Learning to Hate and to Forgive Buckner

So after I wrote my blog here last night, about Bill Buckner’s return to Fenway, I felt pretty content with myself. I felt as if I had expressed my opinions about Buckner and the situation and in just a tiny bit less than mature way. But that was okay with me. Then I woke this morning, and checked the comments on my different blog sites and the only that stood out to me the most said something in the nature of “grow some pubes and grow up”. Others just simply told me that I was wrong to hate Buckner. I was told to hate Calvin Schiraldi, but my blog says that he is one of the people who I widely hate and blame for 1986. Other just simply tried to explain to me who Buckner is not the person to blame or hate.

Being only sixteen, many of my early baseball views came from other baseball fans; those people primarily being, my dad, a Red Sox fan, and my step-mother and step-sister, both Yankees fans. Being a “daddy’s girl” I sided with my dad and any opinion that he had of baseball. The first time that I heard about Bill Buckner was when I was about six or seven. My dad was going on a rant and I patiently sat, listened, and learned. He never even mentioned Schiraldi or Stanley. He placed the blame of Buckner and the fact that the ball went through his legs. I didn’t even know that this happened in the top of the tenth, after Stanley had allowed the game to be tied on a wild pitch. All I heard was “The Red Sox lost the 1986 World Series because Buckner allowed the ball to grow through his legs”. I knew that this guy had “hurt” my dad greatly when he was only fourteen. So of course, my early intense hatred for a baseball figure went to Buckner.

It wasn’t until two years ago, when I became extremely interested in baseball that I actually learned of what really happened in 1986. I learned that the Red Sox had tied the game at the top of the tenth; I learned that Schiraldi blew the inning, and the Stanley allowed the game to be tied. I learned all of this through spending the better part of a year just reading books on the Red Sox. I was then, fourteen and just learning to appreciate baseball and the Sox (and it was a tough season to do this during).

What I’m trying to say is that I grew up hearing that Buckner caused the pain, and that Buckner was the person to hate. When I finally began learning for myself I did transfer a lot of the hate onto other people. But what still stood out in my mind, was that 1986 was the first year that my dad got to see the Red Sox and a World Series, and he told me to hate Buckner. So naturally, that still remained in my mind and my heart.

So at sixteen, yeah I do need to grow up more. And I do still have a lot to learn about the game. I need to learn to forgive and forget, and my time of forgiving Buckner and forget the play will eventually come. Maybe it will come sooner than later. But for now, I will still go about with at least some of the feelings that I had yesterday (at this point they have been trampled by these comments and some of my teachers who read my blogs). I respect Buckner, but right now, now I do not forgive him for breaking my dad’s heart.

So...We've Forgiven Bucker?

So we have finally gotten over the Bill Buckner error, have we? We have gotten over that horrible day, October 25, 1986, when we heard a crack of a back, saw a little roller go down the first base line, saw it hop over the bag, and roll through Buckner’s wide stretched legs. Hmm…have we really gotten over it?

I was not yet alive yet when the Buckner error happened. I wouldn’t be born for another five years, two months, and ten days. But still that day holds a dear place in my heart. As a Red Sox fan I made myself learn as much about the history of this team as I could, and that year…that game…stands out. Although I may not have been alive when it happened, I still cry when I see replays of that error (as I also do with the disasters that happened in ’46, ’48, and ’78 among other heart breaking years). I’ve let myself become so emotionally involved with this game and this team that it is possible for me to feel the years of pain that all the past generations of Red Sox fans have felt. But this game, game six of the 1986 World Series, makes me cry like no other. When the Red Sox make me mad, I watch that game, that play…over and over again. It’s like a knife being stabbed in my heart every time. It’s as painful as having someone stab me in the eye with an ice pick…it’s that painful.

So as my obsession with this team grew, I allowed myself to hate so many players, Bill Buckner being right atop my list. I didn’t care that we had won in 2004 or 2007. It didn’t matter; we could’ve won in 1986 if it were not for Calvin Schiraldi, Bob Stanley, and Bill Buckner. If those three hadn’t been playing poor baseball that cold October night, the Red Sox might have been crowned world champions for that year. So those three players will always hold a special place in the bottomless pit of fire burning on the hatred side of my heart.

So when they announced that Buckner would through out the first pitch at today’s game my heart sank. I thought, “What is going on? Didn’t we run this man to Idaho? Didn’t he say that he hates Boston? Doesn’t he refuse to come here when he makes trips to sign autographs in New York? What is he doing here?” But then what I saw next amazed me even more: Bill Buckner was getting a standing ovation…the same fans that talked so poorly of him over the years. From the same fans that said that they hated his guts. They had forgiven him…they had actually forgiven him for messing up a little league play. Red Sox Nation was doing something beautiful.

At this time my brain was telling to be happy for the man, but my heart was telling me not to. My heart was telling me that this man caused many years of heart ache for Red Sox fans. That he was one of the key players that destroyed what could’ve been. That he ruined the Red Sox chances of trying to get the lead back in the top of the 11th inning that never came. This was the guy that caused our tears…and now we were giving him a standing ovation? I couldn’t believe it.

Bill Buckner, I’m sorry, but I can not forgive you just yet. I don’t know why, I may not have been there to see the play, or even alive to hear about the play, but for some reason it hurts to think about it. For some reason I cry when I see it. So until I can get over that game, until I can get over that play and the plays that happened the whole time that we were “one out away” and “one strike away” you will stay in the fire burning pit. You will stay as one of the people that I hate the most.