Rick Burleson rolled his head and futilely jogged homeward. Graig Nettles squeezed Yaz’s pop-up and jumped for joy. Carlton Fisk congratulated the victors.

Nobody would remember Remy’s ninth inning drive that came within Pinella’s blind flail of rolling to the wall. Nobody would remember the eight game winning streak to erase a 3-1/2 game Yankee lead in just over a week and catch New York on the final day (Thank you Rick Waits). Nobody would remember the 99 wins. Nobody would remember Fisk ruining his arm.

Everybody would remember the Boston Massacre, the squandered 14 game lead, the 62-28 Boys of Summer who never became men. All because of a harmless pop-up.

The Yankees went on to win yet another World Series. Don Zimmer’s juggernaut was never the same, and the BoSox briefly flirted with mediocrity in the 1980s. Only Rice, Evans, and Stanley remained by the time the team returned to glory’s brink in 1986, against another New York team.

April 4, 1979

Just three years removed from their 13th title, the Celtics suffered a 145-119 road humiliation against the Bullets. The Green fell to 28-51, setting a team record for losses that would last until well into the Gastonian reign of error. John Havlicek was gone, and Dave Cowens was on the wane.

Mediocrity was perhaps not only inevitable but also metaphysical; in one of the NBA’s most bizarre episodes, the Celtics franchise had been traded to John Y. Brown in exchange for the Buffalo Braves, who are the ancestors of the L.A. Clippers. The John Y. Brown era gasped to a 2-12 start and sputtered to a 29-53 inaugural finish.

But hope was near. Three days after the Celts’ loss in Landover, Larry Bird finished his collegiate career in the epic Salt Lake City clash with Magic and Michigan State. Much like Bobby Orr thirteen years earlier, Bird was Boston’s savior-in-waiting.

Preemptively rescuing his team from the abyss, Red Auerbach drafted Bird in 1978 and then stoically endured the 1979 disaster. After the club returned to contention in 1980, Red relieved Golden State of Robert Parish and Kevin McHale. The fourteenth banner soon followed.

May 10, 1979

The Bruins were on the verge of doing what no B’s team—not even Bobby Orr’s Big Bad Bruins—had ever done: beat the Canadiens in a playoff series. In Game Seven of the NHL Semifinals, Rick Middleton’s goal with four minutes left had stunned the Forum faithful and given Boston a 4-3 lead after hockey’s evil empire had rallied from a 3-1 third period deficit.