Get off Bellhorn's case

ep

Re Kevin Hench: Amen brother. I consider anyone who boos Bellhorn to be a fake bandwagon fan. Put them in pinstripes and you'd have yourself a yankee fan. The success of the sox has really attracted lots of these bozos - some friends of mine included. It's sad to say, but oftentimes it's not as fun these days to be a real Sox fan as it was in the past.

pky
i still like bellhorn, but he's really testing my damn patience. he's inert. same for millar. funny thing, stupid felger was defending millar today, going off on his usual lame "you big show guys hate millar cause he said your show sucks" rant. the usual garbage. greatest whiner line line- "if there was a swing hanging from millar's genitals, felgie would be swinging off it in a blue sailor's outfit with pigtails like a girl." HAHAHAHA.

Red Sox fans should remember Bellhorn's past

Kevin Hench / FOXSports.com
Posted: 1 hour ago

They say people who win the lottery usually end up more unhappy than they were before they scored the big dough.

Really? You were happier living in the double-wide without HBO?

I never believed it.

Until now.

Mark Bellhorn homered in three straight postseason games last year, including the game-winner in Game 6 of the ALCS against the Yankees. (Jed Jacobsohn / Getty Images)

Now that I've seen the behavior of my Red Sox Nation this summer, I understand how expecting too much from life makes some people miserable.

Apparently, winning the World Series — like winning the lottery — makes you expect too much from life. This explains how Yankee fans came to boo Derek Jeter during his April slump last year. And you would think if there's one thing a Red Sox fan would never want to emulate, it's a jaded Yankee fan.

Despite being given the greatest gift in the history of sports — a world championship achieved by leaping off the throats of the Yankees — instead of viewing 2005 as a joyous low-stakes victory lap, some Red Sox fans seem to be viewing it as the first faulty step in another agonizing drought. It took the team 86 years to win a World Series. But it only took Sox fans a couple of months to turn on one of the heroes of that team.

The target of their derision has been a soft-spoken second baseman that has been thumped mercilessly with the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately cudgel.

Look, I know that before going on the disabled list Mark Bellhorn had reached a point of futility where he no longer had any business starting for a contender. I get it. It's fine to acknowledge that fact to your friends, to the talk radio host, even to Red Sox GM Theo Epstein if you see him in a restaurant. You can even shout obscenities at the TV screen every time Bellhorn takes strike three with a runner on third and less than two out. Fine.

Here's what is not acceptable: booing Mark Bellhorn at the ballpark.

Are you kidding me? Your neighbor pulls your kid from out in front of a car and the next spring you're screaming at him for not trimming his hedges?

Hey, I was one of those guys calling for Terry Francona to bench Bellhorn in the ALCS and I don't need to ever see him flail at another pitch for the Red Sox, but the guy will never have to buy a drink in any bar I'm in as long as he lives. Why? Because without him we never would have won the World Series. And that trumps everything. (Even 109 strikeouts in 283 at bats.)

Even as the Red Sox came off the mat to win Games 4 and 5 against the Yankees, I was still bellowing for Terry Francona to bench Mark Bellhorn in favor of Pokey Reese prior to Game 6 in Yankee Stadium. I figured if Bellhorn can't get the ball out of the infield, shouldn't we at least upgrade defensively with Pokey?

In the first eight games of the 2004 playoffs, Bellhorn was 4-for-31 (.129) with a .194 slugging percentage and 14 strikeouts, including four in the 19-8 Game 3 massacre at Fenway. He was lost, bewildered, in a deeper funk than George Clinton doing an encore of Atomic Dog.

But Francona — true to his dance-with-who-brung-ya loyalty — stuck with the Whiffer. And, well, the rest is history.

Batting left-handed, the switch-hitting Bellhorn hit a three-run home run to left off Jon Lieber in Boston's 4-2 win in Game 6. Watching replays of the home run — which we saw a slew of after umpire Jim Joyce originally blew the call — it just seemed nuts that Bellhorn could hit a ball that far on a cold October night to the opposite field. (Maybe that's just what Joyce was thinking when he initially ruled the ball hadn't cleared the wall.)

