Yesterday afternoon I was primed to speak with Steve Buckley. Called "the original sports media mogul in Boston", the Boston Herald columnist is currently promoting his new book and I was thrilled to steal just a moment of his time. Or at least that was the plan. What I had expected was a 30-minute phone volley of talk about the Red Sox talk, bad umping, and of course, a book plug. What I got instead was a better understanding of why Buckley is successful in his field. 

He is not simply intelligent but learned--a person whom, after you speak with, you imagine to have five books stacked on his bedside table. At the same time he is entirely approachable with a lack of pretension that defies his resume. Glowing praise? Sure. But he's also the first sports media personality in this city who's offered to meet me in person. It's a kind of graciousness that Buckley sincerely seems at home with, at one point standing to shake hands with a fan who recognized him. I was oblivious to the fact that the interview was eavesdropped on because I was so engrossed in it myself. The following transcript is only a segment.

Mary Paoletti: So today is the five-year anniversary of the Red Sox winning their first World Series in 86 years. A lot of media outlets are commemorating this. Is this to ease the pain of Boston’s ALDS bow out?
Steve Buckley: No. I think it’s such a pivotal moment in Red Sox history. Like in 1967 when the Red Sox won the pennant after being in next to last place for like the 20th consecutive year or whatever it was. We still celebrate the 30th and 35th anniversaries of the ‘67 Red Sox because it was such a pivotal moment in Red Sox history and I think the exact same thing is going to happen with the 2004 Red Sox. And you wait--wait until the 20th anniversary or 30th anniversary--these guys will come back on the field, they’ll do the whole bit. When you don’t win a World Series for ‘86 years and then you finally win one, it’s something to celebrate and remember.

MP: Who in Boston sports is the most interesting personality you've ever met?
SB: Ted Williams because he was so dynamic and he had that John Wayne swagger. He was such a pivotal figure in Boston sports history. And Bobby Orr, who I think is the only athlete that, to this day when I meet him I’m a little fidgety.

MP: Really?
SB: Yeah. Well, I saw him play. That’s not just Bobby Orr, that’s Number 4. I’d be embarrassed if he knew I felt this way because I know him like everybody does. But I still get a little excited when I see him because he’s one of the greatest athletes in Boston sports history. He’s right up there with Ted Williams, Bill Russell, “The Cous,” and Babe Ruth.

MP: I’m looking forward to reading your new book Wicked Good Year which unfortunately doesn’t include the Bruins. It looks back on the 7 months and 20 days in 2007-2008 that included an undefeated season for the Pats, an NBA Title for the C's and the Red Sox World Series Championship. When did you know you wanted to write this?
SB: Actually, to be honest it came from my agent. I had written two other books with her and she called me up out of the blue and she said “how would you like to do a book on these three teams?” So I wrote a proposal and we started selling it and it was one of those weird things where you write book proposals all the time but this time I had five publishers interested.

Originally it was going to be called “The Perfect Season” but they wanted a different title so I took three friends of mine out one night to a cigar bar in the North End--one of them is a kid from Medford named Pat Gigante--and I said “we’re not leaving until I have a title for this book.” Now, Pat’s a trainer at Tufts. He’s got this real hard Boston accent and he says, out of nowhere, “I got it: ‘Wicked Good Year.” My friend Dan looks at me and says “Please tell me you’re not thinking about using this,” and I said “Why? You don’t like it?” and he says “No, I do like it. The problem is if you pick it we’re never going to hear the end of it from Pat.”

MP: Did you learn anything you weren't expecting to throughout the process?
SB: You can always learn. Look at a box. It is what it is but depending on how you pick it up you can see it from a different angle, and history is the same way. Just to give you an example, Jonathan Papelbon got the final strikeout of the 2007 World Series. Where was he during the 2004 World Series? He was a Red Sox minor leaguer, had never pitched a game in the big leagues yet, and he was in a bar called The Alehouse watching Pedro Martinez pitching Game 3. So he’s never pitched a game in the big leagues but he pointed at the screen and said--he told me this, I interviewed him--he said, “That guy ain’t got sh*&t on me.” It was an early example of the bravado that Jonathan Papelbon has. I also spent a lot of time with Dustin Pedroia and Dustin comes across as--What’s your impression of Pedroia?

MP: Seems like a nice guy. Keeps his nose clean and plays the game.
SB: What about his personality and the way he plays the game?

