In the spirit of March Madness brackets, Boston.Com launched its very own: Voting to determine who is Boston’s most significant sports activities villain. The Boston sports villain bracket keeps with round-via-spherical balloting, so head over and let your voice be heard.
Not one of the four major Boston sports activities teams received a championship in the 1990s. The Bruins lost in the Stanley Cup Final in 1990. The Patriots misplaced Super Bowl XXXI in 1996. The Red Sox commenced and ended the last decade with journeys to the American League Championship Series. The Celtics never made it out of the second round.
There was no shortage of villains, both. The Yankees birthed new legends and a new dynasty in the latter half of the decade. Bruins legend Cam Neely was poised to steer the team for future years until incidents with a Penguins defenseman brought about early retirement. Then, just weeks before the 1994 Winter Olympics, a discernible skater from Portland, Oregon, became embroiled in an internationally blanketed scandal.
Here are eight Boston sports villains from the ’90s:
Roger Clemens
Clemens was the pleasant Red Sox pitcher due to Cy Young himself. He holds the best WAR (eighty-one .0) by way of a Red Sox pitcher, is tied with Young for the all-time Red Sox lead in wins (192) and shutouts, and struck out 2,590 batters in a Red Sox uniform, about 500 more than all people else. Then there are Clemens’ 20-strikeout video games, 3 Cy Young awards with the Red Sox, and an MVP season 1986.
But while Clemens’s agreement expired after the 1996 season, general supervisor Dan Duquette determined to play hardball with the 33-year-antique who had now not been named an All-Star in view that 1992. In the end, Clemens signed with AL East rival Toronto in December 1996.
“Roger usually desired a four-year agreement,” Duquette informed the Boston Globe after Clemens left. “Frankly, we weren’t cozy with doing that… [but] because Roger decided without cost business enterprise; the marketplace has spiked. At the time of our offer, we didn’t see Roger as one of the nine pitchers in baseball. He hadn’t pitched that way in the last two years.”
Over the subsequent seasons, Roger Clemens published a 41-thirteen document, a 2.33 ERA, and compiled 563 strikeouts. He won the Cy Young Award in 1997 and 1998. He recorded sixteen strikeouts in his first start at Fenway Park as an opposing pitcher on July 12, 1997, and started to stare down the proprietor’s container as he exited the game.
The Blue Jays traded Clemens to the Yankees earlier than the 1999 season to make matters worse for Boston lovers. He pitched for the Yankees through 2003, won the World Series twice, received his sixth Cy Young award in 2001, and helped knock the Red Sox out of the playoffs twice, in 1999 and 2003. He could return to the Yankees for part of the 2007 season.
In Game 3 of the 2003 ALCS, Manny Ramirez incited two bench-clearing incidents while he answered angrily to a high pitch from Clemens. This confrontation is most famous for Pedro Martinez throwing 73-year-old Don Zimmer to the floor.