Bill Buckner and Grady Little together on the Globe sports page today

Little unsure he wants job

Sox manager put off by team's hesitation

By Gordon Edes, Globe Staff, 10/23/2003

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2003/10/23/little_unsure_he_wants_job/

MIAMI -- Faced with the increasing likelihood that he will be fired as Red Sox manager, Grady Little said yesterday that he's not sure he wants to manage the Red Sox next season.

"I'm prepared for the likelihood . . . I'm not sure that I want to manage that team," Little said by phone from his home in North Carolina. "That's how I felt when I drove out of town.

"If they don't want me, fine, they don't want me. If they want me to come back, then we'll talk and see if I want to come back up there. That's the way I feel about it."

Little said he hasn't heard a word from Sox brass since returning home. "All I know is when I left there, there was some hesitation. That's all I need to know," he said. "If Grady Little is not there, he'll be somewhere.

"Right now I'm disappointed that evidently some people are judging me on the results of one decision I made -- not the decision, but the results of the decision. Less than 24 hours before, those same people were hugging and kissing me. If that's the way they operate, I'm not sure I want to be part of it."

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Error doesn't weigh

He's been a Sox scapegoat for 17 years, but Bill Buckner is at peace in Idaho

By Stan Grossfeld, Globe Staff, 10/23/2003

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2003/10/23/error_doesnt_weigh/

BOISE, Idaho -- When Bill Buckner strides to the bar at Murphy's Seafood and Steakhouse, nobody notices. It's a crisp October Saturday afternoon, and the half-dozen televisions around the room are all tuned to soccer and college football. The bartender has to be asked to change the station to the Red Sox-Yankees American League Championship Series game, a classic Roger Clemens-Pedro Martinez matchup at Fenway. Even so, it's ignored as a moldy potato by the pregame Boise State football crowd, all dressed in Day-Glo orange for the homecoming game against Tulsa.

Buckner originally had consented, reluctantly, to a 10-minute interview and a photograph of him in the trophy room of his 5-acre mountain home. But this is a broken play. The trophy room shot is out, and so is the home visit. His wife, Jody, forbids it. She is sick of the press who harp on Buckner's error of a routine ground ball that skipped between his legs and gave the Mets the Game 6 victory over the Red Sox in the 1986 World Series to tie the series. In Game 7, the Sox blew an early lead and lost despite Buckner's two hits. Jody has good reason to be angry. A reporter once called the house to inquire if Bill was contemplating suicide.

Billy Buck looks fit and youthful for 53 -- no stomach, no gray, and no limp. He looks as though he could still grab a bat and bang a double off the Green Monster. As Buckner sits down in the bar, Martinez uncorks his first pitch. On the bar's jukebox, Tom Petty sings, "No, you don't know how it feels to be me."

If he is bearing any demons, Buckner is hiding them well. He's relaxed, smiling and sociable. Nor is he living in his own private Idaho, 2,200 miles from Boston. "No, I'm not in exile," he says as he orders a Big Horn Light, a local microbrewed beer. "I bought a ranch here in the '70s. I planned on moving here then. I just didn't have the opportunity.

"I just came back from elk hunting, 10 days in the woods. I bagged a six-point elk, with a bow and arrow. I spend a lot of time in the woods."

Ernest Hemingway wrote "For Whom the Bell Tolls" in a Sun Valley, Idaho, cottage. Buckner, a Hemingway fan, fishes and hunts in some of the same Silver Creek streams and Sun Valley woods that Hemingway used to frequent before he took his own life with a shotgun in Ketchum, Idaho, in 1961.

Buckner is amicable and forthright, comfortable in his own skin.

"I got a great life," he says. "I like the way things are going. I don't sit in the woods and think about it. Ever."

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who'd a thunk it?

Remember the old joke: "Q: What's the Red Sox team bus look like? A: 24 Yellow cabs"

but he made a very bad decision in Game 7.

At first I was angry, but now I kind of feel bad for the guy.

I am sick and tired of all the Grady bashing here in Mass. Perhaps he made a bad decision. But did he give up the tying run? Did he give up the winning run? Was he one of the great Sox hitters who couldn't hit anything after Clemens left?

The team won 90+ games, were 5 outs from the World Series, and were far more of a coherent unit than they had been. They will be strong contenders again next year. Only in Boston would they fire the guy who led them that far.

I don't blame him for not wanting to come back.

because Moose was on his game.

P.S. Ortiz hit a home run after Clemens left.

Millar, Mueller, Ortiz, and Walker were having the best years of their careers. Walker is a free agent, and the Sox may not have enough $$ to re-sign him. The Sox may also have to make some off-season moves and re-align the bullpen. They don't have the money that the Yanks have.

I enjoyed this season, but I doubt we'll have a repeat next year.

Veritex, Nixon, Nomar, Pedro and Wakefield will be coming to the end of their contracts. Players tend to kick it up a notch in a contract year.

I'm sorry, but if Grady made a mistake, then so did Pedro. Sure, Pedro is a competitor, but it's his responsibility to help the team, to give his manager the most accurate information. I don't understand the hanging of Grady without the matching criticism of Pedro.