Boston Red Sox Memories: Remembering the 1986 ALCS

Since Major League Baseball has suspended the 2020 season, let’s take a trip back in time and revisit the Red Sox thrilling victory in the 1986 ALCS.

With the dearth of actual live, real baseball to watch this spring, like many other baseball die-hards I’ve taken to watching old Boston Red Sox games on YouTube. It’s actually been great fun to go back and watch (or in many cases, re-watch) games, some of which I haven’t seen since they aired and some which were from before I was born.

Not only have I been able to relive a lot of great memories (and some painful ones), but it’s given me a chance to zero in on a lot of little things and nuances that I either missed the first time around or simply didn’t remember. Taking advantage of all this time, I decided to do something a little crazy (or a little stupid depending on your perspective) and revisit one of my favorite teams of all time, the 1986 Red Sox.

I recently re-watched and wrote about Roger Clemens’ two twenty strikeout games from 1986 and 1996 which led me to the crazy/stupid decision: I was going to watch every game of the 1986 ALCS. The series was one of the most dramatic high points in Red Sox history. I love that team and that season so much that I knew I had to do it.

The Red Sox won the AL East in 1986 with a 95-66 record and finished 5.5 games ahead of the second place New York Yankees. Meanwhile, in the AL West, the California Angels (as they were then called) finished 5 games ahead of the second place Texas Rangers with a 92-70 record.

The ALCS and NLCS, which had come into being in 1969 when Major League Baseball split the two leagues into two divisions each, had been a best-of-five series from 1969 to 1984. In 1985 it was expanded into the best-of-seven game series we know today. (As a side note, it may be because it’s how I grew up with baseball, but the 2 divisions per league and one round LCS playoffs before the World Series is the sweet spot for me. I wish MLB would go back to that format, although I know they never will).

The Red Sox had home field advantage in the series and hosted games 1, 2, 6, and 7 while the Angles hosted games 3, 4, and 5. The series started on October 7, 1986, a mere two days after the Red Sox final game of the regular season.

What follows is based on of the notes I took while re-watching all seven games. I did watch most of the series when it actually happened in 1986 (I was not quite seven years old) but didn’t remember a lot of what happened, so watching the games again was a real treat for me.

Lastly, Red Sox manager John McNamara went with a three-man rotation of Roger Clemens, Bruce Hurst, and Oil Can Boyd in this series and stuck with the same lineup and batting order for pretty much the entire series:

Wade Boggs, 3B
Marty Barrett, 2B
Bill Buckner, 1B
Jim Rice, LF
Don Baylor, DH
Dwight Evans, RF
Rich Gedman, C
Tony Armas, CF
Spike Owen, SS

Rice and Baylor swapped places in the order once or twice but otherwise, this was the lineup used throughout the series. Sometimes Dave Henderson was put in as a defensive replacement for Armas late in games and Dave Stapleton subbed for Buckner late in game when his (Buckner’s) ankles got increasingly worse, but substitutions were usually kept to a minimum.

Without further ado, let’s begin.

Game One

October 7, 1986 was a beautiful fall day in New England and with Roger Clemens (24-4 in the regular season) on the mound matched up against Angels ace Mike Witt (18-10), it looked like we’d be in for a real treat and a pitcher’s duel. Unfortunately it didn’t live up to that promise. There were a couple of interesting pregame things I didn’t know or remember as the series started which I was reminded of on the broadcast.

First, Clemens had been hit with a line drive on his left arm in the second inning against the Baltimore Orioles on October 1 and left the game, but he said before Game One that he wasn’t feeling any ill effects from it. Second, Boggs was nursing a nasty hamstring pull suffered toward the end of the season. It was enough to cause him to miss the final series of the regular season, but he was in the starting lineup for every game of the postseason.

Clemens cruised through the first inning but ran into trouble in the second. He struck out the first two batters he faced but then walked two, gave up an RBI single to Ruppert Jones, an RBI double to rookie phenom Wally Joyner, and another single to Brian Downing. When the dust settled the Angels were up 4-0. In the next inning, Spike Owen made a throwing error with two on which allowed another run to score.

