2001 BOSTON RED SOX
REVERSING THE CURSE, PART 3 ...
MANNY ARRIVES AS THE YAWKEY ERA CRASHES & BURNS ...
 

In the 2000 off-season, three notable free agents were on the market, the top player, by far, being Seattle shortstop Alex Rodriguez. But there was also the Baltimore pitcher Mike Mussina and Cleveland outfielder Manny Ramirez.

Rodriguez was out of reach with the money he was asking for, but Mussina was precisely the kind of player the Red Sox needed. To be paired with Pedro Martinez, a pitcher like Mussina could finally give the Red Sox a semblance of a rotation to compete with the Yankees. But after Mussina teased both the Mets and the Red Sox, he signed with the Yanks. So the Red Sox turned their sights on Manny Ramirez.

Dan Duquette signed Manny to an enormous eight-year contract worth $160 million, and then went out and added pitcher Hideo Nomo for one year at $4.5 million. He spent nearly another $20 million on a host of others: David Cone, Tim Wakefield, Frank Castillo and so on.

It was supposed to be a celebration year.  The Red Sox franchise was 100 years old. The new Fenway Park was dead and suddenly it was no problem to push the payroll to $110 million. The Yawkey Trust, John Harrington and Duquette were clearly trying to buy themselves a going away present and create a legacy to justify the five decades of the Yawkey tradition, while Duquette was undoubtedly looking to simultaneously secure a job with the future administration.

The Red Sox had a lot of questions, but the acquisitions were intriguing. While neither Nomo nor Cone were Mussina, in combination they had the potential to solidify the starting rotation. And the prospect of Manny batting behind Nomar, who had just won his second consecutive batting title, and in front of Carl Everett, had the Red Sox fans drooling.

But David Cone pitched inconsistently, and Manny hit well, but first balked at moving from right-field to left-field, and then after he did, he complained and wanted to just serve as the designated hitter. It was all considered "Manny being Manny", which became a constant theme throughout his career.

Then came spring training and even before the Red Sox had left Fort Myers, Carl Everett had been suspended for skipping a bus trip, Nomar had undergone surgery for a split tendon in his wrist, an injury that had bothered him in the past season. Dante Bichette next asked Duquette to trade the former National League RBI champion, after manager Jimy Williams denied him the job he had expected, as a full-time designated hitter. All this, and the new season had not even started.

The 2001 season would play out in a rough imitation to the 2000 season, but now minus the same optimism at the start. At the start, all eyes turned toward Hideo Nomo, who tossed a no-hitter at the Baltimore Orioles on April 4th, the second game of the season. When it ended with left fielder Troy O'Leary running down a shallow fly ball, Nomo flicked his glove in a modest gesture of pride and was mobbed by his exultant teammates. Even Oriole fans in the crowd at Camden Yards joined Sox loyalists in a frenzied salute to Nomo and his gem.

The no-hitter was the first one for the Red Sox, since a chilly Fenway September afternoon in 1965 when Dave Morehead tossed the last no-hitter. It was the first on the road by a Sox pitcher since Bill Monbouquette's at Chicago in 1962. Nomo became the fourth pitcher to throw no-hitters in both leagues. The other three are in the Hall of Fame: Cy Young, Jim Bunning, and Nolan Ryan. It delivered a joyful respite to a team that has been haunted in the spring by injuries and internal unrest. 

At the Fenway home opener on April 6th, Manny struck the first pitch thrown to him, as a member of the Sox at Fenway, and scorched it over the Green Monster for a three-run homer. The Sox went on to an 11-4 victory.  Pedro picked up his first win on April 8th, by shutting out Tampa on 3 hits and 16 strikeouts.

The Sox stifled the Yankees, on April 16th, for their third victory in four games against the defending world champions, and they completed an 8-2 homestand, in which they lifted themselves from the brink of an early-season abyss into a first-place tie with Toronto in the AL East on Patriots Day.

On April 20th, Pedro faced the Devil Rays for the first time since his brawl with Gerald Williams. Pedro was cruising and at one point, he struck out nine of 10 batters. But he slowly developed a blister on the middle finger of his pitching hand, and was pulled after he surrendered two hits to lead off the seventh. The Sox swept the Devil Rays, going 11-2 in their last 13 games, and taking a one game lead in the AL East.

The team headed into Yankee Stadium. In the first game on April 20th, Hideo Nomo had a bad night, a very bad night. A night so bad he gave up a gargantuan grand slam to Tino Martinez after walking the bases loaded in the first inning.

