For those that may wonder "How would an all-time Red Sox lineup stack up against some of the other all-time franchises in the majors?", you may enjoy following along with my "All-Time Greats" playoff series. I have decided to use only players from the live-ball era, so you won't see players who played their entire careers in the dead-ball era like Cy Young or Shoeless Joe Jackson with their franchise teams. For me, the discrepancies between the two baseball eras are too pronounced to blend the players. However, players that began their career in the dead ball era but had productive years in the 1920s like Ty Cobb, for example, are featured in this roster set. I actually made an "all dead-ball" team, placing players like Young and Jackson on the Arizona Diamondbacks just to say I included all of the greatest players in the game in this set.
This particular playoff mode features American League all-time teams from the Orioles, Yankees, Red Sox, Indians, and Tigers. The National League includes teams from the Dodgers, Cardinals, Pirates, Giants, and Braves franchises. After the wildcard playoff, the Braves and the Orioles were eliminated so the NLDS playoffs have the Cardinals against the Dodgers while the Pirates take on the Giants. In the American League, The Red Sox are hosting the Tigers, and the Yankees will face the Indians in the ALDS playoffs. Because this is a Red Sox blog, obviously I'll be featuring all of Boston's games, but you may also see some updates from the other series as well.
In Game 1 at Fenway Park, Jim Rice torched Detroit pitching for a pair of homers to lead the Boston Red Sox to a 8-3 drubbing of the Tigers to begin their ALDS series. Rice tallied 6 RBI in a game that featured long ball prowess by both clubs. One of Rice's homers was a 7th inning grand slam that paved the way for the series lead. Rice clubbed 8 grand slams in his hall of fame career, and also led the American League in homers three times - 1977 (39), 1978 (46), and 1983 (39). In that 1978 campaign, Jim was chosen as the American League MVP finishing third in the league in batting (.315) and was tops in RBI with 139.
Two franchise legends toed the rubber in this one as Roger Clemens battled Detroit's Hal Newhouser. Clemens is tied with fellow hall of famer Cy Young for career franchise wins with the Sawx as both men notched 192 wins. He and Young are also co-leaders in shutouts with 38 apiece, but Clemens stands alone in the strikeout category with 2590. During his 13-year tenure as a Red Sox, "Roger the Rocket" was a 5-time all-star, a 3 time 20 game winner and also picked up 3 Cy Young awards.
Newhouser spent 15 years of his hall of fame career with the Tigers between 1939 - 1953. The lefty was a 6-time all-star and was a 4-time 20 game winner with 3 consecutive 20 game winning season from 1944-1946. In that three-year span, he won an incredible 80 games and was named American League MVP in 1944 and 1945, becoming the first pitcher to ever to win back-to-back MVP awards. "Prince Hal" also is the all-time franchise leader in WAR with a mark of 59 and had his #16 retired by the Tigers in 1997.
Both clubs traded massive salvos in the first six innings. Rice wasted no time against Newhouser in the first, drilling a two-out two-run shot to dead center field to give Boston a 2-0 lead. It remained this way until the fourth when Tigers' left fielder Willie Horton matched Rice with a two-run bomb of his own to even things up. The home run derby continued in the fifth as ninth place hitter Dustin Pedroia took Newhouser over and out to lead off the fifth making the score 3-2. Detroit once again countered with Miguel Cabrera launching a solo moonshot off Clemens in the sixth.
Newhouser was lifted in the seventh after Pedroia collected his second hit of the game - a one-out double to left center field. Lefty reliever John Hiller, who is the all-time Tiger leader in games appearing in 545 contests, was then called upon. This would be one game too many as he was lambasted as Boston rattled out 4 consecutive hits. Pedroia would score on Hiller's watch making the score 4-3. This closed the book on Newhouser who suffered the loss. With the bases loaded, the last batter Hiller faced was Rice who twisted an outside fastball around the Pesky Pole in right that closed out the scoring.
Clemens picked up the win tossing 7 complete innings giving up 5 hits while logging 8 strikeouts. Dick "The Monster" Radatz finished the final two innings rendering the Tigers hitless and firing 3 punchouts with his high-octane heater.
Dick Radatz earned the nickname "The Monster" after a game at Fenway against the Yankees in 1963 where he struck out American League MVPs Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Elston Howard on 10 pitches. Radatz was a two-time all-star in 1963 and in 1964 earning Fireman of the Year honors. In his first four seasons in Boston, Radatz won 49 games and saved 98. He also struck out 608 batters in 538.1 innings. Radatz sits third all-time in saves for the Red Sox with 102.
The probable pitching matchups for this series are as follows:
*(if necessary)
Game 2 - Detroit, Justin Verlander (177-109, 3.49) @ Boston, Pedro Martinez (117-37, 2.52)
Game 3 - Boston, Luis Tiant (122-81,3.36) @ Detroit, Denny McLain (117-62, 3.13)
*Game 4 - Boston, Jon Lester (110-63, 3.64) @ Detroit, Max Scherzer (82-35, 3.52)
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