It was pretty clear from the beginning that Clemens was amped up and overthrowing. I can’t blame him since it was his first ever postseason start, but after the first inning it was obvious he was just trying to blow guys away with his speed as he hardly mixed in any of his offspeed stuff. After the fourth inning, though, he settled down and threw much better.

The Red Sox got their only run in the sixth when Marty Barrett drove it in with a single after Witt got into his only real trouble of the game; with two outs, he walked a batter and gave up a single before Barrett drove in the run. Up to the sixth inning, Witt had been dealing and was no hitting the Red Sox.

Clemens gave up another run in the eighth before being lifted and replaced with Joe Sambito who loaded the bases and gave up a two-RBI single to Downing.

Clemens’ final line was 7.1 IP, 10 H, 8 R (7 ER), 5K, 3 BB on 143 pitches.

Meanwhile, Witt threw a complete game and only allowed five hits and the single run. The 8-1 loss was mirrored by the very underwhelming showing from the Red Sox bats. It seemed as though they were a little overwhelmed by the postseason. The Sox hadn’t been to the postseason since the one game playoff in 1978 and hadn’t been to the ALCS since 1975.

Apart from Rice and Evans, none of the other Red Sox were on the team in 1978 and most (with the exception of Buckner and Baylor) had never been in the postseason before. It looked like it affected Owen in particular as even after his error, most of his throws were off the mark and only saved by Buckner stretching and jumping to catch them.

It wasn’t a good start for the Red Sox, losing the opening game at home behind the best pitcher in baseball in 1986 (Clemens won both the AL Cy Young and the AL MVP awards that season). The Red Sox got steamrolled in Game One and needed to come back strong the next day to salvage a split before hitting the road.

Game Two

With their backs already up against the wall after losing Game One at home, the Red Sox turned to Bruce Hurst (who had gone 13-8 in the regular season) and he pitched a gem. On the other side, the Angels countered with Kirk McCaskill (who went 17-10) and it looked like the Red Sox would have their work cut out for them.

Instead, it was a role reversal from the night before as the Sox hit McCaskill hard from the very start. Boggs led off the game with a triple and was driven in by Barrett’s double. Barrett drove in another run in the second with a bases loaded single, but Buckner ended the rally (and the inning) by grounding into a double play. The Red Sox squandered multiple chances to blow the game open and McCaskill settled down after the second inning.

Meanwhile, Hurst was dealing and even though he scattered eleven hits over his nine innings, he didn’t walk anyone and struck out four while only giving up two runs (one unearned). Apart from Wally Joyner’s solo home run, every California hit was a single and Hurst was only let down by two more errors, one each from Spike Owen and Boggs (although Boggs made up for it with a smart play where he cut off a throw from Rice in left field and caught Bobby Grich in no man’s land between third and home, picking him off).

The Red Sox pulled ahead for good in the fifth when Evans hit an RBI double (in reality, a fly ball that landed behind second base because the Angels lost it in the sun). They added three more in the seventh and three in the eighth, capped off by Rice’s two-run homer (Rice finally got his first two hits of the series in this game, of which the home run was the second).

Overall, it was pretty sloppy in the field (three errors for the Red Sox, two for the Angels), exacerbated by the setting afternoon sun, but Hurst pitched great and the Red Sox evened up the series at a game apiece.

Game Three

Game Three is kind of the forgotten game of the series. The pitching matchup was a good one, with Oil Can Boyd (16-10) going up against the Angels’ John Candelaria (10-2). Boyd was dealing in the first few innings and one thing I’d forgotten about all these years later was how demonstrative and fired up he got on the mound.

Boyd did a lot of fist pumping, talking to himself, and walking around in circles on the mound and I remember as a kid that Red Sox fans liked it while other teams thought he was showing them up. I always thought he was just trying to fire himself up more than anything else. The Red Sox struck first when Rich Gedman drove in a run in the second inning, but the Sox could’ve had more if they had paid attention to details a bit more.