The Sox bounced back in the second game.  Trailing 3-2, Manny won an epic 12-pitch battle against Mike Mussina to start a pivotal four-run rally in the fourth. And Shea Hillenbrand delivered the big hit in the inning, a bases-loaded, two-run double, leading to an 8-3 win.

In the third game, Derek Lowe went disastrously adrift, blowing a 3-2 lead by surrendering two solo home runs in the bottom of the 10th inning and handing the Yankees a jarring 4-3 victory that left him red-eyed and red-faced. Lowe had three of Boston's six losses this season. After an All-Star year in which he tied for the league lead in saves with 42, Lowe had started the season by losing three games, posting a 6.48 ERA, and allowed opponents to compile a .556 on-base average against him.

Back at Fenway against the Twins, what might have been, ended with Red Sox right fielder Darren Lewis sprawled on the outfield lawn in the seventh inning, a baseball by his side. In that instant, Hideo Nomo's bid to become the second big-leaguer in 28 years to pitch two no-hitters in the same season evaporated in the April breeze. Nomo went on to pitch a 2-0 shutout.

Against Kansas City, on April 27th, Carl Everett hit his second grand slam in four days and helped Manny propel the Red Sox to a runaway 9-2 victory over the Royals. With his sixth-inning grand slam, he became the first Sox player to hit two grand slams in a week since Nomar accomplished the feat in a single game on May 10, 1999.

Rookie Shea Hillenbrand hit safely in 22 of his first 24 major league games. And six of his last 10 hits had been for extra bases (four doubles, a triple, a home run).

After a two-week run atop the AL East, the Sox dropped an excruciating 11-inning decision to the Royals on April 29th, 11-8, ending a superb opening month and falling a half-game behind the Blue Jays into second place in the American League East.  Derek Lowe blew another save and gave up two more homers. Despite two more bombs by white-hot Manny (.408, nine homers, 31 RBIs), the Sox lost their second straight game for the first time this season.

Nevertheless in April, the Red Sox had ridden an easy early schedule into first place. As May started, Pedro narrowly outdueled Seattle lefthander John Halama and got some desperately needed run support from Manny, for a 2-0 victory over the surging Mariners at Safeco Field. Though Pedro (3-0) labored at times, his fastball reached 98 miles an hour as he struck out 12, including eight of nine from the fourth through seventh innings. Pedro had a career record of 8-0 with an 0.89 ERA against the Mariners. Pedro, after jump-starting the six-game West Coast swing with eight scoreless innings in the shutout of the Mariners, brought it to Oakland by holding the A's to four hits and a run in seven innings in a 5-4 Sox win on May 6th.

Manny hit nine homers for the Red Sox in April, giving him 20 in his last 48 games, going back into last year with the Indians. He was named American League Player of the Month for April.

On May 12th, behind Pedro's 3 hit pitching, the Sox knocked out 19 hits of their own, producing a 9-3 win over the Oakland A's that ended a three-game losing streak. The Sox continued the next day, May 13th, with a Jason Varitek walk-off homer to win the series with the A's.

In Minnesota, Manny hit for his 250th career home run. It was his 14th home run with two RBIs. The two RBIs gave him 52 in his 41st game. That makes him the quickest Sox player to that number since Walt Dropo, who had 50 RBIs in his first 36 games in 1950. He improved his batting average with two outs and runners in scoring position to .615 (16 for 26). His major league-leading 52 RBIs accounted for more than a quarter of the team's total of 203. And he had reached safely in 39 of the 41 games.

All but toying with the Royals lineup, Pedro scattered five hits and one walk as he halted a Sox losing streak for the third time this year at Kansas City on May 18th. In typically mesmerizing fashion, he struck out 12, including the side in the seventh, and did not allow a runner to reach second base until there were two out in the eighth.

On May 20th, in the final Royals series game, Jason Varitek joined the elite ranks of such Red Sox greats as Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski by slugging three home runs to power the Sox to a 10-3 victory. The Sox maintained a 1 1/2 game lead over the Yankees in the AL East, heading to Yankee Stadium.

In the first showdown game, the script went south on David Cone, who pitched well enough to inspire genuine hope in Red Sox country but got upstaged in a 7-3 loss by a trio of former teammates, Andy Pettitte, Bernie Williams, and Derek Jeter. In the second game. Pedro dominated the vaunted Yankee lineup, striking out 12 and spotting the Bronx Bombers only two measly runs in eight innings. However, the Yankees prevailed, when Mike Mussina outdueled him, 2-1, to boot the Sox out of first place in the American League East and bitterly end Boston's longest road trip with a 3-5 record.

