's never gonna say oh yeah coach I'm hurting take me out when he left and I turned to my daughter said that is the dumbest move people were just they were throwing their keyboards up up in the air in the press box it was I mean this was not second guessing this was first guessing everybody was saying wow he's just set himself up for disaster here he wasn't managing with his eyes because it was clear that Pedro was losing it [Applause] he was know at that point his career that Pedro really started to go south after about the 105th hundred and six pitch great a little refused to look at statistics in any way [Applause] and the pitch to Posada that he had in the center field 123 pitch to Pedro throwing the night with the game tied at 5 Martinez who allowed hits to seven of the last nine batters was done but the drama continued into the eleventh inning could have been tim wakefield as the goat but I just think given the how enormous of a lead that is going into the eighth inning if you're gonna second-guess anything that is when you have to pinpoint as soon as he he left Pedro in there to take his lumps we knew it was all gonna come down to Grady Pedro wanted to stand there he wanted to get the job done just as he has many times forth all season long and he's the man we all wanted on the mountain after all year pulling Pedro out sixth inning seventh inning max every time when it really mattered he left a minute and explicably Pedro wanted a pitch and Grady didn't step up and take him out I don't think he had the stones to pull the trigger you can blame Grady because it was such an obvious decision he just flat-out froze that cost him that cost him a game that cost him a series that cost him a chance at the World Series and ultimately cost Grady little his job you've just seen why people do blame Grady little for the red sox losing the pennant to the yankees before we present the top five reasons you can't blame him here are a few that missed the cut the moose was loose here comes Joe choy so that's gonna be it for Roger Clemens with the Yankees trailing for nothing in the fourth Mike Mussina made the first relief appearance of his 13-year career in Mike Mussina of all people comes out of the bullpen and strikes out Jason Varitek and that Johnny Damon would get into them only five double plays all season hits into a double play to end that inning and to come in just middle game and give them three shoutings for the team realizes how beat that was and that's why they want us read our other best of the rest trot Nixon the Boston right fielders defensive lapse in the eighth opened the floodgates Yankee Stadium is probably never sound quite so desperate and then that Derek Jeter gets ahold of Pedro's fastball trot Nixon took a bad angle for it it looked like the ball was going to be caught it's the same ball 100 times trot Nixon might catch that 90 times he didn't get a very good jump on the balls really take a great angle on the ball actually got fooled by the ball and all of a sudden was over Nixon's head and rolled to the wall for double that started the rally the curse of Don Zimmer during the five seasons he managed the Red Sox bad things tended to happen when they played the Yankees especially in 1978 Wow 78 that was a tough year the Red Sox you know built up this incredible lead 14 game lead we just slowly slowly caught up with them shimmer shimmer ruined it Zimmer kind of ran the Red Sox into the ground and he was running the same guys out there every day then the last day the last game the playoff game one pitch told that whole story fast forward to the 2003 ALCS its Game three and Zimmer now 72 is the Yankees bench coach as he watches from the dugout a duel of sorts is underway out on the mound emotions are high as it is it doesn't take much for something everything broke loose Manny overreacted and the bench is cleared and remembers looking at a corner of my eye and seeing Zim and I almost said you know you stay here but I know he wouldn't the Red Sox come pouring out of their dugout Don Zimmer and foul ground crazy little Zimmer comes bombing out of the dugout literally running full-speed to try to attack the smallest member of the men try to punch me spice step aside did not throw a punch he could have really hit her with a quick two-piece like bam bam but he had respect for the zoomin Zim was actually sort of coming closer so I'm just like I'm kind of sleepy where can I lay down Pedro just sit right here it looked to me like the bullfight like a bullfighter with an old late I'd move he didn't really know where he was at he said that you know Pedro and hit him that's what he told me while I was home one of my backburner theories is that all that effort that he took this rogue Zimmer he probably burned up some good pitches that he had left he might have got through Game seven if he hadn't have made that toss it certainly was ironic you gotta run out of town for them blowing that lead in 1978 he would be at the center of that controversy look if you're a Red Sox fan you wanted to believe anything have we begun to change your mind yet if not take a look at reason number four the leaky pen the Red Sox closer by committee arrangement didn't provide Grady little with an overwhelming sense of security he was scared to death his bullpen would be Scott Norwood wide right [Applause] we didn't have a whole closer we had Alan Embree and Mike Hillman who were throwing the ball well but it was kind of by committee and the playoffs especially the closer is enormous absolutely enormous in 2002 who get Urbina saved 40 games for the Red Sox but when the free agent signed with Texas after the season he wasn't replaced Boston GM Theo Epstein pinned his bullpen hopes on a flexible rotation of relievers it was definitely a flawed idea bye-bye Theo Epstein there as far as you know the closure by committee has never worked that's one of the worst concepts in the history of baseball is closer by committee it was a radical approach it was one that a lot of people front on it blew up on them very early in the year [Applause] library manager rides hot hands and rides hunches and that's wonderful but I don't think you want to entrust the ninth inning of Game seven of any kind of series to a hunch and I think if we had a Mariano Rivera at that time