In the era prior to the Red Sox recent run of world championships the franchise played four of what were arguably the ten greatest World Series ever played in the first century of that competition. In succession, each represented an epic yet excruciating seven game Fall Classic contested and lost by the franchise starting in 1946. However, the 1967 World Series stands alone as an almost anticlimactic contest. For it capped a regular season in which Tom Yawkey’s team surmounted 100 to 1 odds to capture the greatest pennant race in American League history. A win against the Cardinals would have surely doubled the odds while the significance of their glorious league title and narrow series loss transcended mere results. Both symbolized a rebirth of the franchise and inspired a generation of young ballplayers.
Fast forward to 1986 and two of those youngsters, Worcester native and St Peter-Marian graduate Rich Gedman and Ron Darling, of Millbury and St John’s-Shrewsbury, provided a compelling sidebar to the action while representing the Red Sox and Mets respectively.
Both grew up in the heart of the Commonwealth at a time when the voices of Ken Coleman and Ned Martin were the soundtrack of the Impossible Dream summer of ’67, and Little Leaguers fought to wear number eight while begging their moms to buy Big Yaz bread.
As a fellow Worcesterite, my limited personal history with both men first came in the form of my job as a copy boy at the Worcester Evening Gazette in the Fall of 1979, at the same time Gedman, who’d recently signed as an un-drafted free agent with the Red Sox, worked on the loading dock. He was a cheerful teenager who’d fling 40 lb. bundles of bound newspapers onto delivery trucks like a kid tossing a whiffle ball.
My contact with Darling was indirect, as my wife Mary, a Millbury native recalled her brother Tom playing against Ron in Little League. She also remembered Darling as an unassuming neighborhood kid, though a big deal in a small town, soon headed to stardom at Yale and Shea Stadium.
In his book, Game 7, 1986, Darling paid tribute to Gedman: “In those (high school) days, he mostly pitched and played first base. Me, I mostly played shortstop, but I was one of the better players on our team and I had a strong arm so I took my turn on the hill. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I had a decent fastball and good control-so in high school terms at least, I was ahead of the game. Gedman came to catching late in his career, but he could hit. More to the point, he could hit me.”
Darling described their encounter in Game Four of the World Series in his book, The Complete Game: “Here at Fenway, another field with quirky dimensions, it appeared that Gedman still had my number. On the second pitch of his at bat in the second inning he lashed a double down the right-field line, and just like that I was back in the same hole I’d dug for myself in the first inning-only this time there was no one out-and as he pulled into second base it seemed like we were back in high school.”
In Eric Sherman’s book on the 1986 World Series, Two Sides of Glory, Gedman reflected on the Series’: “Darling pitched a great Game One in a losing effort and then won the Fourth Game. We played at rival high schools in Massachusetts, I was a senior at St. Peter’s, and Ron was a sophomore at St. John’s. And here we were in Game Seven. It was unbelievable.”
Gedman followed Dwight Evans in the second inning. Both socked back to back home runs against Darling as the Mets starter lasted but three and two third innings in a game eventually won by the Mets 8-5.
Following their heart-breaking loss, Gedman and Red Sox Game Seven starter Bruce Hurst walked to the victorious Mets clubhouse to congratulate former teammate, pitcher Bobby Ojeda. Gedman also extended his hand to his old rival Ron Darling who’d later remark, “I do remember how Rich Gedman had the class and character to come looking for me after the game to offer his congratulations-Rich Gedman, who grew up the same way I did, in the same time, in the same place, rooting for the Red Sox, with the same hopes and blue collar dreams. It had to be tough for him, to be so close to a championship and to see it run away from him-tougher, still, to suck it up and seek me out to shake my hand and wish me well.”
It was a gesture that was a mirror image of the class shown in the pre-game ceremonies, where first pitch duties were shared by Mets owner Nelson Doubleday and Red Sox owner Jean Yawkey in a touching display of sportsmanship. Yawkey later observed, “We got beat, fair and square, and there was nothing to be ashamed of.”
Forty years on, the story of that remarkable team, from Roger “The Rocket” Clemens’ MVP and Cy Young Award season to the agony and grace of the Fall Classic, is celebrated in The Sports Museum’s new exhibit, “1986 Red Sox: Rocketing to the Top”, presented by the Yawkey Foundation. I invite you to visit The Sports Museum at TD Garden and relive the season that brought two kids from Worcester County, and all of Red Sox Nation, within one strike of glory.
Richard A. Johnson served as curator at The Sports Museum in Boston from 1982-2026 and is the author, coauthor and editor of 25 books including A Century of Boston Sports, New England Patriots, Field of Fathers, An Illustrated History of Fenway Park, and Red Sox Century (w/Glenn Stout).
