Bill Buckner dies at age 69

[liam]

Bill Buckner dies at age 69 sad.... He will always be remembered in Boston!

[Birdman]

Great player but alway be remember for that one error which is not fair..

[liam]

Great player but alway be remember for that one error which is not fair..

He shouldn't of been in the game if he could not bend over. It was much more heart breaking before all the Red Sox championships..

[Birdman]

Dementia..horrible disease..i seen so many ppl died from this...breaks my heart for whoever suffer from this and their families

[Neurotic Guy]

I wasn’t a Sox fan but I remember it well. I recall my housemate and friends on the verge of a celebration that never came.  Sox  Fans would wait another 28 years for a championship and forgiveness .  Sadly, Buckner was pretty devastated for years (as I understand it).

Buckner and Bartman - 2 classic examples of sports blame gone awry.  Hopefully there is no connection to the early onset dementia that shortened Buckner’s life and the acute/prolonged stress or depression that stemmed from the error and the blame.

[tenn_smoothie]

I wasn’t a Sox fan but I remember it well. I recall my housemate and friends on the verge of a celebration that never came.  Sox  Fans would wait another 28 years for a championship and forgiveness .  Sadly, Buckner was pretty devastated for years (as I understand it).

Buckner and Bartman - 2 classic examples of sports blame gone awry.  Hopefully there is no connection to the early onset dementia that shortened Buckner’s life and the acute/prolonged stress or depression that stemmed from the error and the blame.

I was aware that Bill Buckner was always upset, to some extent, about his infamous error, but I did not know how much it stayed with him.

Can someone enlighten me ?

[nickagneta]

I feel for his family. I took care of my grandmother through dementia and now doing the same with my dad. Buckner had Lewy Body Dementia which is kind of like a mixture of dementia and Parkinson's disease. Nasty.

Rest easy, Bill.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

I wasn’t a Sox fan but I remember it well. I recall my housemate and friends on the verge of a celebration that never came.  Sox  Fans would wait another 28 years for a championship and forgiveness .  Sadly, Buckner was pretty devastated for years (as I understand it).

Buckner and Bartman - 2 classic examples of sports blame gone awry.  Hopefully there is no connection to the early onset dementia that shortened Buckner’s life and the acute/prolonged stress or depression that stemmed from the error and the blame.

TP. Sometimes fans go way too far, and it's a shame that Buckner was put through what he was put through. He was a solid major league hitter, and as far as I know a decent human being.

I feel for his family. I took care of my grandmother through dementia and now doing the same with my dad. Buckner had Lewy Body Dementia which is kind of like a mixture of dementia and Parkinson's disease. Nasty.

Rest easy, Bill.

I commend you, nick. You're doing a great thing.

[Neurotic Guy]

I wasn’t a Sox fan but I remember it well. I recall my housemate and friends on the verge of a celebration that never came.  Sox  Fans would wait another 28 years for a championship and forgiveness .  Sadly, Buckner was pretty devastated for years (as I understand it).

Buckner and Bartman - 2 classic examples of sports blame gone awry.  Hopefully there is no connection to the early onset dementia that shortened Buckner’s life and the acute/prolonged stress or depression that stemmed from the error and the blame.

I was aware that Bill Buckner was always upset, to some extent, about his infamous error, but I did not know how much it stayed with him.

Can someone enlighten me ?

Someone please correct me if I am wrong.  My thought was that I had seen a 60 minutes (or the like) in which  Buckner spoke to needing to leave the Boston area with his family shortly after retirement and had some trouble adjusting. He skipped a 20 year "reunion" of the '86 team and wasn't till the "first pitch" Buckner threw following the 2007 season that he seemed to fully put it behind him.  I may be exaggerating the impact -- I'm not really sure it led to any serious degree of depression (and my apology for alluding to that with no reference) -- it is just my memory of the story.   

[Mingia]

I wasn’t a Sox fan but I remember it well. I recall my housemate and friends on the verge of a celebration that never came.  Sox  Fans would wait another 28 years for a championship and forgiveness .  Sadly, Buckner was pretty devastated for years (as I understand it).

