Well Buckner got his "glory picture." It's probably hanging on the wall in every New York City sports bar even today.
In my opinion, the biggest problem the Red Sox have had over the years is the lack of a strong manager. The players have always walked all over the managers up here. I'm so sick of highly paid stars "sulking" all the time and taking themselves out of games for "sore throats" and conducting silly "media boycotts" because they can't handle a few pointed questions from the sports beat writers around here from time to time. The annual Pedro Martinez act of being the last one to spring training every year because of his father's birthday is getting old. Manny Ramirez zoning out on the team bus with headphones while the manager is trying to address the team is getting old. Nomar Garciaparra's sulky, petulant, "poor pitiful me" demeaner is getting tired as well. Ship the three of them elsewhere, I say. Then get a manager who won't put up with any crap from the rest of the team, and we might just get a World Series title up here, now that we have owners who aren't afraid to sling money around on decent players (and not washed-up overweight has-beens who are only interested in a DH role).
We need a hard-ass, take-no-BS manager for the Red Sox. This Franconia guy they just hired seems like a nice guy but that's just the problem. We don't need another soft-touch in the dugout. We need a Bill Belichick or a Bill Parcells type. Someone who will not be afraid to yank Pedro out of a tight game or bench a whiney superstar.
Now its Manny and Nomar -- but in the past it was worse still, with Clemens, Boggs, Rice. Clemens "mailed it in" in his last few years with the Sox, Boggs cared only about Boggs and his batting average, and Rice never half-used his God-given talent.
Fred Lynn in 1975 was my all-time hero, but the Sox mgmt blundered in their handling of him.
As for Pedro, I wouldn't have pulled him either in Game 7 -- I thought he could reach back into his bag of tricks and pull it out. Remember that the relief pitcher who followed him walked his first pitched-to batter on 4 pitches, and that's your fear of going to a reliever in that situation.
Anyway, I had given up on the Sox and baseball for quite a few years, but I got SUCKED BACK IN (against my better judgement) and caught the fever this past pay-off season. [Sigh.]