While Games 4 and 5 went straight into the history books as perhaps the two greatest playoff games of all time, Game 6 is the sleeper, the game best remembered for Alex Rodriguez's girly karate chop. Unlike David Ortiz's heroics in Games 4 and 5, without which the score would have remained tied, Bellhorn's blast in Game 6 was the difference between winning and losing. Something the boo-prone Sox fan might want to consider.

Bellhorn's home run in Game 7 was only critical to pathologically nervous Red Sox fans. After Pedro Martinez got roughed up for two runs in the seventh to make the score 9-3, Bellhorn's solo shot off the right-field fair pole quieted the Stadium and capped the Greatest Comeback of All Time.

The 2004 World Series will be remembered as one of the most one-sided of all time, a sweep in which the victor never trailed. But when Bellhorn came to the plate in the bottom of the eighth in Game 1 against Julian Tavarez with the score tied 9-9, the Sox were on their way to another World Series calamity. They had led 7-2 in the fourth but Manny Ramirez's bizarre misplay in left — one of four Red Sox errors — had allowed the Cardinals to tie it.

Bellhorn hit a fly ball down the right field line that seemed so destined to be pushed foul by a howling wind that the Red Sox bench leaned forward only perfunctorily to watch its flight. Then the Clang Heard ‘Round the World reverberated throughout Red Sox Nation as the ball rattled into the fair pole.

Bellhorn had homered for the third straight game, twice providing the winning runs in doing so, and the Sox never looked back.

So how does a Red Sox fan ever cup his hands to his mouth and boo this guy?

Yes, as it turns out, Bellhorn is not a very good Major League baseball player. But that's what makes his October heroics so indescribably wonderful.

It's nice when a star like Sandy Koufax or Bob Gibson or Mike Schmidt adds an amazing postseason performance to his Hall of Fame resume, but the better stories are the journeymen who found lightning in a bottle on the biggest stage.

Don Larsen pitching a perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Donn Clendenon hitting .357 with three home runs in the '69 Series. Scott Spiezio driving in 19 runs in 16 postseason games for the Angels in 2002. (Forgive me if I can't wax nostalgic about Bucky Dent and Brian Doyle in 1978.)

Add Mark Bellhorn to that list.

When we look back at Bellhorn's career — which we may be doing fairly soon — he will be one of the most improbable players to be at the center of a championship run in Major League history.

Bellhorn is in his eighth big league season and six of them have been either empty cups of coffee or complete train wrecks. But his two good seasons — 2002 with the Cubs and 2004 with the Sox — were outstanding.

Coming into '02 with the Cubs, Bellhorn had hit .198 in parts of four seasons in Oakland with seven homers in 323 at bats. Then, out of nowhere, he went berserk with Chicago in 2002, hitting .258 with 27 home runs, a .374 OBP and .512 slugging percentage. The following year he crashed back to earth, flailing his way to a .221 season with a meager two home runs in 249 at bats for the Cubs and Rockies.

Still, Epstein was impressed by Bellhorn's patience at the plate and brought him to Boston for the 2004 season. The shaggy second baseman hit a career-high .264 and had 37 doubles, 17 home runs and 82 RBIs while drawing 88 walks. (He also led the A.L. with 177 strikeouts.) Then came those three huge swings in the playoffs.

Instant immortalization, right?

Apparently not. You're only supposed to boo immortals in Philadelphia.

When Bellhorn slipped back to the form he has shown for most of his career — few hits, tons of whiffs — Red Sox Nation turned on him. Other Sox postseason stalwarts stumbled badly this year — most notably Keith Foulke and Alan Embree — but Bellhorn has been treated most rudely.

I hope Mark Bellhorn will shrug off this abuse and one day return to Fenway as a graying geezer for an Oldtimers' Game. And when he shuffles to the plate I hope he's given the standing ovation he so permanently deserves. Even though he probably will strike out.

Kevin Hench is supervising producer of The Sports List on Fox Sports Net.