I find Major League Baseball's Opening Day celebrations better than just about any other. For one, the start of the baseball season marks the transition from winter to spring, so the sense of renewal is amplified. There's a reason "hope springs eternal" was written about baseball, or at least it should have been.
Beyond the seasonal angle, ballclubs have gotten really good at using their home openers to celebrate their city, their team, and their history. This week, my own team did it up right.
The Red Sox were already going to have an epic home opener this year, given this is the 20th anniversary of what Sports Illustrated called "The Most Amazing Season in History". But when the members of that team gathered at Fenway on Tuesday for the first home game of the 2024 season, they were also there to celebrate the life of one of their own, gone too soon.
We wrote about Tim Wakefield's untimely passing when it happened last year. Wake might not have been my favorite Sox player of all time, but he was on the short list. That affection was based as much on his character and humility as it was on his on-field exploits, but he did wind up third all-time on the Sox' pitching wins list, and he pitched more innings in a Boston uniform than any other pitcher.
And so it came to pass that the normal anticipation that accompanies opening day was mixed with sadness and appreciation when Brianna Wakefield, the 18 year-old daughter of Tim and Stacy (in an epic bit of shitty business, Wake's wife passed from cancer shortly after her husband), took the mound to throw the first pitch of the 2024 season to Jason Varitek.
@nesn Yesterday Tim and Stacy Wakefield’s daughter, Brianna, threw out the first pitch at Fenway Park surrounded by her father’s 2004 #RedSox♬ original sound - NESN
Dry eyes? I assume there were a few at Fenway. But not in my house.
It's been an emotional few days for Red Sox fans. First, we were united in our vitriol towards hero turned heel Curt Schilling after the Nazi-curious blowhard disclosed the fact that Tim Wakefield and his wife were both battling cancer. I think Jason Varitek's wife said it best:
Then, as we prepared to say our sporting farewells to Terry Francona, we learned that Wakefield had passed away from brain cancer at the age of 57.
Wakefield ranks very near the top of my list of favorite Sox players. Realistically, only Yaz, Pedro, and Dustin Pedroia are higher, and the gap isn't very large. It's no so much that Wake was a great player, though he had his moments. Rather it's that he was the personification of the everyman, humble in his on-field craft, in his interactions with the media, and in his service to the community. One of the worst feelings I've ever had in sports was watching him standing on the mound after serving up the series-winning walkoff homerun to Aaron Boone that ended Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS in the Bronx.
And one of the best was watching Wake get so much love from his teammates after the Sox avenged that loss in 2004. A little-remembered act from that series speaks to the reason why so many teammates have been so distraught over his passing. Wake was scheduled to start Game 4 of that series, but with the Sox being battered in Game 3, Wake volunteered to take the ball and eat innings to save the bullpen. He came in during the top of the 4th and left after the 8th, throwing 64 pitches and giving up five runs as the Yankees smoked the Sox and left them for dead, 19-8.
After the Sox won Game 4 in 12 innings, Wakefield came back on one day's rest to pitch the final three innings of Game 5. If I've been more nervous during a game than I was during the top of the 13th, I'd like to know about it. Varitek was not Wakefield's usual catcher - that inglorious duty was generally given to Doug Mirabelli. Despite his best efforts, he gave up three passed balls in the inning, the final one giving the Yankees runners on second and third with two outs. Wake, stoic and calm while his knuckleball danced and dove, took the rubber, flicked his wrist, and got Ruben Sierra to strike out swinging while Varitek held on as if his life depended upon it. Check out the first 1:35 of the video below.
One could argue that Wake's selfless act in Game 3 helped the Sox bullpen be just fresh enough to withstand 26 innings of baseball over the following two nights. Reality doesn't necessarily work that way, but his teammates say it's true. Maybe it's just that they didn't want to let him down.
('Course you could also argue that his efforts laid the groundwork for the Bloody Sock game that covered that cocksucker Schilling in so much glory. Bygones.)
Tim Wakefield pitched in Boston for the better part of 17 seasons. He retired with exactly 200 wins (something we wrote about way back in 2011), 186 with Boston, good for third behind Roger Clemens and Cy Young on the Sox' all-time list. His 3,006 innings pitched is more than any other Red Sox player ever. He started the most games, lost the most games, gave up the most hits and homers, walked and hit the most batters, threw the most wild pitches, and faced the most batters. I suppose one has to be somewhat ego-free to make a living throwing knuckleballs for two decades.