a Billy Wagner robinette you know maybe you bring him in in a 2-out situation in eighth inning the Red Sox reporting if they had a closer of that quality I don't think there's any way that Grady leaves Pedro in the game he just didn't feel safe with whoever he was gonna bring in as simple as that the ghost of the Bambino for more than eight decades spooky visitations from the banished babe onto the Red Sox as gravy walks out to the mound he had the curse of the Bambino riding on his shoulders you can see all the ghosts accompanied him you can see Joe McCarthy along the 1949 pennant we can see Don Zimmer 1978 blown a 14 game lead and ultimately having his bacon cooked by Bucky Dent of all people and when he left Pedro in the game it was almost as if the curse had inflicted itself right at that moment on the Red Sox they got a hit here hit here bloop here and hid here I'm like maybe those ghosts are flying around here since the unforgivable act of selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees after the 1919 season Red Sox fans had been locked in purgatory Game seven of the 2003 ALCS who was merely another tantalizing episode in a long history of dashed hopes there's no question that the Red Sox had long had a capability of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory part of you thought maybe the threat Sox team is different but this was the Yankees this was the Red Sox we've all seen this movie before nobody was panicking on the bench and we'd always talked about in goof they're on it just wait for the ghosts to come and things are going to turn around it was inevitable that crazy little would make that decision this is Red Sox lore this is Red Sox history it was as inexorable as a great tragedy and of all the bitter disappointments over the years in Red Sox history it would be a hard to imagine that there has ever been anything as bad as this with three strong reasons in the books here is reason number two hey Jo Martinez almost everyone in New England believed he was the man including Grady little I think he would rather put all of his money on Pedro Pedro had been his money pitcher shoulders hurt he can hold the world on his shoulders fastball struck it out swinging when Grady came up this simple question was whether I could pitch to Matsui or not and I said yes of course I can pitch it a lot more he asked Pedro's without yo I paid a little dance I'm fine we'll go get this guy [Applause] you've got the best pitcher in baseball maybe 80% of the best pitcher in baseball is better than a hundred percent of somebody else the numbers tend to support littles decision of the next three hitters he would face with one out in the eighth inning only the first Derek Jeter had a career batting average over 200 against him that was a little fatigue in the last game but I still pushed is my last pitch in and then that game was 95 miles an hour my pager was dealing he's the best pitcher you have he's the best pitcher in any big game situation you'd want to have and great little understood that I didn't question it because it was Pedro in the mouth I'd seen Pedro get out of bases-loaded nobody out in the same situations great you made the right decision if you're going if you're going out to the mountain you got your ace out there and he says he's okay you're gonna say okay go let's go and you turn around and walk away you can't blame granola for this because if you're going to entrust 85 years of history in one man's arm who are you gonna give it to if he takes him out and the bullpen gives up the same runs and we beat the bullpen he's fired also he had no chance it would be one more question that went down in the annals of Red Sox history why did Grady little take out the best pitcher that's ever one unit Aaron bleeping boon like Bucky Dent's had done 25 years earlier foon hammered the final nail into Boston's coffin [Music] as improbable as Bucky Dent was to 1978 and to breaking Red Sox hearts all over new moon under 1978 Aaron Boone was equally improbable in 2003 as they say in Boston it was Bucky bleeping dynamic bleeping boon began to turn to the case where one of the least likely guys to hit a home run was the guy who won the series but yankee moon acquired from the Reds in late July was only two for 16 in the first six games of the ALCS this guy struggled he struggled most of the time he was with us Aaron Boone had been in a Mojave Desert of no hits he was absolutely terrible he struck out all the time he didn't get any clutch hits Boone's hitting was so light he didn't even start Game seven his 11th inning home run was all the more surprising because it came off Tim Wakefield whose knuckleball had frustrated the Yankees throughout the series and also completely confounded Boone who was over five against him Tim Wakefield they made him look foolish the two times the Wakefield has started against the Yankees I haven't been swinging great and I was on deck leading off the inning and hadn't had much success off a Wakefield then Wakefield who was we couldn't sniff him at all good boonie just think about hitting the ball to right field I was basically just trying to get ahead of him good strike one and he swung at the first pitch it was just off a little bit got a good pitch to hit [Music] I just had disbelief that it actually had happened I remember you know round the bases and thinking to myself you know so-called this and take it all in what was left was Aaron bleep and boom which was the direct descendant of Bucky Dent again and unheralded infielder getting an improbable homerun and the most incredible of circumstances with Aaron Boone hadn't come through there maybe the game goes on the Red Sox score actually win the series and save Grady littles job so there you have it the top five reasons you can't blame Grady little for the Red Sox losing the 2003 ALCS just 11 days after being beaten by the Yankees Boston fired its embattled manager of course the very next year new manager Terry Francona led Boston to its first World Series title since 1918 I'm Brian Kenny thanks for watching you

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Views: 41,883

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Id: 39OBpMkw5L4

Length: 21min 15sec (1275 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 12 2018