Baylor was picked off of first base with two men on base right before Gedman’s hit which hampered a potential rally. There was some controversy in the fourth inning when, with two outs and two on, California’s Doug DeCinces hit a slow grounder to first base that hit the bag and bounced away from Buckner. Boyd, who had run over to cover the bag, swiped at it and knocked it back toward Buckner who picked it up and fired home.

Gedman caught the ball and tagged Wally Joyner out (Joyner unwisely didn’t slide and tried to step over Gedman’s glove). Initially called safe, the call was overturned after the umpires conferred and the inning was over. Replay from one angle made it look like he was out while another angle made it look like he was safe. Angels manager Gene Mauch argued the call and was tossed from the game, but in any event, the game went on with the Red Sox clinging to their 1-0 lead.

The Sox wasted a golden opportunity in the fifth when Gedman led off with a single and Tony Armas hit a double that just barely missed clearing the wall by a foot. Owen grounded out, but Boggs walked to load the bases with one out. Instead of capitalizing, Barrett popped up and Buckner grounded out to end the threat.

Boyd was cruising until the sixth when he gave up an RBI single to Reggie Jackson (his first hit of the series) which tied the game. In the seventh, Oil Can unraveled when he gave up a solo home run to Dick Schofield, a single to Bob Boone, and a two-run homer to Gary Pettis which made it 4-1, Angels.

Boyd’s day ended after 6.2 innings with him giving up eight hits and four runs to go along with three strikeouts and two walks. Overall, though, he pitched a pretty good game but got no run support.

The Sox tried to mount a comeback in the eighth when they scored a run with runners on second and third when Angels closer Donnie Moore balked; they added another when Gedman followed with an RBI single. However, it was too little, too late and the Angels tacked on an insurance run in the bottom of the inning when Ruppert Jones drove in a run visa sacrifice fly off of Red Sox closer Calvin Schiraldi.

The 5-3 loss dropped the Red Sox behind in the series 2-1. This game doesn’t get talked about much when it comes to this series, but it was a really entertaining contest that had a little bit of everything. The defense was tightened up (only one error for Boston, none for California) and Oil Can Boyd and John Candelaria (7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 5 K, 3 BB) both pitched really well. It may be the forgotten game of the series, but it was a good one.

Game Five

The Big One. Game Five of the 1986 ALCS is one of the greatest postseason games in baseball history. Down 3-1 in the series after an eleven inning heartbreaker that ended late the previous night, the Red Sox had to come back fourteen hours later to play Game Five at noon under the California sun.

Even though the Red Sox had Bruce Hurst on the mound, they were up against Angels ace Mike Witt which looked to be a daunting task indeed. The Red Sox had every excuse to pack it in after the crushing loss the night before, but to their credit they came out swinging. Gedman hit a two-run homer in the second inning after almost striking out (he just barely grazed the previous pitch to foul tip it).

Hurst was getting squeezed a bit but pitched well. He gave up a solo home run to Bob Boone in the second and then a hit to Reggie Jackson, but then picked him off to end the inning. The Sox had chances throughout the game but kept squandering them. Boston clung to the 2-1 lead until the bottom of the sixth inning. Doug DeCinces hit a double in the sixth with two outs and was followed by Bobby Grich.

Grich hit a long fly ball that Dave Henderson (in for Tony Armas who left the game in the fifth after hurting his ankle) chased down and leapt for in front of the wall. He caught it, but the act of crashing into the wall jarred it out of his glove and over the fence for a two-run homer and a 3-2 Angels lead. Hurst looked deflated on the mound while Grich took a curtain call in front of the frenzied crowd.

The Angels were already acting like they had won the pennant and the feeling grew when they put up two more runs in the seventh to expand their lead to 5-2. The Red Sox were down 5-2 going into the ninth inning and Angels Stadium was ready to explode.

