About Me

My Journey to Red Sox Nation - From Jarry Park to Fenway Park

"Buzzing the Tower" creator Robin Goss

As a Canadian boy in the early 1970s, I began rooting for the only Canadian based team in existence at the time, the Montreal Expos. They played their home games in Jarry Park. The stadium began in Montreal's north end in a public park with the same name. The stadium was deemed necessary due to the fact that the Montreal Royals' old stadium, Delorimier Stadium, was too small. Of course, the Montreal Royals were the first professional baseball team to break the color barrier and was home to the great Jackie Robinson in 1946. Before the swimming pool "splash hits" of Chase Field in Phoenix, there was a swimming pool beyond the right field fence that existed in the original Jarry Park (shown below). The occasional homer would land there during the Expos early years.

Some interesting facts concerning this old park : the first home game was won here by the Expos 8-7 over the St. Louis Cardinals, Willie Mays played his last game here for the San Francisco Giants and then as a Met a year and a half later, plays his last regular season game, Gary Carter hits his first homer here in 1974 off Steve Carlton, and in the last games played at Jarry Park the Phillies swept a doubleheader from the Expos to win their first NL East Division title in 1976. The Expos then moved to Olympic Stadium in 1977 and Jarry Park was converted to a tennis stadium.

Dave van Horne and Duke Snider called the games and I still remember watching and hearing names such as John Boccabella, Ron Hunt, Ron Fairly, Steve Rogers, Steve Renko, Ken Singleton, Boots Day, Rusty Staub (Le Grand Orange), Mike Jorgenson, Bombo Rivera, and Woodie Fryman to name a few. The Expos best season in Jarry Park was a third place finish in 1974 with a record of 79-82.





Then came the World Series of 1975. I was 9 years old and still an Expo fan before this series started, I rooted for the American League representative Boston Red Sox and fell in love with the franchise shortly after. I think the Carlton Fisk homer was the clincher for me. My Dad was backing the "Big Red Machine" but the excitement in that series was incredible. However, Joe Morgan would plant the dagger in the ninth in game 7. My first heartbreak as a Red Sox. I had earned my stripes early.

Cable TV was now the new thing in the mid to late 70's on Prince Edward Island, and I was pleasantly surprised that I could now watch this team a couple of times a week as the Bangor, Maine NBC feed WLBZ TV would show the weekend Sox games. They also televised the Bruins on the winter weekends with Fred Kusick behind the mike. I still remember "The Great Money Movie" on this channel with Eddie Driscoll who was the local TV personality at the time in Bangor. Ned Martin and Ken Harrelson/Bob Montgomery would now replace Horne and Snider. These were the heydays of some great Red Sox players and teams. Strange new names now caught my attention such as: "The Gold Dust Twins", Yaz, Dewey (my favorite all time Sox player), Boomer, Scooter, The Rooster, Pudge, The Spaceman, and Eck to mention a few.

There have been other excruciating defeats since the '75 World Series and they've been well-documented: the '78 collapse, the '86 World Series, the 2003 ALCS but that just seemed to strengthen my resolve as it did for many thousands of other RSN fans. Pennants aren't the end all and be all. Sure, I would have liked to see the Sox win more titles "back in the day" but as Bill Lee once said, "You take a team with twenty-five assholes and I'll show you a pennant. I'll show you the New York Yankees." You have to respect your rivals and their success but you never have to like them.

Looking back, those trying times seem a distant memory as three world titles over the course of a ten year span, 2004 - 2013, has healed old wounds. I'm no longer a jaded youngster, but a happily married father of three who now has stories to tell my children and grandchild of those wonderful recollections of Red Sox lore.

In a day of escalating salaries and players concerned more about "getting paid" than loyalty to a fan base or organization, I think it sometimes gets lost on the "ordinary Joe/Jayne" that these guys play a pretty demanding and difficult sport at the MLB level. I'm not going to defend the many millions these guys rake in and say they are "worth it" but I think this quote kind of says it all about making a living playing this game at a high level: 

"You know what's really great about baseball? You can't fake it. You know, anything else in life you don't have to be great in - business, music, art - I mean you can get lucky. Yeah, you can fool everyone for a while, you know? It's like - not - not baseball. You can either hit a curveball or you can't. That's the way it works. You can have a lucky day, sure, but you can't have a lucky career. It's a little like math. It's orderly. Win or lose, it's fair. It all adds up. It's, like, not as confusing or as ambiguous as life. It's - it's safe."

- Ben (Jimmy Fallon - "Fever Pitch")