Buckner and Bartman - 2 classic examples of sports blame gone awry.  Hopefully there is no connection to the early onset dementia that shortened Buckner’s life and the acute/prolonged stress or depression that stemmed from the error and the blame.

I was aware that Bill Buckner was always upset, to some extent, about his infamous error, but I did not know how much it stayed with him.

Can someone enlighten me ?

Someone please correct me if I am wrong.  My thought was that I had seen a 60 minutes (or the like) in which  Buckner spoke to needing to leave the Boston area with his family shortly after retirement and had some trouble adjusting. He skipped a 20 year "reunion" of the '86 team and wasn't till the "first pitch" Buckner threw following the 2007 season that he seemed to fully put it behind him.  I may be exaggerating the impact -- I'm not really sure it led to any serious degree of depression (and my apology for alluding to that with no reference) -- it is just my memory of the story.

Here is an article and video...

https://thespun.com/more/mlb/video-of-bill-buckners-return-to-fenway-in-2008-is-a-must-watch-today

[nickagneta]

I thought I heard on the news that Buckner needed to move out of Reading, MA because all the crap he received was affecting his quality of life. I think he moved to the Midwest.

Strangely, Reading is the same town that made life so unpleasant with racial shi....stuff, that Celtic legend, Bill Russell, left the town too.

[hardlyyardley]

Roasted in error for the error....he shouldn't have been on the field....manager wanted him there instead of Dave Stapleton for the clinching out
Never would have happened if Schiraldi and Stanley hadn't choked in relief

[bdm860]

I'm a Yankees fan, not a Red Sox fan so it's easy for me not to hate the guy, but it's always interesting how things play out.

Some say even if Buckner caught the ball, Mookie Wilson would have beat him to the bag.

Even if he got the out, it would have gone into the 11th, who knows what would have happened there.

I feel like everyone acts like that was the deciding play of the World Series.  But there was still a whole other game left to play.  So that's on the Red Sox as a team, not on Buckner.

And a few Red Sox players probably got off easy because of it.  The game wouldn't have even been tied if not for Bob Stanley's wild pitch a few pitches earlier.  Despite it being ruled a wild pitch, still looked like a very catchable ball by the catcher Gedman.

And then there's the other pitcher Schiraldi.  Came into the game with lead in the 8th, gave up a run to tie the game.  Then had a 2 run lead going into the 11th.  Gave up 3 straight hits giving up a run, before finally being pulled with 2 men still on base.  Which leads to the Stanley's wild pitch and the Buckner error.

Then Schiraldi enters Game 7 in the 7th inning with a tied game, immediately gives up 3 runs and doesn't even get an out.

If Buckner makes the catch but the Sox still lose, Red Sox fans everywhere would probably hate Stanley and Schiraldi.  Hopefully those guys thanked their lucky stars everyday for Buckner's error, otherwise it would have been them (ok maybe nowhere near the extreme of the Buckner hate, because those plays were not as egregious as the Buckner play, but still you know what I'm saying).

[Kuberski33]

The 86 Sox over-achieved and one of the big reasons was Buckner. He was terrific during the regular season driving in over 100 runs and came up with a ton of clutch hits.  John McNamara the manager had subbed Dave Stapleton for him throughout the playoffs but didn't do it in Game 6 because he thought Buckner deserved to be on the field when the Sox won it.

The thing to keep in mind is Boston was in full '1918' mode at that point and they were right on the verge of breaking the 'curse' so I think that's where a lot of the ire came from.  It was unfortunate because - as has been pointed out - there was plenty of blame to go around for the debacle.  Stanley, Schiraldi (a Met castoff), Rich Gedman and McNamara all choked when it counted.

That team was almost a terrific story because the Mets were the best team in baseball that season. The ending was not all that surprising for anyone who'd followed this team for any amount of time back then - something always went wrong in the end.

Buckner didn't at all deserve the grief he took.

[tenn_smoothie]

I feel for his family. I took care of my grandmother through dementia and now doing the same with my dad. Buckner had Lewy Body Dementia which is kind of like a mixture of dementia and Parkinson's disease. Nasty.

Rest easy, Bill.

You and your family will be in my prayers tonight, Nick.