On May 27th, the Red Sox celebrated their 100th anniversary at Fenway Park. The Sox and their fans had reason to celebrate the present with a well-pitched, defensively crisp 4-2 victory over the Blue Jays. Out trotted players and managers and scouts and coaches and general managers and assorted other front office types at Fenway Park in the celebration. There were video tributes to Ted Williams, recuperating from heart surgery in San Diego, and Bobby Doerr, who could not make it because of an illness in the family, and there were dozens who walked out from the corner deep in left field to seats set up along the warning track. Jerry Remy and Dick Radatz, Bill Monbouquette and Bob Montgomery, and Dom DiMaggio and Walt Dropo all were on hand. Out came Carlton Fisk, who joined the Hall of Fame last year, and finally captain Carl Yastrzemski.

The Yankees now came to Boston with first place on the line, the Sox 1/2 game out. On May 28th, the Sox sent out David Cone, the refugee from the Bronx, and lost 4-3, slipping 1 1/2 games behind the Bombers in the AL East. Serious questions about his value to the Sox, as Cone made an early exit after giving up three quick runs in an ugly debut on the Fenway stage in a Boston uniform. Manager Jimy Williams also seized a share of the blame after the Sox lost their fourth straight game to the Yankees. He made a frank admission that he erred in removing Dante Bichette (2 for 3 with a run scored) from the game with the score tied, 3-3, after seven innings. The Sox fell to 4-9 in one-run games, while the Yankees improved to 11-8, their 11 wins the league's most.

In the next game, there was much more at stake than Pedro's pride. He was winless in his last five starts since last June against the Yankees. But the Sox had lost their last four games this month against the Bombers. The Sox had incentive aplenty as they helped their ace hold off the Yankees, 3-0. allowed only four hits and one walk, and struck out 13, in eight scoreless innings. He joked about drilling a resurrected Babe Ruth in the butt.

A morale-building victory in Toronto on May 31st, allowed the Sox to finish May with a record of 13-13 and lifted them into a tie with the Yankees atop the AL East.

Powered by Manny, who smashed the longest home run in SkyDome history, and a crew of relievers who helped to spare their fellow warrior, David Cone, from another jarring defeat. When Chris Carpenter left a curveball in Manny's power zone, the slugger scorched a towering shot into SkyDome's upper deck in left. Only three other players, Jose Canseco (three times), Mark McGwire, and Joe Carter had belted balls to the same region. (Carlos Delgado and Shawn Green reached the fifth deck in right.) And Manny's shot, estimated at 491 feet, outdistanced them all. The Sox staged their fourth late-inning victory in as many days over the Blue Jays, 5-4, to seize a two-game lead in the American League East.

Back to Yankee Stadium for a make-up game on June 4th, where the Yankees scored a coup with Pedro all but relegated to irrelevancy, after manager Jimy Williams lifted him with a 4-3 lead after six innings, in one of the skipper's most controversial moves of the young season. With Pedro on ice, the Yankees stormed ahead, 6-4, and overcame a dramatic two-run homer by Manny in the top of the ninth, to seize a 7-6 victory when Luis Sojo poked a single down the right-field line off reliever Rod Beck with one out in the bottom of the ninth.

On June 7th, the season took a turn. In a potentially devastating blow, Jason Varitek fractured the radial head in his right elbow making a remarkable diving catch of a short pop by Shane Halter near the Sox on-deck circle. But in the game Tim Wakefield diiscombobulated the Tigers, holding them to one run over six innings and propelling the Sox to an 8-1 victory  in the rubber game of a three-game series at Fenway. In the process, he lowered his ERA to 2.12, second in the American League only to Pedro.

On the day Varitek underwent surgery to repair his fractured elbow, the Red Sox traded for a veteran backup catcher, acquiring Doug Mirabelli from the Texas Rangers for minor league pitcher Justin Duchscherer.  Along with Varitek, the Red Sox now were without Nomar, John Valentin and Lou Merloni.  In addition, Carl Everett was complaining for most of the year, and Dante Bichette, José Offerman and Mike Lansing were leaders of a group of disgruntled veterans, who thought their bloated contracts made them superstars.

In a virtuoso performance, on June 19th, Tim Wakefield (5-1) bedeviled the Rays for eight hitless innings before Randy Winn, reached for a diving knuckler on the outside corner, poking the pitch to left field to break up Wakefield's bid for a no-hitter.  After taking 2 of 3 from the Braves and sweeping three games from the Devil Rays, the Sox enjoyed a 4 game lead in the AL East on June 21st.

