Jim Lonborg discusses the magical 67 season ! In the summer 1967, a stable of young talent took a then-floundering team to great heights, launching thousands of impossible dreams in the process. On that team was a right-handed pitcher who enjoyed one of the best seasons of the 1960s. His name was Jim Lonborg, and he won the American League Cy Young Award for the Boston Red Sox with 22 win Growing up in the college town of San Luis Obispo, Lonborg played a variety of sports, excelling at both baseball and basketball. The 6-foot-5 Lonborg even walked on to the hoop team at Stanford University. But his ticket to professional sports was baseball, though not until Red Sox legend Bobby Doerr scouted him and critiqued his training regimen. “I always had great mechanics, but I would play a lot of catch after I pitched,” Lonborg said. “Bobby Doerr suggested that I rest my arm on off days and not throw. The first time I did that, I struck out 17 in my next start.” In 1967, the Red Sox pulled off the impossible by going from near-last place to the American League pennant in just a year. The Sox had, however, shown flashes of turning into a winning team thanks to a second-half surge in ’66. “In the beginning, we were just playing and playing very well,” Lonborg said. “We were playing good fundamental baseball and then we started having successes. We went on a 10-game road trip and won every game. I think that propelled us to be a team to beat.” The 1967 Sox were the first Boston team under the direction of manager Dick Williams. The notoriously rigid skipper demanded a lot of his players, focusing on fundamentals and playing the right way. “He didn’t like when you made mistakes twice,” Lonborg said. “He only tolerated them once.” Even with a stern manager, the Impossible Dream Red Sox were a fun-loving and tightly knit bunch, according to Lonborg. Their relative youth certainly had a hand in that, the regular starting nine all in their twenties, including Triple Crown-winner Carl Yastrzemski. “Every team has to have pranksters on it, have a sense of humor and crack jokes,” Lonborg said. “But everybody really cared about one another. We all hung out together, went out to dinner together. We developed some great friendships.” Today, Lonborg still has his eye on the Red Sox, albeit from a distance. “They’re pretty beat up, but I think the potential is there,” he said. “Anything can happen. They have too much talent on that team to not go anywhere.” That Red Sox team 45 years ago was a slow starter too, falling to 18-20 near Memorial Day. They finished 92-70 and fell to the St. Louis Cardinals in a 7-game World Series.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 06:59:45 +0000
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