MP: He’s ballsy.
SB: Ballsy. He is. He’s brash, he’s cocky, he’s ballsy. And he comes in this 2007 season as a rookie and he’s acting tough and everything like that, but he told me that he had many sleepless nights in the ‘07 season. Another one is Tedy Bruschi. He had that stroke and he had come back halfway through the 2005 season. In 2007 when they lost to Indianapolis in the AFC title game at the RCA Dome, he said “I wasn’t disappointed as most people were because I had made it through an entire season after having a stroke and my attitude was: I can play again. I’m whole.” He was upset that they lost but his reflections on that season are different than you might think.

MP: So this was not a wicked good year for the Red Sox. What do you think of how their 2009 postseason shaped up?
SB: They didn’t play well. I got a lot of emails from people criticizing me because I wrote a column after they lost saying that they were, and are, better than the Angels. Top to bottom. Better starting pitching, better bullpen. I don’t fault the people who assembled the roster because it was a good team. Sometimes you put it on management. Like all those years the Bruins didn’t make the playoffs, I didn’t blame the players, I blamed the people making the decisions about who to put on the ice. They didn’t put the right mix of players on the ice. This is in the book: There was a coach named Del Harris coaching the Houston Rockets in ‘82-’83. When he was asked about his team’s personnel he had said, “All of our players belong in the NBA, I’m just not sure they belong on the same team.” I use this quote a lot because I think it often rings true.

MP: Could this Sox team have beaten the Yankees?
SB: I don’t know. It’s on a different historical plane because you’d have to assume that they would have beaten the Angels. I tend not do entertain those big “ifs.” My answer is no. They were swept by the team that lost to the Yankees in six games. And the Yankees are looking awfully tough right now.

MP: Pedro Martinez is on for Game 2 at Yankee Stadium.
SB: I love Pedro.

MP: What do you think of his resurrection?
SB: I think Pedro is on that list of pitchers with [Jerome Hanna] “Dizzy” Dean and Satchel Paige. They were guys who were great performers and entertainers who could also pitch. A big talker, always had something to say, big ego, big crybaby. He was truly one of the most magnificent athletes I’ve ever covered. It was a joy to cover Pedro Martinez and I will be enormously excited to watch him pitch.

MP: Can you make a World Series prediction?
SB: I’m inclined to say the Yankees will win because I think they’re just a deeper team. They’ve been getting performances from players whose postseason credentials were either lacking or nonexistent; A-Rod, A.J. Burnett, and CC Sabathia. So with all three of those guys putting up numbers better than expected I think they’ll be the team to beat.
 

MP: What do you think about the umpiring blunders? Should instant replay be implemented in postseason play?
SB: Yes. Absolutely. I’ve been saying that for a long time. Scott Kazmir’s blown pick-off attempt at second base, that was terrible.

MP: Also Joe Mauer’s double called foul....
SB: And Tim McClelland missed two plays at third base with the tag-up and the catcher tagging out two guys at once. We’ve got the technology so why not use it? I don’t want it for balls and strikes because that would be a calamity. Even in the last five years the knowledge that we have has changed because we’ve got 24 cameras at different angles. I think instant replay should be limited during the regular season just because the games don’t have the same camera usage. But for postseason games you should use it whenever possible because you’ve got so many different angles, you’ve got super-slowmo, you’ve got hi-def, and you can see things that you didn’t see five years ago. It doesn’t make sense to me. If you’re in an operating room and you’ve got the techniques and technology to save the patient, then save the patient.

MP: Many worry about slowing the already sluggish pace and others are loath to mess with the integrity of the game.
SB: First of all, I don’t think it would be that slow. That’s my opinion. Second of all, you can find other ways to speed the game up, like with guys that step out of the box and walk around home plate and pitchers who hold the ball. If you stand there and don’t throw a pitch then it’s ball one. Ball two. Ball three.

MP: Since out of contention the Sox have turned to personnel moves. I read in the Herald this morning that with Jed Hoyer moving to San Diego the Sox aren't looking to replace him but will "spread out his duties" among the front office. How will this shake up the organization?
SB: I don’t know yet. They’ve got some really good people. There’s the people that everybody knows like Ben Charington, Mike Hazen, and Jason McLeod but if you go all the way down and you look at guys like Ben Crockett in the scouting department, they’ve got a real good eye for bringing in people that know how to run a baseball team. It’s no accident that you’ve got three different general managers in baseball who were involved in the ‘04 Championship; Josh Byrnes who’s the general manager for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Jed Hoyer who’s now the general manager for the San Diego Padres, and of course Theo [Epstein]. So that speaks volumes about the industry’s respect for this organization.

MP: I read today that Brad Mills was hired by the Astros.
SB: Did they announce that?

MP: I believe they did.
SB: Good for him! So that’s four then. Good for Brad.