Two monster smashes by Manny in his first two at-bats, on June 23rd, including an estimated 501-foot screamer that struck the bank of lights above the Coke bottles in left field, that would have fallen an estimated just a foot short of Ted Williams' red seat in the right field bleachers, were not enough to beat the Toronto Blue Jays, who took the Sox three straight at Fenway. The shot was definitely longer than Manny's 492-foot job at SkyDome three weeks ago and made his first-inning shot off the tower in left-center (an estimated 463 feet) pale by comparison.

Trot Nixon, not to be overshadowed, smacked a come-from-behind grandslam to bring the Sox back against the Rays on June 26th, but on the next day, Pedro, with a 7-2 record and a sore shoulder, since he beat the Yankees at the end of May, went on the disabled list with tendinitis, an injury that would virtually come to end the Sox post season hopes.

After splitting with the Rays, the numbers weren't pretty. Twenty-three runs yielded in three games in their own yard to the worst team in baseball, Tampa Bay. Fourteen pitchers used. Pedro, Carl Everett and Frank Castillo on the disabled list. Hideo Nomo had just one victory in his last six starts.

In a Manny highlight, on July 2nd, his four RBIs and 25th home run (seventh this season against Toronto) highlighted a 16-4 Sox thrashing at SkyDome. With the victory, the Sox completed the first half of their schedule with a record of 48-33.

Manny was the only Sox player named to the American League All Star team.  Overlooked was Tim Wakefield. All he had done is emerge from the bullpen to post a 6-2 record and a 2.61 ERA, the league's second best.

The Sox had stayed ahead of the Yankees atop the AL East standings since their meeting a month ago, but at this point New York caught the Sox and began to pull away. At the All Star break, the one time Sox lead of four games three weeks previous, became a Yankee lead of 1 1/2 games.

Trot Nixon continued to shine in Carl Everett's absence. Nixon had 287 at-bats, batting .279 with 16 homers and 48 RBIs in that time. On July 18th, Nixon singled home the tying run with two outs in the seventh inning and doubled home the winner with two outs in the ninth as the Sox stormed from behind to bury the Blue Jays, 5-4, before a stunned crowd at SkyDome.

When Hideo Nomo picked up his fifth straight win on July 26th over the Jays, the victory improved his record to 7- 0 at Fenway and 11-4 overall. He had won five straight, all in July (a league best for the month), and the Sox were 10-0 behind him after losing the previous game.

Despite nearly 22 months of rust, Bret Saberhagen came back and allowed the White Sox only one run on three hits, including a bunt single in his first appearance of the season. He walked none and retired 14 straight batters after a harmless single in the first inning.

Derek Lowe, on the other hand, lead the major leagues with eight losses in relief. After a week that included a blown save, loss, and early exit, his only recent redeeming displays had been his 20th save and a hitless two-thirds of an inning in Chicago. The Red Sox didn't need perfection on the mound, they need a dependable closer. Tim Wakefield after three consecutive poor outings (0-3, 8.36 ERA), listened to whispers and queries of an impending move to the bullpen.

Although trailing the Yankees, the Red Sox were very much alive in the wild-card race and when Nomar returned on July 29th. Nomar hit a home run and delivered a game-winning, two-run single in his first game back in 10 months. He lined a 405-foot home run onto the black tarp that covers the seats in center field to tie the score, 2-2, in the sixth inning, then came up with the bases loaded and two out in the seventh and lined a single up the middle for two runs.

At the trading deadline on July 31st, the Sox bullpen again showed why Dan Duquette felt compelled to dive headlong into the trade bazaar. In yet another late-inning calamity, Rich Garces surrendered a two-run bomb to Anaheim slugger Troy Glaus that broke a 2-2 tie and propelled the Angels to a 4-3 victory at Fenway Park. The collapse marked the 21st relief loss of the season for the Sox, tops in the American League. Duquette made a last-ditch effort to save the season by dealing Tomo Ohka to Montréal for closer Ugueth Urbina.

Manny led the Sox in RBIs in July with 18 and home runs with eight, but his 33 strikeouts were the most by the righthanded slugger in any month of his major league career. He batted .280 in July, his second consecutive month below .300. After batting .408 in April, he batted .347 in May, .245 in June, .280 last month, and only .224 (15 for 67, 24 strikeouts) in 19 games since the All-Star break.

