In the splendid game of baseball, disappointment abounds since only one team eventually saunters off with great bluster thanks to the collected efforts of winning a World Series. There is also another level that goes beyond disappointment and drifts into the realm of a tragedy that would test the skills of Plutarch or Aeschylus.
The Red Sox have an extensive list – as do all sports teams – of tragedies as a collective such as the infamous home run by Bucky Dent or the dismal end of the 1986 World Series. I will avoid the team and go to three players who are edged in Red Sox history with the first being one of the players I most admired as a baseball youth.