If you’ve never watched this game, you owe it to yourself to do so; in my forty-plus years on this planet, it’s still one of the greatest and most dramatic moments in baseball I’ve ever seen. There were police officers filling both dugouts and walking out to ring the field.

Buckner led off the inning with a single and hobbled down to first base before being replaced with Dave Stapleton.

After Rice struck out looking, Witt looked set finish the game and pitch the Angels into the World Series. However, Baylor came up and hit a two-run home run on a full count to cut the lead to 5-4. This home run gets forgotten about when this game is discussed but without it, Henderson’s home run wouldn’t have ever happened. It was particularly impressive because Baylor reached out for a low and away pitch and pulled it to left-center field, an impressive display of strength.

After Dwight Evans flied out, the crowd was ready to erupt when the Angels won the pennant. Gedman was due up and he’d been 3-for-3 on the day against Witt, so Gene Mauch decided to bring in the left-handed Gary Lucas who had handled Gedman (who batted left handed) earlier in the series.

With his first pitch, Lucas hit Gedman on the shoulder which put him on base. At this point you could hear the crowd get a little antsy; not necessarily nervous, but in a “come on, can’t we just finish this now?” manner. When Mauch brought closer Donnie Moore in to finish the game, it seemed as though the crowd’s sense of inevitability returned… they were ready to party.

Moore made Henderson look foolish, getting two quick strikes on him (including one ugly swing) while just missing on a couple of the following pitches. With a 2-2 count, Henderson fouled off the next two pitches and the crowd was on their feet and were loud. You could hear how loud and crazy they were even watching it all these years later. The Angels were one strike away from winning the series (an eerie bit of premonition that would define the following series for the Red Sox).

Moore’s next pitch was a split finger fastball that didn’t dive as much as he wanted it to. Henderson swung and hit the ball over the left field wall for a two-run homer that improbably gave the Red Sox a 6-5 lead while stunning and silencing the crowd. Watching all these years later and even knowing what happened, this was still an incredibly dramatic, pulse-pounding moment. What’s been lost to the mists of time is that it was almost all for naught.

The Angels scored a run in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game and had loaded the bases with one out. Just a sacrifice fly would have won the pennant for them. McNamara brought reliever Steve Crawford, who had yet to appear in the series, in to the game to get out of the jam. He got DeCinces to pop up to shallow right field and then caught Grich’s comeback line drive to get out of the inning in a forgotten bit of drama.

The Red Sox had a chance in the tenth when Barrett made it to third base with two outs but they couldn’t capitalize. The Angels almost won it again in the bottom of the inning when Gary Pettis hit a deep fly ball to left field with a man on and two outs, but Rice made an incredible leaping catch crashing into the wall to end the inning and save the game.

This is where you could really feel the momentum shift as the Red Sox seemed fired up while the Angels and (especially) the crowd were more subdued. Baylor led off by getting hit by a pitch from Donnie Moore (who was still in the game). After Evans singled and Gedman bunted for a hit, the Sox had the bases loaded. Henderson hit a sac fly to drive in Baylor which gave the Red Sox a 7-6 lead.

Calvin Schiraldi then came in to close out the game in the bottom of the inning and mowed down the Angels, whiffing the first two batters and inducing a pop fly for the final out. This entire game was incredible but the last five innings in particular were some of the best baseball you’ll ever see. Everything that’s great about the sport, from the heartbreak to the jubilation, is contained in those pulse-pounding innings.

The Red Sox jumped around and celebrated like they’d just won the pennant while the Angels look shell-shocked and their fans were despondent. If you think about it in hindsight, it makes sense. The Angels, one strike away from winning their first ever pennant, now had to fly across the country to play another game.

For the Red Sox, they knew before Game Five that they’d need to win in order to come back and win the series. Now they had the chance to go home and play in front of their fans and sleep in their own beds. For the Angels, it was a missed opportunity and a crushing loss that they had to quickly shake off.