On August 2nd the Sox were swept in a home series by the Angels for the first time since 1974. The Sox squandered another prime chance to gain a game on the division-leading Yankees, who remained 4 1/2 games up. The Sox also dropped a half-game behind the Minnesota Twins in the wild-card race. Even the 2001 debut of Boston's vaunted 3-4-5 trio of Nomar, Manny, and Carl Everett, could not help the Sox overcome the performance of their pummeled pitching corps.

But on August 4th, bolstered by clutch starts from veterans David Cone and Tim Wakefield and all the offensive punch they needed, including eight home runs, the Sox swept a day-night doubleheader from the Rangers, to spring back from the canvas after being laid flat in the three-game disaster by the Angels.

Scott Hatteberg had himself quite a night on August 6th. With two men on base and no outs in the fourth inning, he ended a potential rally by hitting into a triple play. However, he then hit a grand slam, providing the runs that ultimately made the difference in winning the game, in his next at-bat.

On the west coast, the Sox bats fell silent as they lost three straight in Oakland. The A's trailed by 10 games in the wild-card race on June 26.  They now had a 1/2 game lead.

The time for patience has passed. With Carl Everett showing no signs of emerging from a terrible slump (6 for 41, .146) since returning from the disabled list, Jimy Williams said that Everett would not be the center fielder for the immediate future. Toward the end of May, Manny was hitting .414 and the talk was of batting titles and triple crowns. In 60+ games since, the Sox slugger was batting .242, and his on-base percentage and slugging percentage had also dropped precipitously, by 144 points and 225 points, respectively.

And of the three pitchers who started for Boston - Bret Saberhagen, Frank Castillo, and Tim Wakefield - only Wakefield made it past the fifth. Clearly the pitching staff need Pedro back. When Pedro last pitched, the Sox were 45-30 and led the Yankees by three games in the American League East. The Sox had gone 19-20 since and fallen 4 1/2 games behind the Yankees.

Then, there he was, Nomar answering an urgent call to his rarefied place among baseball's elite to humble himself and return to the leadoff spot in the Sox lineup on August 12th against the Orioles. Having lost four straight and 7 of 11, and his team bordering on full-blown impotence at the plate, having mustered only five runs in four games, the two-time American League batting champion granted an appeal from manager Jimy Williams, to abandon the comfort of batting third. In a victory about as ugly as they come, the rejiggered Sox lineup exploded for five home runs, including one by Nomar, to outlast the Orioles, 12-10. The win spared the Sox from going winless on a road trip for the first time in nine years.

At Fenway, a week after being swept by the Oakland A's, the Sox were facing the same fate against the Seattle Mariners, who kept the Sox in what was beginning to resemble a death spiral. The Sox were losers of six of their last seven games and five games behind the Yankees in the American League East, matching their biggest deficit of the season against the Bombers. The Sox had scored 10 runs in their last six losses, and had not had double figures in hits in the last seven games. Nomar and Manny hit one ball apiece out of the infield the last two nights, while the last six batters in the Sox' order were a collective 0 for 17.

The Sox then placed two more players on the disabled list: Brian Daubach, who was hospitalized with a staph infection in his right shin, and righthander Rolando Arrojo, who had a strained right shoulder.

On August 14th, the Carl Everett questionable moves added another chapter. After Seattle starter Jamie Moyer hit him with a pitch in the first inning, Everett jawed at Moyer and pointed toward the bleachers as if he were calling his shot. When Everett homered in the fifth inning, he barked at Moyer as he rounded the bases. And as he crossed the plate, Everett committed the offending act and spit toward Moyer.

Manager Jimy Williams wasn't going along with the Duquette plan. He kept using Derek Lowe and Rod Beck as the closers, and Duquette wasn't happy. Lowe and Beck once again incited the rage of Sox loyalists all by themselves. In a crushing turn of events, Lowe squandered a hard-won lead in the ninth inning by giving up three consecutive hits to let the Seattle Mariners tie the score. And Beck delivered the death blow by surrendering a three-run homer to Edgar Martinez in the 11th as the Mariners buried the Sox in a demoralizing act of futility at the Fens. Beck had given up an infield single and a walk to set the stage for Martinez's jarring blast on August 14th.

So, with only one win in their previous seven games, and the club's urgent quest for postseason glory in the final year of the Yawkey Trust's stewardship appearing imperiled, at least to the front office, on August 16th, Dan Duquette made a change and fired Jimy Williams. He then hired his pitching coach, Joe Kerrigan to a two-year contract. Under Kerrigan things would go from bad to worse.

