
Baseball can be a cruel game. One play, or one game, can define a player’s career.
Bobby Thomson hit a game-winning home run in the deciding game of the 1951 National League playoffs to give the New York Giants the pennant.
Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series to punch his ticket as “Mr. October.”
And Bill Buckner let a ground ball go through his legs in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.
Buckner, who died Monday from Lewy Body Dementia, was 69. He had 2,715 hits over a 22-year career and won the 1980 N.L. batting title when he hit .324 with the Chicago Cubs.
Fun fact: Buckner was playing left field for the Los Angeles Dodgers the night Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record with No. 715.
But that one play ...
“Little roller up along first … behind the bag!” NBC announcer Vin Scully yelled. “It gets through Buckner. Here comes (Ray) Knight and the Mets win it!”
The Mets would win Game 7, and Buckner would be branded with goat horns that had been passed down from Fred Merkle and Mickey Owen.
Buckner deserved better, but he never seemed to get a fair shake after that error.
Red Sox fans equated Buckner with the Curse of the Bambino, as Boston had come so close a few times to win its first World Series title since 1918.
“One bad day,” Mike Sowell wrote in his 1995 book, One Pitch Away. “No one is perfect.”
Buckner and Wilson would be tied together forever, much like Thompson was with Ralph Branca, who threw him the pitch that became "The Shot Heard 'Round the World."
Three things people tend to forget about that iconic play in Game 6. One, if Bob Stanley does not throw a wild pitch to Mookie Wilson several pitches before Buckner’s error, Kevin Mitchell doesn’t score the tying run. Two, if Buckner makes the play and gets Wilson out, the game remains tied. There was no guarantee who would win the game. And three, even if Buckner fields the ball cleanly, it was not a given he could beat Wilson to first or flip the ball in time to Stanley, who was slow breaking to first base to cover the bag,

An E-3 if there ever was one.
Perhaps Buckner should not have even been in the game at Shea Stadium at the end of Game 6 because he had come up lame as the playoffs began. Perhaps Red Sox manager John McNamara was a sentimental guy, even though he denied it during a 2011 show on the MLB Network during a retrospective program about the 1986 World Series.
Dave Stapleton certainly thought McNamara used his heart, and not his head. Stapleton had been used as a defensive replacement for Buckner at first base at the end of every postseason victory in 1986. But McNamara left Buckner to finish off Game 6. Holding a 5-3 lead heading into the bottom of the 10th, it seemed like a safe bet.
It wasn’t.
“If the truth was known -- and I don’t know if anybody would admit it, but most people know it -- all they were trying to do was leave Buckner out there so he could be on the field to celebrate when we won the game,” Stapleton told Sowell. “But my contention always was you don’t get to celebrate until you win it.”
Sixteen years later, on the MLB Network show, McNamara denied sentimentality played a part.
— Bobby Valentine (@BobbyValentine) May 27, 2019
Buckner was released by the Red Sox in July 1987. He later played for the Angels and Royals before returning to the Red Sox as a free agent in 1990.
Buckner retired with a .289 lifetime average. His numbers are similar in some categories to Harold Baines, elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee and scheduled for enshrinement later this summer. Both played the same number of seasons and had the same lifetime batting average.
But to be fair, Baines held an edge over Buckner in home runs (384-174), RBI (1,628-1,208), runs (1,299-1,077) and slugging percentage (.465-.4e08).
Sometimes, there is a fine line between being very good and being great.
Signing photos of his error became therapeutic to Bill Buckner. He became close friends with Mookie Wilson and was able to move on through the joy of Mets fans. pic.twitter.com/PSWxwh2SXC
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) May 27, 2019
He stayed away from the Red Sox and refused to participate when the team celebrated the 20th anniversary of the 1986 American League championship team. But after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2007 -- the second one in four seasons after an 86-year drought -- Buckner returned to Fenway Park in 2008 to throw out a ceremonial first pitch.
Bill Buckner has passed away. We will never forget this moment in 2008 #RIP pic.twitter.com/LyR9TocJIF
— Section 10 Podcast (@Section10Pod) May 27, 2019
“We did the best we could to win there and it just didn’t happen. I don’t feel that I deserved (the blame). And if I felt like it was my fault, I’d step up to the plate and say, ‘Hey, if I wasn’t here, the Red Sox would have won this thing.’ But I really can’t do that.”
One player should not be defined by one play. Even as I write this, what am I focusing on? That slow ground ball.
I can relate. As a first baseman in the Boynton Beach Senior Little League back in the early 1970s, I was playing first base. We were a mediocre team, but we were leading the first-place squad late in the game. There was one out and the bases were loaded when a batter hit a soft line drive toward me. The runners were moving, so I had a easy double play on my mind.
My manager, Bob Pimm, later charitably said I lost the ball in the lights, but face it -- I blew the play. The ball skipped off the top of my glove and two runs scored. We lost by a run.
Pimm said something to the effect of “Don’t worry babe, we’ll get ’em next time.” My manager called everyone “babe,” including his wife, kids and perhaps the garbage man.
More than a decade later, I felt Bill Buckner’s pain.
It was a pain he never could escape.
Sowell tells the story of Buckner going to the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in the fall of 1988 for treatment on his left ankle. The nurse picked up his chart and seemed puzzled. Then, she remembered.
“Hey, aren’t you the guy that let that ball go between your legs?” she asked.
RIP, Bill Buckner. You were more than just a negative footnote in baseball history.