So God Bless, and Godspeed Timmy Wake. May the ball never spin once it leaves your hand, and may all the catchers in heaven have giant gloves.
We'd like to apologize. Exhaustive research by our team of sabremetricians has concluded that Gheorghe: the Blog has been contributing to Tim Wakefield's difficulty in securing his 200th career victory. See, we've had this post on ice since late July when Wake went 6 2/3 innings to beat the Mariners and record the 199th win of his 20-year big league adventure. (The fact that he gave up 10 hits and 7 earned runs in beating the M's is entirely fitting.) It appears that our premature postulation has stalled the knuckleballer's pursuit of the milestone, as he's failed to post a win in 4 starts since we drafted it, despite pitching into the the 7th inning or beyond in each of those outings.
Our bad.
Because accountability is one of the hallmarks of our editorial policy (it's the reason our ratings are outpacing those of the mainstream media by such a wide margin), we're here to rectify our error by posting in celebration of Tim Wakefield's 199th career win. Enjoy, then.
Even if I gave ten guesses, I'd wager than far fewer than 25% of sports fans would correctly identify the active major league leader in pitching wins. (Note: if you've read the information above this paragraph you'd have a reasonably good chance at being in that savvy minority.) Veteran Red Sox hurler and all around prince of a guy Tim Wakefield recorded his 199th career victory on July 24, pitching into the 7th inning as the Sox pounded the Seattle Mariners, 12-8. Since he broke in with the Pirates in 1992, only ten pitchers have recorded more wins*, and most of those guys are going to the Hall of Fame.
While I've said some things about Wake that I probably regret in the heat of the cover-your-eyes-afraid-to-watch moment, he's in my top 5 favorite athletes of all-time. When the stars aligned and his feel was on, watching Wakefield confound a lineup of professional hitters with his low-effort flutterballs was to be in the presence of a low-fi virtuoso. And even when things weren't going to plan, Wake's outings offered comic relief, none more so than Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS, when Jason Varitek allowed three knucklers to elude him in the top of the 13th inning before Wakefield eventually stranded Yankees on 2nd and 3rd base.
That 2004 season was special for Sox fans for so many reasons, but Wakefield's redemption was one of the best storylines. After Grady Little's inexplicable brain fart enabled the Yankees to tie the game, Wake surrended Aaron Boone's walk-off series winner. It seemed at the time impossibly cruel. And when the Sox won the World Series just one year later, I wrote the following despite the fact that Wakefield didn't pitch very well at all in that Series against the Cardinals:
Now, though, I'm thinking about Tim Wakefield. Of all the Sox on this team, all the magnificent idiots who will go down as legends, Tim Wakefield is the one for whom I'm happiest. His grief after last year's ALCS loss, after he stood on his head for 2 games before finally failing against Aaron Boone, was the single worst part of that series. That this guy who has been so unselfishly team-oriented for so long had to spend the last year agonizing over 1 pitch is cosmically unfair. That he now has a World Series ring is spectacular payback.
Wakefield is 7 wins away from tying the Texas Con Man and Cy Young for first place on the Red Sox' all-time wins list (and he's well ahead of the second guy on the Sox' all-time losses list). He's played every role possible on a pitching staff, glamorous and dirty alike, and played them each without complaint or self-aggrandizement. After being nominated more than a half-dozen times, he won the 2010 Roberto Clemente Award, given to the player who both excels on the field and gives back to his community. In an era and a business full of me-first assholes, all Wake ever did was show up every day, do his job the best way he knew how, take responsibility when he failed, praise his teammates when he succeeded, and go home without fanfare.
If there's truly a Baseball God, he'll let Wake hang on long enough to record 8 more W's. But if we're looking at the standings for the best human beings to wear the Olde Towne Team's uniform, I don't think we need to go very far down the list to get to Tim Wakefield.
________________________________________________________________
*Here are the ten pitchers to record more wins than Wakefield since 1992:
Greg Maddux (280)
Mike Mussina (266)
Randy Johnson (259)
Tom Glavine (252)
Andy Pettitte (240)
Jamie Moyer (233)
Roger Clemens (220)
Pedro Martinez (219)
Curt Schilling (212)
Posts
