Baseball Writers Dinner - Full Writeup
My story about attending the 2007 Boston Baseball Writers Dinner begins at an unlikely location – Hooters in Boston. I was there before a Celtics game enjoying some… wings with 3 of the remaining 11 Celtics fans left in Boston (OK, maybe there are more than 11 but the way they keep losing, this will be true eventually). One of these fine gentlemen happens to be highly involved with the dinner. I will not say who as to protect the identity of this Hooters fan, but let’s just say he had the hook up. I was convinced to buy a couple tickets with a promise that I would be sitting in the front row. I chose to bring a fellow Sox fan as a Christmas gift – anyone jealous?
Eventually, January 11 came. Dressed in our best, we made our way to the New Convention Center in South Boston. Sure enough, we were right up front, closest to Craig Hansen and David Pauley. Hansen loves his Chardonnay by they way.
All of the players were introduced, including three players from the 1967 team that was being honored that night: Jim Lonborg, Rico Petrocelli and Russ Gibson. That year, now Dr. Lonborg (he is a Dentist today) went 22-9 in 39 starts with a 3.16 ERA on route to the Cy Young. Pretocelli was the shortstop, hitting .259 with 17 homers and 66 RBI and some excellent defense. Russ Gibson lead the team in… Back Up Catcher Appearances I guess. He had 138 at-bats in 49 games with a .201 average. But after all, this is a team game and he was on the team, and he has a ring so he gets to celebrate too.
Another baseball veteran on hand to note was Dave Dombrowski, General Manager of the Detroit Tigers. He was honored as Executive of the Year, and accepted Manager of the Year on behalf of Jim Leyland. I guess since They, and not the Yankees, were in the World Series last year.
There were many fine speeches and lots of laughs, though the first of my two favorite moments of the night came when Theo Epstein was speaking. While discussing his off-season moves including Matsuzaka being signed, he commented to Terry Francona “We put a pretty good team on the field, so if we don’t do well, I guess we can blame you.” He laughed it off, though I later noticed Theo drinking Coke while Francona had moved on to the hard stuff…
I believer there were 10 players at the head table: Craig Hansen, Craig Breslow, Ryan Howard, Jonathan Papelbon, Josh Papalbon, Curt Schilling, Mike Lowell, Jacoby Ellsbury, Kyle Snyder and Kason Gabbard. In addition, there was a table right down front of several more youngsters who had been training that week at BC.
Ryan Howard was given the Ted Williams Award. In my opinion, it’s the coolest of all the awards because it is given for dominating offensive players, and lets face it, his numbers were just a hair better than David Ortiz last year. I also surprised me that Ron Jackson was given an award that night, considering the Red Sox let him go last year. Other no-show awards included David Ortiz , Chris Carpenter and Freddy Sanchez.
Finally, the Judge Emil Fuchs Memorial Award for Long and Meritorious Service to Baseball, the largest award (and longest titled) of the night was awarded to Peter Gammons. He was on hand to accept it, and gave a great speech about baseball in general and what it means to him. It was wonderful to see him back in the swing of things after battling with his brain aneurysm last year. We managed to congratulate him after the even on the way out and capped off the night with this great picture.
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