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Clemens would not play his entire career in Boston. Under a bold and controversial general manager named Dan Duquette, the Red Sox seemed to be intent on reclaiming the rule of their own kingdom after having let their players run roughshod for a good chunk of the century. (For what it's worth, one Boston sports columnist called Duquette "Dictator Dan" throughout his tenure with the team.)
    In keeping with a Red Sox tradition established prior to World War II, however, the Red Sox continued to operate more like an aristocracy, the regal Clemens starting his own line of kings. This time the royal bloodline of the Boston clubhouse ran not to left field but rather to the pitcher's mound. One year to the day after Clemens snubbed the Red Sox to sign with the Toronto Blue Jays, Duquette acquired Pedro Martinez from the Montreal Expos in a blockbuster trade. Just as Williams begot Yastrzemski, who begot Rice, Clemens begot Martinez, who begot Curt Schilling, who begot Josh Beckett, who begot Jon Lester. Along the way, the Red Sox finally changed owners and, thankfully, cultures, transitioning from a team that overvalued its superstars to one that preached the team concept and togetherness, commitment and dedication.
    Having arrived during the final days of the Clemens years, Tim
Wakefield was the only member of the Boston organization who had been there to see it all. And only people like Duquette saw Wakefield for what he was: "the glue that's held that pitching staff together for a long time."

    Truth be told, Tim Wakefield already could have been, should have been, and would have been the winningest pitcher in Red Sox history were it not for the simple fact that he was asked, along the way, to serve as the club's emergency response unit. For the bulk of Wakefield's career in Boston, he often was asked to pitch on short rest, to pitch out of the bullpen between starts, to fill gaps, to plug holes. Whether in the regular season or the postseason, Wakefield almost always was the man on the other end of the line when a Red Sox manager—particularly when he had just decided it was time to dial 9-1-1—picked up his dugout phone and called the bullpen.
    For that, Wakefield had his knuckleball to thank.
    Or perhaps blame.
    Knuckleball pitchers are regarded by most baseball historians as nothing more than .500 pitchers, which is to say, they lose as frequently as they win. In fact, given the difficulty of harnessing the pitch and the disproportionate number of those who have failed trying to do so, many knuckleballers have lost
more
than they won, and many never reached the major leagues at all. Only the good ones have been fortunate enough to tread water and spend some time at the highest level of baseball played in the world. Only the great ones have endured and won more than they lost to become members of one of the more exclusive fraternities in sports.
    In 2010, at the end of his 18th major league season and his 16th with the Red Sox, Wakefield owned a career record of 193–172, a winning percentage of .529 that most teams would have eagerly embraced. (In baseball a .529 winning percentage translates into an 85–77 season, a record that most teams would consider a success.) And yet, even that simplest of truths, a .529 winning percentage, could not quantify Wakefield's contributions to the Red Sox, especially in a baseball world where managers, coaches, fans, and teammates had learned to become as wary of the knuckleball's whims as Wakefield himself.
    In baseball more than any other sport, the games are connected, which is to say that one can affect the next. On June 10, 1996, for example, the struggling Red Sox were in the midst of a bad losing streak that had required manager Kevin Kennedy to rely heavily on his relief pitchers, who had been worked to the bone. He sent Wakefield out to the mound with a very unappealing and demanding task—to remain in the game come hell or high water. Wakefield subsequently