Regardless of whether you’re a Red Sox fan or not, Game Five is one of the greatest games in baseball history. It was just incredible, dramatic theater and I fully acknowledge that my words can never do it justice. If you only watch one game from this series, make it this one.

Game Six

With the incredible and dramatic finish of Game Five, the last two games of this series often get forgotten. Even though the Red Sox were elated and the Angels deflated by the end of the last game, the series wasn’t over yet. The Angels only had to win one of the remaining two games while the Red Sox still needed to win both.

Making the Red Sox task more difficult was that, in staying with their three-man rotation, Oil Can Boyd was pitching on three days rest. It looked like the Angels were going to take care of business early once the game started.

Boyd was calmer and more collected than he had been but he struggled in the first inning, giving up back-to-back doubles off the Green Monster and throwing 44 pitches as the Angels scored two runs. It could’ve been more but Boyd got out of the inning by the skin of his teeth. Just like in Game Two, the Red Sox got to Angels starter Kirk McCaskill early, scoring two runs off of him in the bottom of the inning without a single hit.

Boyd settled down after the first and was dealing, throwing seven strong innings, only giving up a subsequent solo home run to Brian Downing in the seventh. Meanwhile, the Red Sox knocked McCaskill out of the game in the third inning when they put up five runs. They scored another in the fifth to go up 8-2 and even though Downing hit his solo homer in the seventh and the Angels got another in the eighth, they looked defeated.

Owen hit a two-RBI triple in the bottom of the seventh and the Red Sox won easily by a final score of 10-4. As the game wore on, you could see the frustration and desperation getting to the Angels; you’ll never see a more depressed bunch sitting in a dugout than when the camera panned across the bench late in the game. Interestingly, in this game it was the Red Sox contact hitters who did the most damage.

Barrett continued his torrid series by going 3-for-4 with an RBI, Rich Gedman was 2-for-4 with an RBI, Spike Owen was 4-for-4 with two RBI, and Bill Buckner was 2-for-4 with an RBI. This was also the first game of the series where Buckner was hobbling so badly that it was painful to watch. His mobility had been limited all season and in the earlier games of this series, but it was so bad in this one that he could barely run to first or walk back to the dugout.

Even though the first inning took forty-five minutes, the rest of the game breezed by and while this and the following game are usually afterthoughts when this series is remembered, they clearly showed that the momentum had shifted irrevocably in Boston’s favor after Game Five.

Game Seven

After the Red Sox dominated in Game Six, the final game of the series featured two teams heading in opposite directions. Even though Gene Mauch spoke with confidence in the pregame interview, his Angels team looked like dead men walking when the game started. They’d also been playing without rookie sensation Wally Joyner since Game Three which couldn’t have made them feel better.

Joyner had been in the hospital with a staph infection in his leg since the end of Game Three and missed the final four games of the series. That certainly helped the Red Sox (and hurt the Angels), but even so they’d come within a strike of winning the pennant and now found themselves facing Clemens at Fenway Park in front of a raucous crowd. (Interesting note: Massachusetts native and longtime Yankees radio broadcaster Suzyn Waldman sang the National Anthem before the game).

Clemens looked like the pitcher who cruised in Game Four and not the one who was overexcited and overthrew in Game One. He handled the Angels with ease (7 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 K, 1 BB) whereas the Red Sox hitters could smell blood when it came to Angels starter John Candelaria. They loaded the bases in the second, helped by another Angels error (you could definitely see the pressure getting to them).

Gedman drove the first run in with a groundout and then, after loading the bases again, Boggs hit a line drive that hit the second base bag and caromed into right field to bring in two more. It just seemed like everything was going right for the Red Sox and horrifically wrong for the Angels.

The Sox picked up four more runs in the fourth, started by Henderson hitting a deep fly ball to center field that Pettis mistimed and just barely missed catching. It was ruled an error but looked like a legitimate triple to me; Henderson got to third easily and was driven in by Owen’s single. Then, after a walk which put another man on, Rice crushed a ball over the Green Monster to make it 7-0. Candelaria was knocked out after 3.2 innings and while he gave up seven runs, all of them were unearned.

