Fenway Flashback: 1986 - Remembering the Joy and Heartbreak of the 1986 Boston Red Sox

Remembering the Joy and Heartbreak of the 1986 Boston Red Sox

This year we are going to relive the 1986 season game by game. Each day we will tell the story of how the day’s game went, reflect on some of the ups and downs of the season, and revel in the joys and cry at the heartbreak. 1986 was one of the most memorable seasons in Red Sox Nation because it was the embodiment of what the Curse of the Bambino truly meant, and for so long it felt like the last true chance we would ever have of breaking through as Red Sox fans. That is, until a group of idiots arrived to redeem us all!

As the sun rose on the 1986 season, there was not a lot of optimism that the Red Sox would be anything more than the middle-of-the-road ballclub they had been for nearly a decade. The team had not made the playoffs since the 1975 season, and they were coming off a mediocre 81–81 1985 campaign in which they finished fifth in the American League East, eighteen and a half games behind the Toronto Blue Jays.

Offensively, there were a number of things that management felt they could build upon going into spring training. They scored the third most runs in all of baseball and hit the fifth most home runs, and they had the highest team batting average at .282, thanks in large part to their future Hall of Fame third baseman, Wade Boggs, and his career-high .368 average. Boggs led the team in hits with an incredible 240, while Dwight Evans led the team in homers with 29, followed by Jim Rice with 27. Bill Buckner had a team-leading 110 runs batted in, and Dwight Evans scored 110 runs.

While the…