Boo Boo and Beckett's picnic baskets

My reentry into the blogosphere was a rough one over the last couple of days, but here's a story running in today's Boston Metro GameDay about Dave "Boo" Ferriss' thoughts on Josh Beckett matching his Red Sox record of eight straight wins to start the season.

http://boston.metro.us/metro/sports/article/Rooting_interest/8515.html

Ferriss might have been one of the nicest men I've ever spoken with on the phone, as the 85-year-old was out cutting the grass and trimming bushes at his Mississippi home when I phoned him yesterday afternoon. A couple of amazing things about "Boo" prior to Beckett's attempt to win his eighth game in a row to begin the season:

-- the eight consecutive wins were actually the first 8 Major League starts of his career, an unprecedented start in the big leagues.
-- Ferris finished with 26 complete games during that 1945 rookie season.
-- Ferriss and Tex Hughson, according to Boo, still hold a Fenway Park record when they posted 13 consecutive home victories between the two pitchers during the 1946 season -- a campaign when both pitchers won 20 games. That was also the season that Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky and Dom DiMaggio all returned to the Sox from active duty during WWII, and advanced all the way to the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.


Ferriss, Babe Ruth and Roger Moret should all get their just desserts for their amazing stretches of pitching during their careers, with Moret boasting the most bizarre backstory as he apparently went into a ninety minute catatonic state prior to a game at Arlington Stadium and was sent to a mental institution while pitching for the Texas Rangers in 1978. Here's the link to the SABR Basball Biography Project Web site : http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&pid=9962&bid=1326 and here's the actual story:

However, the real story for Moret in 1978 was his hospitalization at a psychiatric facility after his bizarre behavior on April 12 at Arlington Stadium. After some odd pre-game behavior, Roger Moret went into what was described as a catatonic state in front of his locker that reportedly lasted 90 minutes. [16] His teammates first kidded with him but as time went on the gravity of his condition brought the team's medical staff. Attempts to awaken him failed. The Rangers staff sedated him and dispatched him to the Arlington Neuropsychiatric Center. By the 25th of April, Roger's condition had improved and he was scheduled for release within a week.

More in a bit while I attempt to avoid catatonic states, questions about Barry Bonds and the lethal bat of D'Angelo Ortiz, David's three-year-old young son, who is taking some unbelievably mad hacks at Kevin Youkilis' underhand offerings on the field prior to today's Mother's Day special...which also reminds me to throw a big Happy Mother's Day greeting out there to all the special moms out there...