I truly don’t believe Bill Buckner isn’t that bad of a player. I think he had a really good career but unfortunately had one bad game. A lot of players have had bad games. I would honestly say that Bill Buckner is in the same level (skill wise) as someone such as Dwight Evan’s, Fred Lynn,Willie Randolph and etc.

27 comments

  4. Yeah he was a good player. He wasn’t in the same tier as those players you compared him to though.

  5. He was an excellent player and its a shame that this play continues to define his career. 

  6. I was at Fenway on opening day in 1987. When Buckner came to the plate for the first time, he got a standing ovation. It was a really nice moment.

  7. I mean, he hit almost .300 w/ almost 3,000 hits… and a batting title… I’d say he belongs in the Hall of Very Good for sure.

  8. With generally a good glove, right? Baseball is cruel…

    I actually had a glove that was “signed” by Bill Buckner *after* that World Series, which is wild.

  9. He was a very good player. He played 20+ seasons & won a batting title. It’s sad that he took the fall for Stanley & Shiraldi choking the series away out of the bullpen in game 6.

  10. He was an excellent player who endured one of the most unfortunate plays in baseball history.

  11. Dude was a batting champ. Maybe not a Hall of Famer, but a solid player who played for a long time.

  14. I hear we’ve made a competitive FA offer to his estate but they are currently heavily favoring about 5 other teams. RIP Bill- we do love you!

  15. He gets way too much shit for 86. He probably wouldn’t have beaten Betts to the bag, even if he fields the ball, and the gm was tied. There was also a lot of bad Schiraldi.

    And the Red Sox are up 3-0 on the 6th inning of gm 7!! A really fascinating series, but stop putting this shit on BB, it took a village.

  18. This is hilarious. Bill Buckner was a league average player who was a terrible defensive first baseman.

    Ok he got 2700 hits but his OPS+ is 100 so exactly league average.

    OP compared him to Dwight Evans Willie Randolph and Fred Lynn.

    Let’s squash that right here and now.

    Career bWAR

    Dwight Evans 20 years 67.2 bWAR

    Willie Randolph 18 years 65.9 bWAR

    Fred Lynn 17 years 50.2 bWAR

    Bill Buckner 22 years 15.0 bWAR

    It isn’t even close.

    I remember watching Bucker field groundballs hit directly at him 3 feet from 1st base and screaming at the pitcher to hurry up and cover first cause he wouldn’t take the 3 steps necessary himself and this is the reason he at one time held the assist records by a 1B for both leagues and he still has 4 of the top 10 totals. He was completely immobile on defense if the ball wasn’t hit within 1 step of him he wouldn’t get it.

  19. I’ve seen players put into HoF whom I consider to have inferior offensive numbers to what he put up. This is not saying he should be enshrined there.

  21. Of course he was a good player. You don’t get to start for a World Series team if you suck.

  22. He’s missing a golden opportunity to connect his chest hair to his facial hair. Most guys can’t do that. What a waste!

  23. Boston Red Sox fans were extremely cruel and vicious towards Buckner, he had to actually keep moving around Boston until his kid(s) finished school. Then he moved away. Got bad enough reports were the FBI got involved because of the death threats that kept occurring even years later.
    Buckner was a good player, but wow Red Sox fans were cruel and it wasn’t warranted to the extent that it lasted.

  25. Bill Buckner got shafted hard. I don’t feel that he was remarkably close to being a HOFer, however, the guy put up stellar numbers everywhere he went. This isn’t the part of the conversation, though, that comes up when we talk about Buckner.

    Game 6.

    Fuck anyone who thinks Game 6 was lost due to the Buckner error. I have gone on tirades about this for years. I can blame 5 other guys BEFORE Bill for the loss of Game 6.

    **Roger Clemens** – stay in the game and pitch, yes, even with that fucking blister. you would have had an entire off season to get that thing under control and feeling good. go win a ring, dammit.
    **Bob Stanley** – where’s the command? you’re in the WORLD fucking SERIES.
    **Rich Gedman** – well, you gotta catch that shit and get your pitchers more in control.
    **Calvin Schiraldi** – this was not your best moment and were you set up to fail? maybe.
    **John McNamara** – you put a defensive replacement on the field for Buck every other game except this game. i get that you want him involved for the on-field celebration IF you can pull off the win, but…he would have been there with the team and they still would have been considered winners. but, no…

    The Red Sox had the upper hand in that game. Yes, it was kinda back and forth but the Red Sox always responded. They should have won. On that note, they also should have won Game 7.

    To shit on Bill Buckner is an easy thing to do for people that just want to believe what they’ve been told from uninformed Red Sox fans or Mets fans. Bill was a good dude, a very good ball player, and should have gotten his ring in 1986.

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