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Joseph's avatar

Years after the 1986 World Series, John McNamara and pitching coach Bill Feischer said Oil Can was too intoxicated to pitch Game 7.

I recall there being a bit of an aurora around Boyd in the mid 80s. But you either liked him or you didn't. I remember my dad kind of got a kick out of him. Boyd never really impressed me because I was playing a lot of Strat-o-matic during the 80s. For the most part his cards seemed about average or maybe very slightly above for a starting pitcher (his WHIP was too high for my liking and gave up his share of homeruns) although he obviously pitched in a hitters ballpark in Fenway.

Regarding VCRs...my parents paid $1000 in 1980 for out first VCR made by RCA! That is about $3900 in today's dollars. This was also during the format war between VHS vs Betamax, but people were starting to say go with VHS because it was going to win (which obviously it did). But that thing lasted nearly a decade in our house and often used to watch 2-3 movies a day. The longevity of that thing was amazing. People too young or not born then need to understand how incredible it was to own a movie and watch it at your convenience with no commercials! It was a really, really big deal. But if you were renting, you had to watch those fees - and fees for not rewinding! I am a huge home theater/movie hobbyist today and no doubt VHS was a major reason why.

Daniel, keep the 80s baseball articles coming! Love 'em.

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ScarletNumber's avatar

If you recall, Boyd was supposed to start game 7, but because of rain it was pushed back to Monday night so McNamara started Game 5 starter Bruce Hurst on three days rest instead. Hurst pitched 5 scoreless before giving up 3 in the 6th and was lifted for a pinch hitter in the 7th. Now McNamara would have liked to have gone to Boyd but as you mentioned he was drunk so he had to bring in Calvin Schiraldi instead

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ScarletNumber's avatar

The third article was written by Steve Fanairu; while he is somewhat famous in his own right, his younger brother Mark co-wrote Game of Shadows in 2006 about the BALCO scandal

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Ed Sawyer's avatar

Interesting article, to say the least.

The 1986 World Series saw some odd managerial decisions, contributing to the Redsox's loss, imho

Game 6 was the, blatantly, obvious one; while Game 7 was, possibly more perplexing...from a Redsox fan, that is.

Oil Can was scheduled to get a start at some point, but rain delays offered Grady the chance to start Hurst on short rest...not a bad choice, considering his performance up to that moment in the series.

But, when he tired...in came Al Knipper!!!, what the hell. Apparently, (just speculation on my part) Boyd was not happy & probably said something...& the rest is history.

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ScarletNumber's avatar

I seem to remember NBC recording a parody song in honor of Oil Can to the tune of Nowhere Man by the Beatles. Also, to this day Ron Darling insists that Lenny Dykstra was dropping n-bombs on Boyd during Game 3 to rattle him but Boyd says he never heard them and doesn't believe Darling

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SGJ Jamie's avatar

I wondering if the 180 charge was for the cost to replace the VHS tapes themselves which would be over $500 today, then the double charge since those movies could not be rented.

The store might have been smarter to just have Boyd do a promo for them, maybe make a joke out of it then charging him for theft.

Just as a side note, it wasn't until around the last couple of years of the 80s that consumers buying VHS became a thing. Prior to that they were pretty much rental only with films on tape costing close to $100 (80's) dollars to purchase. Once VCR's, especially with VHS became more mainstream studios decided to offer direct sales of films to customers. I do remember my video store selling used rentals prior to this, and my brother may have dub'd a tape or two but can't confirm that.

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Daniel Evensen's avatar

That's true. I think my parents rented a VCR to tape game 6 of the 1986 World Series, since they were going to be out that night. I know we got our VCR sometime late in 1987, but we had that earlier tape.

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SGJ Jamie's avatar

They picked a classic (baseball history wise) to tape.

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Grayden M Dough's avatar

The city of Lakeland is in Polk County. The primary law enforcement in Polk County today is Sheriff Grady Judd, who has never seen a television camera he did not want to be in front of and has odd theories on movies like "nudes in limbo" and the legality thereof. I imagine if Grady were running things back then old Oil Can might not got off so lightly

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