Buckner throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at a Red Sox-Tigers game in 2008. (Brian Snyder-Pool/Getty Images)
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — WBZ NewsRadio's Carl Stevens wrote a poem to remember Red Sox great Bill Buckner, who died Monday following a battle with Lewy Body Dementia.
William Joseph Buckner was an American pro,
For twenty-two seasons he knew the right way to go...
With a smile on his face, and a bat in his hand,
He sprayed base hits across the Major League land...
The Dodgers, the Cubs, the Red Sox too...
2,700 hits when his day was through.
But a pint of pollution tainted memory's keg
When that ball rolled between Bill Buckner's legs.
A sweet perfect melody had an expletive verse,
As he became a part of the Bambino curse.
His sunlit career was suddenly in shade,
It was about the worst error anybody had made.
He was stuck on the wall of our memory's mind,
Because of a grounder that he'd never find.
That ball kept rolling through time's green field,
And in time the harshness of memory yields.
We remember the mustache, the swing, and the grin,
We remember his ache and effort to win.
He never meant ill, did nobody harm,
Did nothing to earn the eye of a storm.
But the storm has passed, the Sox won four rings,
And I hope Bill Buckner's wearing angel's wings...
And I hope heaven's sun is shining today
'Cause I know he'll catch everything that comes his way.
Listen to WBZ NewsRadio's Carl Stevens (@carlwbz) read his poem here: