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Mookie Betts reminds us of what we lost – Boston Herald

Mookie Betts reminds us of what we lost – Boston Herald

The Red Sox are making a comeback.

It’s basically all they have. After consecutive last-place finishes, Wally and Tessie are still drunk on Chocolate Yoo-Hoo after Boston finished third in 2024. The future offers little more than the Forest of the Commonplace.

The Competitive Balance Tax on Jersey Street has joined Cap Space in Foxboro as the 2 most valuable players in town not named Tatum or Brown.

2004 is all the rage for the Red Sox these days.

One goal ago, the Red Sox became the first and – so far – only MLB team to ever erase a 3-0 postseason deficit. They went on to defeat the Cardinals to win their first World Series since World War I.

This victory lap is well deserved.

“The Comeback” is a home run. This Netflix documentary captures all the feelings. State Run Media has never been so informative and emotional. The joy of Game 4 at Fenway is accompanied by a bittersweet and poignant tribute to Tim Wakefield. Even Curt Schilling made an appearance. Talk about making waves.

John Henry left his crypt in daylight to talk to the Sons of Barnicle about everything that happened in 2003 and ’04. No one plagiarized or made up a single word. Fiction can never be that compelling. Or remarkable.

Boston, in addition to the 2004 Duck Boat parade, has a series of flashing blue lights in the rearview mirror. There objects are closer than they appear. And no one is closer to spoiling the Red Sox offseason than Mookie Betts.

Newspapers no longer have a 1am printing deadline. By the time you read this, Betts may have already won his third World Series ring since 2018. It would be his second in five years after being shipped to the Dodgers in a salary dump disguised as a trade.

And this one would have been earned in the Bronx. Inside Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees, at least heading into Game 4, are still bad. Aaron Judge traded his gavel for a pool noodle this postseason. He hit .091 in the first three games against the Dodgers and .196 in the postseason.

David Ortiz sat between Alex Rodriguez and Deter Jeter Monday night after LA’s Game 3 victory and sang joyfully about how the Yankees of 2024 are not and will not be the Red Sox of 2004.

‘They’re not like us. They’re not like us. They’re not like us. Don’t cut it. 0-3. Hmm.”

Mock the Dodgers 2020 World Series. But someone had to win. If you’re looking for asterisks, we should add the strike-affected seasons of 1981 and 1972. Not to mention the MLB titles won during World War II, Boston’s 1918 World Series win (that’s another story) and the 2017 Astros Houston title.

In much the same way that the story of 2004 has been told and retold, it’s time to once again remember Betts’ story. And how disastrous it was for the Red Sox to move him (and David Price) for 3 also-rans and credits on Fenway Sports Group’s balance sheet.

The Red Sox failed Betts long before the Great Salary Dump of 2020. Boston inexplicably took Betts to arbitration before his 2018 MVP season. Betts won a $10.5 million salary. The Red Sox had offered $7.5 million. So for just a paltry $3 million, the Red Sox poisoned the well with their best homegrown outfielder since Jim Rice. John Henry and this third wife have more money tied up in the furnishings of their mansions in Boca Raton and Nantucket.

The Red Sox could have kept Betts for another ten years if they wanted to. But baseball players are expensive.

Red Sox ownership continued its intransigence toward Betts over the next two seasons as he remained arbitration eligible. The last one-year deal, for $27 million on January 10, 2020, was portrayed as a means to buy time for a long-term deal. Instead, it simply greased the skids before its departure.

Betts’ departure ushered in an area of ​​austerity in which the Red Sox retreated from baseball’s arms race, settling for one brief playoff run and three last-place finishes in the past five years.

Since the Red Sox traded Betts, Boston is 359-360 (.499), including the postseason. It is mathematically impossible to get any closer to mediocrity, given the odd number of games played in that period.

Baseball isn’t boring. But the Red Sox certainly are.

“If we hadn’t made that deal, I don’t think we’d get to the ALCS in 2021,” Chaim Bloom told The Boston Herald in 2023.

That 2021 playoff run was fun – especially the Wild Card Game win over New York.

But it wasn’t worth losing Betts.

Most arguments in defense of the Great Payroll Dump of 2020 use Henry’s bank account as an excuse. Henry doesn’t care about your finances. You should care about him even less.

The best player-based argument for not keeping Betts was that if the Red Sox had kept him (and Price), they would have been pushed over the Luxury Tax Threshold and lost a compensatory pick used to take phenom Roman Anthony .

Meanwhile, the Red Sox ownership continues to rumble as Rome burns. The return for Betts was weak. Conner Wong is a reliable catcher. But Alex Verdugo plays for the Yankees. Jeter Downs was last seen stocking shelves at Home Depot.

Edwin Starr asked, “War. What is it good for?” Mookie has the highest WAR in the MLB since 2025. Betts posted a whopping 1,182 OPS in the 2024 NLCS. He hit an RBI single Monday night after a clinical nine-pitch at-bat that gave the Dodgers a 3-0 lead and 57,000 people in silenced the Bronx.

There is always “The Comeback” to ease the pain.

Bill Speros (@RealOBF and @BillSperos on X) can be reached at [email protected].