‘Steaming’ through 18 Questions

Long-time Wenham resident Bob Stanley won more than 100 games for the Red Sox. But his greatest victory came after his baseball career.

By Rob Bradford

He sits in the front of the bus, while his golf game takes a back seat. No matter. Bob Stanley is utterly content with his current lot in life.

The man known as “The Steamer,” a Wenham resident known more for his 13 seasons pitching for the Boston Red Sox than his present title as pitching coach for the Double A Norwich Navigators, is on the way to Trenton. This is his work now, guiding major leaguers of the future toward their next destination and dream.

Between the travel and long hours at the park, golf isn’t really an option for the 50-year-old, although there is always the temptation to sneak out before a game like the old days and somehow improve upon that 14 handicap.

A first-round pick of the Boston Red Sox in 1974, Stanley made it to the big leagues by 1977. He went on to become the organization’s all-time leader in saves and appearances on the way to joining the team’s Hall of Fame. His final career was 115-97, with his best season coming in 1983 when he posted 33 saves and a 2.45 ERA.

There were, of course, bumps in the road. Through all of his accomplishments, Stanley will also be known for a wild pitch during the New York Mets’ Game 6 comeback in the 1986 World Series that allowed the tying run to score. The Red Sox would ultimately lose the game and the series, and Stanley eventually retired in 1990 without a championship ring, but his greatest triumph was still to come.

Three months after calling it quits, Stanley learned his son, Kyle, had been diagnosed with cancer in his sinus cavity. Suddenly an organization – The Jimmy Fund – that the player had been supporting all these years was now being counted on to help support him and his family.

In the end, the Stanleys got their win. Kyle won the battle with his cancer, took up golf, and now relishes the opportunity to beat his dad on a regular basis. The images of those defeats – along with time spent with his daughters, Kerri and Kristin – make those bus rides to Eastern League ports of call just a bit more tolerable.

1. So, how did you get into playing golf?
I started when I started playing professional baseball back in 1974. That was the thing to do as a ballplayer. I remember the first time I ever played I shot 101. I used to play a lot with (former Red Sox players) Tom Burgmeier, Jim Rice and Bob Montgomery. When we went on the road we would get up at six in the morning the day of a game and go play.

2. Who was the most serious about golf in your group?
Probably Bob Montgomery, although Jim was pretty into it. If [Jim] didn’t play well that day he usually wouldn’t hit that night.

3. Are you able to play as much now a coach as when you were a player?
No. I might play when we have an off day on the road, but not nearly as much. You also don’t have the connections you did back then. We could show up anywhere, just tell them who we were and they would let us on for free. I could play every day if I wanted to, but I like to get to the park between 11:30 in the morning and 1.

4. Do you have any memorable stories from playing golf with your teammates?
I remember one time we were playing up in Silverado, this course just outside of Oakland. I had rented clubs, which were much nicer than the ones I usually had. Well, I hit a bad shot on this par 4, got mad, and threw my 4-wood into the woods. So I went into the woods and looked for it. I didn’t find the 4-wood, but I found a 5-wood and a 3-wood. So I guess somebody else had gotten pretty mad too.

5. So you really didn’t play at all growing up.
II came from a blue-collar town, Kearney, New Jersey, and golf really wasn’t big there. I still love going back because nothing has changed. I lived in the poor end of town and when I go back I would still go to the same bar just like always.
I really didn’t even think anything was different then from when I was there. And golf just wasn’t big back then.

6. When you do play golf, what is your course of choice?
Well, I used to be a member of Ipswich. I’m just one of those guys who will go wherever they invite me. I do like to play at Wentworth by the Sea up in New Hampshire. That is probably my favorite. That is where I have my best score (77).

7. What are some of the other courses you have gotten a chance to play?
I’ve played Pebble Beach, and I went out for a week and played Spy Glass. Pebble was a little tough. I remember I was playing a tournament at Spanish Bay and I hit 3-under for part of the first round. It was so foggy I couldn’t see, but my caddy would just tell me to hit a 5-wood and I would drill it. I probably should play in the fog all the time.

8. How far can you hit it?
I can get it out to about 280 (yards). I got it up to 300 back in my playing days. But I still use the wooden woods. They are Ping woods – the 3, 5, and 7. Sometimes I’ll choke down on a 9-wood.

9. How are you playing now?
My handicap is about a 14. But my son (Kyle) is beating me now. He played at Hamilton-Wenham (High School), but he wasn’t that good then. He’s gotten a lot better. He shot a 75 at the Venetian (in Florida) last spring.

10. How did Kyle get into playing golf?
He was a pretty good baseball player, but then he lost the eyesight in his right eye. So one Christmas I bought him a golf club and he just took to it.
I never really pushed him to play baseball and I’m glad he ended up playing golf. There is a lot of pressure when you have a dad in major league baseball.

11. What were the circumstances behind Kyle losing his eyesight?
When he was 9 he was diagnosed with cancer. By the time he was 11 or 12 all he could see was a blur out of his right eye. It was a very scary time because they said there was a 50-50 chance he would make it. But he’s doing great, although sometimes I bring the worst out in him when we play golf. I actually beat him this spring.

12. That must have been an extremely tough time.
It was. The Jimmy Fund was great throughout the whole thing. I was always involved with them as a player, starting back in 1977 when I used to see sick kids at Children’s Hospital.
I had an incident five years before my son was diagnosed where there was a boy who was terminally ill and he wouldn’t come out of his room because they had taken out his eye. I gave him a jersey, which he ended up being buried with. As it turned out, he had the same kind of tumor as my son.

13. How different was it going in the hospital for your son instead of somebody else’s?
Before, I would go in, try to cheer kids up and make them a little more comfortable. Then you can go home and leave it all behind. When it happens to you and you are one of the parents who has to go through it, it sticks with you.

14. It must have been somewhat comforting knowing some of the doctors when your son was diagnosed?
No question. One of the chief doctors in the children’s section of the hospital told me one of the hardest things he had to do was tell me that my son had the same kind of tumor as the little boy who had died. But there has been a tremendous amount of research done over the past few years, a lot of which has been made possible by things like the (Jimmy Fund) golf program. The procedures are getting better and better.

15. So it sounds like everyone is doing great now.
I just thank God that everything is fine. My son is now 24 and a college graduate, and I have two daughters. My daughter, Kerri, was only 7 when Kyle was diagnosed with cancer but said even back then she wanted to give back to the Jimmy Fund. That’s who she works for now.

16. Going through what you did with your son must have really put your baseball career in a different perspective.
I always say when I speak about my career that I used to go to bed praying to God I could be the hero in the ’86 World Series, saving the game. My prayer wasn’t answered then. But my prayer was answered when my son got cancer and was able to beat it. In that respect, you can throw my career out the window.

17. Speaking of your career, you did it all as a pitcher. In fact in 1979, you started 30 games. The season before you won 15 games and pitched 141 innings as a relief pitcher.
Yeah, they called me ‘The Vulture’ because I would always swoop in and get the win. That was a different era. Relief pitchers would go in for two or three innings at a time. At that time I think I had the Red Sox record for most consecutive wins (12). I just did whatever they needed me for.

18. As a former player that suffered through some of the bad times as a Red Sox, what were your thoughts after the Red Sox finally won the World Series last year?
It was nice to see people get a chance to remember the good (memories) and not the bad ones. I root for them. I was always a Red Sox, even though I never got a job with them [as a coach].