The Red Sox are in the throes of a throwback.
It’s really all they have. After back-to-back last place finishes, Wally and Tessie are still drunk on Chocolate Yoo-Hoo after Boston finished third in 2024. The future offers little beyond the Forest of the Commonplace.
The Competitive Balance Tax on Jersey Street has joined Cap Space in Foxboro as the 2 most valuable players in town not named Tatum or Brown.
2004 is all the rage these days for the Red Sox.
One score ago, the Red Sox became the first and – until now – only MLB team to ever erase a 3-0 postseason deficit. They then swept the Cardinals to win their first World Series since World War I.
This victory lap is well deserved.
“The Comeback” is a home run. This Netflix documentary delivers all the feels. State Run Media was never this informative and emotional. The joy of Game 4 at Fenway is matched by a bittersweet and poignant tribute to Tim Wakefield. Even Curt Schilling made an appearance. Talk about causing a furor.
John Henry left his crypt during daylight to speak with the Sons of Barnicle about all that was 2003 and ’04. No one plagiarized or fabricated a single word. Fiction could never be this compelling. Or remarkable.
Boston, in addition to the 2004 Duck Boat parade, has a set of flashing blue lights in its rear-view mirror. There, objects are closer than they appear. And no one is closer to spoiling the Red Sox offseason than Mookie Betts.
Newspapers no longer have 1 a.m. print deadlines. By the time you read this, Betts may have already won his third World Series ring since 2018. It would be his second in 5 years after being shipped to the Dodgers in a salary dump disguised as a trade.
And this one would have been earned in the Bronx. Inside Yankee Stadium.
The Yankees, at least heading into Game 4, still suck. Aaron Judge traded his gavel for a pool noodle this postseason. He was hitting .091 in the first 3 games against the Dodgers and .196 in the postseason.
David Ortiz sat between Alex Rodriguez and Deter Jeter Monday night after LA’s Game 3 win, singing joyfully about how the 2024 Yankees are not and will not be the 2004 Red Sox.
“They ain’t like us. They’re not like us. They’re not like us. Cap’t. 0-3. Hmm.”
Scoff at the Dodgers 2020 World Series. But someone had to win it. If you’re looking for asterisks, we have to add the strike-affected seasons of 1981 and 1972. Not to mention the MLB titles won during World War II, Boston’s World Series victory in 1918 (that’s another story), and the 2017 Houston Astros.
In much the same way the story of 2004 has been told, and re-told, it’s time again to recall the tale of Betts. And how disastrous a move it was for the Red Sox to move him (and David Price) for 3 also-rans and credits on Fenway Sports Group’s balance sheet.
The Red Sox failed Betts long before the Great Salary Dump of 2020. Boston, inexplicably, took Betts to arbitration before his 2018 MVP season. Betts won a $10.5 million salary. The Red Sox had offered $7.5 million. So, for just a lousy $3 million, the Red Sox poisoned the well with their best homegrown outfielder since Jim Rice. John Henry and this third wife have more money stuck in the furniture of their Boca Raton and Nantucket mansions.
The Red Sox could have kept Betts for another decade if they desired. But baseball players are expensive.
Red Sox ownership continued its intransigence with Betts for the next 2 seasons as he remained arbitration eligible. The final one-year deal, for $27 million on Jan. 10, 2020, was portrayed as a means to buy time for a long-term deal. It simply, instead, greased the skids for his exit.
Betts’ exit ushered in an area of austerity in which the Red Sox tapped out of baseball’s salary arms’ race and happily settled for one brief playoff run and 3 last place finishes in the past 5 years.
Since the Red Sox traded Betts, Boston is 359-360 (.499), including the postseason. It is mathematically impossible to get any closer to mediocrity given the odd number of games played during that span.
Baseball isn’t boring. But the Red Sox sure as hell are.
“Had we not made that deal, I don’t think we get to the ALCS in 2021,” Chaim Bloom told The Boston Herald in 2023.
That 2021 playoff run was fun – especially the Wild Card Game win over New York.
But it wasn’t worth losing Betts.
Most arguments defending the Great Salary Dump of 2020 use Henry’s bank account as its excuse. Henry cares nothing about your finances. You should care even less about his.
The best player-based argument posed for not keeping Betts was that had the Red Sox kept him (and Price), they would have been pushed over the Luxury Tax Threshold and lost a compensatory pick used to take phenom Roman Anthony.
Meanwhile, Red Sox ownership continues to fiddle as Rome burns. The return for Betts was feeble. Conner Wong is a reliable catcher. But Alex Verdugo plays for the Yankees. Jeter Downs was last seen stocking shelves at Home Depot.
Edwin Starr asked, “War. What is it good for?” Mookie has the highest WAR in MLB since 2025. Betts posted a whopping 1.182 OPS in the 2024 NLCS. He wristed an RBI single Monday night after a clinical 9-pitch at-bat that gave the Dodgers a 3-0 lead and shut up 57,000 people in the Bronx.
There’s always “The Comeback” to ease the pain.
Bill Speros (@RealOBF and @BillSperos on X) can be reached at [email protected].