On August 18th, on the theory that Boston's run production would improve with greater patience at the plate, Kerrigan instructed everyone except his four best first-pitch hitters, Nomar, Manny, Dante Bichette, and Carl Everett to exercise restraint and not swing at the first pitch. The message, it seemed, was lost on Mike Lansing. Because with the Red Sox nursing a fragile 2-0 lead in the sixth inning over the Orioles, Lansing uncorked a mighty cut at the first pitch he saw from Baltimore starter Jason Johnson and clubbed it for a three-run homer that propelled the Sox toward a sorely needed 5-1 victory.

Then before the team left for Anaheim the next day, reliever Hipolito Pichardo sprang a surprise on Kerrigan and his teammates when he informed them that he was quitting on the spot.

On August 23rd, one week after Kerrigan became manager, he celebrated his first genuine come-from-behind win by the Red Sox, a 7-6 victory over the Angels, that wasn't over until closer Ugueth Urbina stranded the tying run at third by striking out Tim Salmon. The Sox trailed, 4-0, when Troy O'Leary's single opened a three-run fifth. They were behind, 5-3, when O'Leary slapped a single to left that tied the score in the eighth, when the Sox scored four runs to seize the lead.

The next night in Texas, Trot Nixon touched them all in the eighth inning, as he smashed a tiebreaking grand slam that propelled the Sox to a 7-4 victory.

Off the field, in what was shaping up to be one of the most competitive sales in baseball history, the Red Sox received at least six initial bids from would-be owners, all of which were $300 million or more. Among those to file bids were: the Red Sox's current concessionaire, Philadelphia-based Aramark Corp., and South Boston landowner Frank McCourt; Cablevision chairman Charles Dolan; Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs; and separate groups led by Hollywood producer Tom Werner and John Henry, Boston Concessions owner Joseph O'Donnell and developer Steve Karp, and New York lawyer Miles Prentice.

Pedro returned on August 26th. When he left the game after throwing 71 pitches through four innings, the Red Sox trailed the Rangers, 3-0, on their way to a 5-4 defeat.

Things now got worse for the Sox on August 29th, when Nomar, who could not say with any certainty he would play again this season, was placed on the 15-day disabled list with inflammation in his surgically repaired right wrist.

Then on August 31st, on the heels of a five-game losing streak, the Sox had one last opportunity to salvage the season in a three-game series with the Yankees at Fenway Park. They lost the first game 3-1.  The loss was blamed on Kerrigan. Frank Castillo was removed after he had pitched seven shutout innings, thrown a measly 89 pitches, and retired the last 14 Yankees he faced. Kerrigan replaced Castillo with Derek Lowe (7.71 ERA against the Yankees) rather than Rich Garces (1.69). Kerrigan also put recent Triple A call-ups Izzy Alcantara and Allen McDill into a must win situation and then watched them fail.

The next night they suffered the worst defeat of their star-crossed season, a fall-from-ahead 2-1 loss, wasting a magnificent six-inning outing from Pedro. On the third night, after David Cone went pitch for pitch against Mike Mussina (who was one strike away from a perfect game) before losing on an unearned run in the ninth inning, 1-0, Dan Duquette fired the Sox pitching coach after the game.

Disgusted players and coaches whispered to each other or openly cursed. It was the event that crowned the worst weekend of the season. The Sox were swept and the organization was left exposed from top to bottom. The fragile clubhouse erupted, and even the self-absorbed members of the team had had enough. Nomar led the charge and was quickly quoted by the newspapers. The Sox then went into New York and lost three in a row just before the September 11th attacks happened.

When baseball started to be played again, the Sox continued their embarrassing spiral downward and over the final weeks of the season, the players yawned and spit out tobacco juice while "God Bless America" was sung at the emotionally patriotic ballparks.

Carl Everett finally charged Kerrigan with being a bigot, and Pedro was upset when Kerrigan wanted him to keep pitching, risking his shoulder, for a season that was already lost. In an embarrassing  fit of rage, Pedro ripped off his jersey and threw it onto the ball field.

Paxton Crawford held an infamous place in Red Sox history, after the pitcher fell out of bed and landed on the disabled list (he said he slipped and cut his abdomen). Crawford later admitted to using steroids and HGH while with the Red Sox. Back problems (which he blamed on steroid use) ultimately spelled the end for his career.

If the Red Sox had wanted to dishonor the Yawkey tradition in its final season of ownership, this season was it in spades. Everything that was ugly and wrong, went wrong in 2001.