MP: As far as the Hot Stove goes, Jason Bay is definitely on the front burner. We’ve also got Gonzalez, Wakefield, Varitek...can you speculate about moves the Sox might make?
SB: Wakefield, I think they’ll bring back. He’s affordable and I think he’s worth the gamble to make him a number five starter. He only needs 17 victories to become the all-time winningest pitcher in Red Sox history. He’s 17 away from 192 to tie [Roger] Clemens and Cy Young. Not that that’s the reason to bring him back but it’s an enticement for Wakefield to keep his game at a higher level. Varitek, I’m not so sure about because he just can’t hit anymore. I think if they restructure Gonzalez’s contract they’ll bring him back. They can’t just hand the job to [Jed] Lowrie. I think he’s a real good young player with promise but unfortunately his body hasn’t cooperated. They can’t be sure about his wrist. It’s not a reflection of Lowrie’s work-ethic or skill but his body’s inability to bounce back from injury.

MP: What about [Billy] Wagner or [Rocco] Baldelli?
SB: I’m not sure Baldelli will be back. I’m guessing that Billy Wagner will go to the National League where he can be a stopper, a closer. I think he’s got 385 saves. If he goes to the National League he’s got a very good chance of getting 15 saves which, at 400 for his career, might enhance his resume for the Hall of Fame. If he stayed with the Red Sox he’d be a very valuable addition but he wouldn’t get the saves because of Papelbon.

MP: I had the opportunity not long ago to speak with Bob Lobel and referred to himself as "more of a fan" than anything. People call him a Boston "homer", they call Peter Gammons a homer, they've called you a homer. What do you think about the stigma of this tag? 
SB: It’s funny because I’ve been called a homer but I’ve also been called “negative,” like I want Boston teams to lose. Now, I grew up in Cambridge. I grew up a Red Sox fan. My uncle was an usher behind the Red Sox dugout so I’d go to 30 games a year. I was passionate, I am passionate about the ‘67 Red Sox. But was I really rooting for the ’04 Red Sox? No. I’m a journalist, a columnist, and my opinions are what count. But I’m a fan of the stories. I’m a bigger fan of baseball now than I’ve ever been at any time in my life. I can watch a Mets/Padres game in July and see something that interests me. I root for guys that I know.

MP: Rob Bradford told me that there’s no cheering in the press box.
SB: There is that old saying. Did I root for the Red Sox to win the World Series in 2004? Not in the classic sense, no. But when you think of how many people were born, lived, and died in this area who never saw the Red Sox win a World Series and here I am standing in the press box with my arms folded, watching the 9th inning of Game 4 of the World Series and I have a chance to see, cover, and write about it....

MP: You were rooting for the story.
SB: I was, absolutely. And I say this in the book: Either history is going to happen or it’s not going to happen. If it happens we write about it, we chronicle it, we remember it. In the 1983 World Series the Phillies played the Orioles and won the series in five games. It was a boring World Series. Who remembers it? Who talks about the 1983 World Series? 

MP: Do you have a date set for this year's Oldtime Baseball Game?
SB: We do not have a date yet. We usually wait for the Red Sox schedule to come out for 2010 and then we try to find an open night when the Sox aren’t playing, so we probably won’t have that until February or March.

MP: What do you see for the future of the experience? Any changes to make, expansion, or different charity angles?
SB: We do choose a different charity every year. I kinda like it just the way it is. It’s a celebration of baseball history. It’s about bringing a community together. People have asked us why we don’t play at Fenway Park and we’ve had offers to play in Lowell where the Spinners play. But we get about 2,000 people at our game. Now if you took our game and put 2,000 people at Fenway Park then it would lose all it’s electricity. If you take the same game and play it in Cambridge then it really is amazing.

MP: Tonight I’m watching the Celtics in their season opener. How many minutes is Kevin Garnett going to play?
SB: As many as it takes. Is he awesome or what?

I answered yes, that Garnett is awesome, but I didn't end up watching the man Buck calls in his book "the powerful power forward" and the rest of Celtics last night. Instead, I transcribed eight typed pages of my exchange with Buckley. The subsequent task of whittling down the text to a more blog-friendly length was a painful one. What in the hell could I cut out? What do you toss from the pan when you feel like everything you've mined is gold? In my case it was about three pages. I'll be posting the interview in it's entirety later for those who'd like to read it. In the meantime I'll be hopping over to the Herald to see what the writer has published today.

I've got a feeling that it'll be wicked good.

Read Steve Buckley in the Boston Herald.

Upcoming book talk on Wicked Good Year at RiverRun Bookstore.

Steve Buckley on WEEI.