SoxandPhils should have been in the bibliography

I read a couple more chapters today of The Rocket that Fell to Earth. It was the part that describes how Roger Clemens made the leap from an awful human being to a cheating drugged-up loser in the mid-1990s, thanks to some help from Jose Canseco.

As he looked around the clubhouse, Clemens surely noticed that he was surrounded by aging and adequate players. What he also noticed was that one older player who seemed to be getting bigger, stronger and better was Jose Canseco.

The book describes how Canseco tried hard to become a B-list celebrity with a fling with Madonna, a 1-900 line and mansions on each coast.

It also noted the 1995 Red Sox yearbook, whose juiced-up contents was duly noted on this blog a year ago. Here's what Jeff Pearlman wrote:

On the cover of the 1995 Red Sox Yearbook, Canseco posed in a black tank top, arms folded, biceps popping (wrote Mark Newman in the Sporting News, "It looks less like a team yearbook than, say, the latest issue of Playgirl").

OK, Newman beat us by more than a decade, but we were the first with the steroid link. And, unfortunately, this is not the cover shot, but one from inside the yearbook. But I think you still get the picture of what he was talking about.

Today's news: Red Sox are off; Phillies play late in San Diego. ... Gannett's furloughs don't exempt sports baseball beat writers. ... Jerry Remy sounds good in an audio Tweet released today. ... Todd Zolecki, not furloughed, reports: Raul Ibanez is now second in All-Star voting; Ryan Howard was co-player of the week; Kyle Drabek was promoted to Double-A Reading; and you shouldn't trust a Tweet from a Phillie other than Chad Durbin or Jamie Moyer.

We're going to pump [clap] you up!

The last time I wrote about the stuff I found in my parents' attic, I poked fun at the Phillies marketing in the 1990s. The Red Sox also had a gimmick I'm sure they'd like to forget. It's plastered all over the team's 1995 yearbook, which prominently features Mo Vaughn and Jose Canseco wearing wife beaters. The inside cover has the two sluggers back-to-back, flexing their 24-inch pythons like the Hulkster with the inspirational words "get pumped for '95" above them.


This was three years before the synthetic home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa; six years before Barry Bonds took cheating to another low; and more than a decade before George Mitchell would name names. But I'm still surprised they had the restraint not to do a cross-promotion between these two pure & natural! hitters and this product advertisement found a few pages later:


Roger Clemens was on that squad, too. I bet the team asked him to break out a Speedo and pose with Deb, to which he just stared back, real menacing. I'm sure in his world, the meaner you look, the more innocent you are.


These pictures ruin some of the memories of a great year in which the Sox surprisingly won the division. It was a nice blend of veterans, cast-offs and a few homegrown stars. Tim Wakefield, plucked off the scrap heap, won 16 games, starting a long tenure for a classy Red Sox champion. Mo won the MVP, although many thought either teammate John Valentin or Cleveland's Albert Belle was more deserving. And midseason acquisition Rick Aguilera saved 20 games down the stretch.

It wasn't a great team and probably deserved getting swept by Cleveland, but it was more fun then, knowing what we know now about these players.

Over the weekend, I’ll post some more gems from the yearbook.

Something I never knew before: While refreshing my '95 memories, I took a look at the Sox draft picks that year. In a late round, they took a flier on some high school kid from California whom they probably know wouldn't sign because he was headed to the University of Miami. The players? Pat Burrell, who would be selected No. 1 by the Phillies in 1998 as atonement for J.D. Drew, who now patrols RF for the Red Sox.

Can you imagine if Burrell had signed with the Sox? Would that mean no Manny Ramirez and no championships? Or would it mean that he would have stayed at first and replaced Mo? Either way, I'm sure the Fenway Faithful (what happened to that term? Oh yeah, pink hats and Red Sox Nation) would have welcomed him just as well as Phillies fans did earlier in his career.

Administrative notes: Remember the Doug Glanville jerseys we spotted last month? They made straightcashhomey.net. Thanks for posting it, guys. ... There probably won't be an update tonight as the Phillies wrap up their set with the Braves and the Red Sox get a break in the schedule against the Yankees. We have family in town for the holiday.