Lupica: Past better than present for these Sox

Lupica: Past better than present for these Sox

Corey Sipkin/New York Daily News

Terry Francona hears cheers from Fenway Park crowd, unlike current team or manager.

BOSTON The past was better Friday at Fenway Park, much better, not just the past of 100 years ago in this place, but all of it since, the past that kept coming through the outfield walls in the form of old players and managers, standing in the sun and hearing the cheers, all that green around them once more. The Red Sox do not have the kind of past in baseball that the Yankees have, no one does. But they do not love baseball any less in Boston.

Still: This was a day in Boston when they celebrated all the years at old Fenway except this year.

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Oh, the past was so much better at old Fenway on Friday afternoon, 100 years after the Red Sox played the New York Highlanders and beat them, 7-6, in 11 innings. Maybe those Red Sox could have done better than the Red Sox of 2012 are doing right now, in a season that must make Bobby Valentine feel as if he has managed 100 years in Boston already. And he isnt out of April yet.

Cmon, well be fine, Valentine said of the Red Sox present, around 12:30 Friday afternoon, standing between the batting cage and the Red Sox dugout. We get everybody he althy and look out.

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That was before Clay Buchholz became one more Red Sox pitcher this season who didnt have it, giving up five home runs, getting taken out of April 2012 by Eric Chavez a couple of times and Nick Swisher and Russell Martin and Alex Rodriguez, before the Red Sox fell to 4-9, before September of last season continued to spill into this season, somewhat like an oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico.

Before that, though, this was such a fine Field of Dreams day at Fenway, a day when a great old baseball gent named John Pesky was on that green grass once more, even if they had to bring him out in a wheelchair. And Carlton Fisk, whose home run stayed fair one World Series night in 1975, he was there. So was white-haired Carl Yastrzemski, the hero of 1967, and a big righthanded pitcher named Jim Lonborg, who had the season of his life that year, another year when the Red Sox c ame close in the World Series and lost.

But they had so many guys who changed all that at Fenway Friday, changed it in October of 2004 against the Yankees when the Red Sox came from 0-3 down and never lost another game. So Kevin Millar was at Fenway, leading a toast for the whole park, Pedro Martinez right there with him.

And finally, there was Terry Francona, Valentines predecessor, the one who managed the Red Sox through that 0-3 comeback against the Yankees, who managed them from a 1-3 comeback against the Cleveland Indians in 2007, who never lost a World Series game he managed, in 04 or 07. Francona, who originally wasnt coming, heard the biggest cheers of all, heard them chant his nickname Tito, heard his thanks for 04 and 07 once and for all.