Candelaria was really let down by his defense who choked when the Angels needed it most. Evans hit a solo homer in the seventh to make it 8-0 and other than a lone run the Angels scraped together in the eighth, the Red Sox won this going away 8-1.

Even all these years later, it’s one of the most shocking comebacks in baseball history. The Red Sox suffered a crushing loss in Game Four and were down to their very last strike in Game Five and yet somehow they came back to win the series.

Meanwhile, this has to still be one of the worst defeats in Angels history. The shell-shocked looks of disbelief in the dugout as the Red Sox were celebrating after Calvin Schiraldi struck out the side in the ninth said it all, even thirty-four years later.

It’s still surprising to me how timid and flat and jittery the Angels were in both of the final two games. That was in perfect contrast to how the Red Sox picked themselves back up after Game Four and kept fighting. To me, even watching in 2020, that said everything to me about the mental toughness of both teams.

Random Thoughts

After watching all seven games of this series, the biggest and most noticeable thing was the pace of play. The games had a pleasing, quicker pace of play that was in stark contrast to how the game is played today. I didn’t really pay attention growing up because that’s just the way it was, but going back and watching older games and comparing to these days, it’s like night and day.

Hitters stayed in the box, pitchers stayed on the mound, and both teams just got on with the game. Because of that, the five nine-inning games in this series took an average of around two and a half hours. Even the two extra inning games in this series barely surpassed the three hour mark. It was also nice to see several nearly extinct baseball things like contact hitters, bunting to move runners over, hit and runs, and other elements of the game that are sorely missing in 2020.

The other major difference was in the pitching. Starters routinely went seven or more innings, even when they were losing (as long as the game was still close), and managers didn’t worry about pitch counts but rather kept an eye on how effective the pitchers were as the game went on. Most games either had a pitcher going the distance or pitching seven or eight innings before a reliever was brought in.

It was even pointed out multiple times by Jim Palmer (one of the broadcasters) that Clemens “only” threw ten complete games that season in his 33 starts. Contrast that with, for example, Chris Sale who has only thrown 16 complete games in his entire career. (For reference, Clemens led the league with 18 complete games in the 1987 season). It was a different world back then.

That was also brought out to me with all of the takeout slides at second base and the several collisions on plays at the plate. That’s how I grew up watching and playing baseball and those two things are sorely missing in today’s game.

More from Red Sox History

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• Contemporary Era Committee doesn’t elect any former Red Sox to Hall of Fame
• Johnny Damon calls Red Sox out, reveals hilarious way he skirted Yankees’ grooming policy
• Remembering the best Red Sox Thanksgiving ever
• Red Sox World Series legends headline 2023 Hall of Fame ballot

As for the announcers, the legendary Al MIchaels called the games alongside the then-recently retired future Hall of Famer Jim Palmer. Michaels was as great as he’s always been and it was comforting to hear him sound pretty much exactly the same in 1986 as he does now calling Sunday Night Football games. Palmer was more of a mixed bag; he clearly knows the game but he tended to ramble and say many nonsensical things (granted, it was early in his broadcasting career).

The Red Sox kept the same lineup and batting order for the entire series (other than Henderson replacing the injured Armas in the last two games) whereas the Angels used a different lineup and order in every game. The Angels loved to try and steal bases, but I had forgotten how great a defensive catcher Rich Gedman was (the tenth inning of Game Six of the 1986 World Series notwithstanding). He threw out four of the five steals the Angels attempted in the series and had thrown out 50% of base stealers during the 1986 regular season.

This was the closest Angels manager Gene Mauch ever got to a pennant. It was his twenty-sixth season as a manager and he came one agonizing strike away from the World Series. He would manage one more season before retiring, never winning a pennant.

Finally, going into re-watching the series knowing the extent of Donnie Moore’s injury and what happened to him after this series, it was more than a little poignant watching him give up that home run to Dave Henderson yet again and getting booed by the home fans.