Pedro’s Near No-No…and Dougie Good Deal

Posted by Mike Giardi July 20, 2008 at 5:59 pm

That other station has been showing Red Sox classics this afternoon. Right now, they’ve got Pedro throwing his one-hitter at Tampa from the 2000 season. If you want to know why I named Petey one of my 10 favorite Sox players of all-time (of my time), this is one of many examples.

The killer is that John Flaherty is the one who broke up the no-no in the 9th. Now I was under the assumption that Flaherty couldn’t hit Little League pitching, let alone Pedro in his prime, but that really wasn’t the case. So my apologies go to Flaherty, who started his career in Boston and technically ended it here as well.

****Meanwhile, I just saw Flaherty’s actual hit. What a crappy swing. I mean, defensive, slapping at a high fastball. It still makes me angry, even 8 years later.*****

Anyway, in case you don’t remember, Flaherty was brought to Sox’s spring training in 2006 to be Tim Wakefield’s personal catcher. But after just one session with Wake, Flaherty realized this was a challenge he did not want to accept. That opened for door for Josh Bard, and we know how that turned out. Bard and Cla Meredith getting shipped to San Diego for Dashin’ Dougie Mirabelli. That trade didn’t quite work out the way the Sox planned, at least not in ‘06, but Bard and Meredith remain complimentary guys…and Dougie helped the Sox win another Series title. Not bad for a guy who really couldn’t hit…and I don’t mean that in a John Flaherty-kinda way.

Do you realize that Mirabelli has made nearly 7 million dollars in his career? 7 mil! I mean, that’s chump change by Major League baseball standards, but not bad for a guy with limited ability, at least at the plate. Now what he did with the knuckleball is worth that kinda cake…but man, what a good professional life he led. Plus, he inspired the “Dougie Goin’ Deep,” missives on the Internet, and I still look at those from time to time to get a cheap laugh. So he’s got that going for him…which is nice.