Homage to Len Boehmer

Going into tonight's really big showdown in Fenway Park, I find myself thinking of Len Boehmer. That's right: the Len Boehmer. 

Len was originally signed by the Reds out of Flint Hill, Missouri. He worked his way diligently up the Cincinnati organization for seven years, until he reached Triple-A. And there he stuck, as people will, a first baseman without quite enough power or a high enough average to go any further.

The Yankees acquired him for this guy, pitcher Goofy McShinsplints, er, Bill Henry, and after he spent a year in Syracuse, excitement soon loomed large in the Yanks' 1969 spring training camp.

Why, as the baseball card below shows, Len was presumed to be one of the Yankees' "Rookie Stars" of the coming year, along with the curiously misspelled Jerry Kenney. Oh, the thrills we had to look forward to in those halcyon days!

Anyway, Len Boehmer ended up spending the entire 1969 season with the Yanks, despite hitting all of .176 with 0 homers and 7 ribbies in 45 games. How we could have used an effective, front-office dumpster diver then, eh? 

The main reason for this seems to have been that nobody was ever sure when first baseman Joe Pepitone might decide to opt out of playing for the day. He would even write (or dictate) in a later memoir that he would often feign injury to get out of a game (especially if he had just made an error). 

This is exactly what he did on the bright, Sunday afternoon of June 22nd, 1969. Suddenly, in the bottom of the 8th inning at Fenway Park, Len Boehmer was our first baseman, and batting fourth. 

As you might imagine, I was a little bummed out about this. It was not my birthday, but this was my annual birthday game present from my father, to go into the big town and see the Yanks play the hated Red Sox (I hated them; my father, an old Giants fan, rooted for them. Long story.)

Anyhoo, there we were, the Yanks were trailing, 3-2, and now our first baseman was Len Boehmer. Somehow, though, the Yanks managed to tie the game in the 9th (all right, it was a Bobby Cox sac fly), and then, with two out in the top of the 10th, Len Boehmer—LEN BOEHMER!—singled in Horace Clarke with the go-ahead run, a solid hit off the great Garry "Double Consonant" Roggenburk. 

"Ever-Reliable Roy" White followed with another hit, the Yanks' vaunted bullpen trio of Lindy McDaniel, Jack Aker, and Steve Hamilton brought it home, and I had a 5-3 birthday win, before a big, sullen crowd of nearly 30,000 at Fenway Park.

As for Len Boehmer, that was probably the highlight of his career. By the next year, Danny Cater had taken over for Pepitone, and Boehmer was back in Syracuse, where he would help the Chiefs take a second straight Governor's Cup—which, as we all know, is the main objective in any contemporary Yankees' season.  By 1971, he was out of baseball.  

(Incidentally, Boehmer even pitched seven, shutout innings at different times for those Syracuse teams. If ESPN had been around, they would've declared him the next Babe Ruth. And no, I'm not letting it go.)

I mention all this just to say what fun that game was, and what fun the crowd seemed to be having. It was a contest between two, unremarkable teams—the Sox would finish a disappointing third that year (after 1967, they always seemed to disappoint their fans) and the Yanks were fifth, with an 80-81 record. But it was a quick, crisp game—and fun.

So it was always fun between these two teams, or so it seemed. Through the amazing, Battles of the Titans in the 1970s and then the 1990s. Even during the crazy-long, back-and-forth, ding-dong action barnburners between the overjuiced  Roid Boys on both teams, in the early oughts.  

Now...

I can't tell you when I've felt less excited by a Yankees-Red Sox series, especially this late in the year. It's not just the appalling mismanagement of this staggering—and increasingly unlikable—Yankees team, which we have all gone over (and will again!). It's also how the game is run these days.

The Red Sox, obviously, have adjusted to it better than Foodstamps and The Brain. But even so, consider this: Boston did not finish last between 1932-1992. That's an even longer streak staying out of the cellar than the 1912-1966 Yankees ran up.

This year, if things continue as they likely will for the Beantowners, they will end up last for the 5th time since 2012. This, they have figured out, is the price of winning: completely imploding the team, and rebuilding. 

Hey, it's worked. Four rings since 2004, including one in 2013 and 2018 (though that year the cheating helped). But in between...year after year of dismal, hopeless teams. Or teams that are stripped for scrap at the trade deadline if they don't look promising. 

Is that better or worse than our own management's brand of playing out the definition of insanity? You tell me. But either way, when did it all get this...dreary? When did it all become this endless series of payroll and salary cap calculations, with endlessly interchangeable parts?  

I admit it: I'd rather watch this team than the one that was counting on "Gerry" Kenney and Len Boehmer. But what happened to building a team up and watching it flourish? When did we last have someone who could do that? Oh, right: last century.

Here's looking at you, Len!