Loon - Jack McLean [29]
11
IN LATE MARCH 1967, MY ATTENTION TURNED TO THE Boston Red Sox. The games would be my daily companion until October, with box scores in the paper every morning and a static-filled game on my little transistor radio most nights. It was a wonderful diversion from the boredom.
Originally from northern New Jersey, I had been raised a New York Yankees fan. During my Andover years, though, my fan loyalties had turned to the local Boston Red Sox. The transition became complete when my parents moved to Brookline, two trolley stops from Fenway. I found that I could go to a game on the spur of the moment, pay a dollar to sit in the bleachers, and then be home again fifteen minutes after the final out. It was heaven.
The Red Sox, however, unlike the Yankees, were awful. The spring of 1967 brought little new hope. The Sox had lost one hundred games in 1965, had finished ninth in 1966, and were again one-hundred-to-one shots to win the American League Pennant in 1967. On opening day, they beat the Chicago White Sox 5–4. That afternoon, there were 8,234 fans scattered about Fenway Park. Usually, an opening day victory such as that would have kept downtrodden New England baseball fans in good spirits until early June.
Several days later, however, a twenty-one-year-old southpaw named Bill Rohr, making his major league debut, came within one out of pitching a no-hitter against the hated Yankees in New York. Softly, talk began that this year the Red Sox might actually have the stuff to contend for the American League pennant. Perhaps this year would be different. The new manager, Dick Williams, promised a .500 season—traditionally an unachievable feat for the “Olde Towne Team.” There were, however, several diamonds in the Red Sox coal mine. Carl Yastrzemski and Jim Lonborg were legitimate stars. So were local legend Tony Conigliaro and hard-hitting shortstop Rico Petrocelli. Rookies Reggie Smith and Mike Andrews added to the promise of the dawning spring.
As it turned out, this year was different. In the words of Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy, “Across most of America this was remembered as the Summer of Love, the Summer of Sgt. Pepper’s, and the summer of the Vietnam War escalation, but for young Red Sox fans it was the summer of the Impossible Dream.” By the time I shipped out in October, my Red Sox would make it all the way to the seventh game of the 1967 World Series before losing to the St. Louis Cardinals.
On July 5, 1967, I arrived home in Brookline for several weeks of annual leave. It was great to be out of Barstow and wonderful to be home during the height of a beautiful New England summer. Despite the daily escalation of the war, I was nearing the halfway point of my enlistment and was increasingly certain that I would not go. A marine’s tour in Vietnam was thirteen months, with another month of training prior to departure. I was running out of time.
On my first day home, I drove the twenty miles from Brookline to Andover to meet with Bob Hulburd, the school’s college admissions adviser. It felt good to be back on the sprawling campus. Much had changed in the past year. I felt taller. The school seemed smaller.
I was certainly the only recent graduate to return as a United States Marine. There was no bottom to the well of pride that I felt. I was also becoming aware that my service in the Marine Corps might actually be a positive force in the college admissions process.
I was excited about attending college and aspired to find a suitable one near home. Boston University was an obvious choice. Hulburd agreed. After further discussion, he suggested a number of other possibilities and included Harvard University on the list. He felt that they would be interested in my unique experience.
In the early 1960s, with large thanks to Dean Bill Bender, Harvard had broadened its admissions criteria. The university then,