The story behind every item the Red Sox are sending to the Hall of Fame

The Red Sox won the World Series on Sunday night and as per tradition, certain items from their team and players will be taking a trip to the Hall of Fame. Although not all of them will be on permanent display, Cooperstown makes sure to collect some of the most signature items from each World Series champion to add to their collection.

This year’s choices include a bat (sure), a sweatshirt (okay), and a pair of glasses (huh?). Here’s the full list of items going to the Hall of Fame, according to Hall of Fame VP of Communications and Education John Shestakofsky, and a little background on why.

It’s always tough to find a signature piece from a World Series-winning manager since they’re mostly just standing in the dugout while making decisions. But Cora went full Bill Belichick and cut the sleeves off his World Series-branded sweatshirt so it’s a little more unique than most.

It’s a good choice for him as well, because he’s just a hoodie guy. It captures his managing personality as succinctly as possible.

World Series MVP Steve Pearce had an amazing final series of the season. He had three home runs, including two in the clinching game, and drove in eight runs. His Game 4 bat specifically is heading to Cooperstown because he was responsible for the game-tying home run. Pearce’s solo shot off Kenley Jansen marked the halfway point of Boston’s streak of eight unanswered runs that would help them win the game 9-6.

Here’s what Pearce’s Game 4 home run did to that game’s win probability.

His solo shot was more visibly significant to the Red Sox win than Mitch Moreland’s three-run home run the inning before (the first drop in that image) so yeah, taking his bat for that specific game makes sense. He is apparently free to keep his Game 5 bat and hang it on a wall or something.

David Price could have easily been World Series MVP or co-MVP, but didn’t get the nod. Still, he started and won two games and came in for a few innings of relief work in Game 3 to help the team get through a marathon 18-inning game. He won the clincher though, pitching a seven-inning, one-run gem that only saw one major mistake — a first-pitch David Freese home run that would be the only run the Dodgers would put on the board in the game.

Price being on a World Series winning team would have been wild to think about as recently as last year, nonetheless him contributing so significantly with very few stressful moments. Two wins is even more outlandish considering where the postseason narrative was for him just a month ago. He didn’t get MVP but a jersey going to the Hall of Fame is cool too.

Eovaldi was yet another MVP candidate this series, pitching hitless, scoreless innings of relief in the first two games of the series then pitching an entire start’s worth of innings out of the bullpen in the 18-inning marathon Game 3. He went six innings and 97 pitches to end that game before finally being taken long by Max Muncy in the 18th after a close (but foul) call two innings earlier.

Still, that performance was enough for folk legend status in Boston and he apparently kept telling Alex Cora that he was ready to go again as soon as the next day. He got up in the bullpen in Game 5 but didn’t make an appearance in the clinching game, but that’s okay. He’d done more than enough by that point.

Alex Cora made a lot of gut decisions during the World Series, and most of them worked out. Not the least of which was Eduardo Nuñez playing in quite a bit of the series even though he’s usually a defensive liability and was already dealing with injury issues lingering from previous series.

He had a pinch-hit home run to help the team win the first game in the series though, and then truly left it all out on the field in Game 3 with a dive into the stands, a dive into first base on an RBI single that looked like it really hurt, and the point when he got accidentally flipped over by Austin Barnes during an at bat. A bat is probably an easier thing to send to Cooperstown than whatever body parts Nuñez left at Dodger Stadium after that game.

Holt hit for the cycle against the Yankees in the ALDS — the first player to ever do so in a postseason game — but didn’t have any major hero moments in the World Series. He did score the go-ahead run during the 13th inning of Game 3, a lead which would be erased in the bottom of that inning, and then ate a banana.

Why isn’t that banana peel going to the Hall of Fame, huh?

Kelly had a fantastic World Series, pitching six innings over five games and allowing no runs, no walks, and striking out ten during those appearances. He did it all while wearing his signature safety glasses.

Kelly had all but lost the confidence of Boston fans before the postseason, with a shaky second half of the season that had him being passed over for relief appearances over and over again. But whatever was going on that had him so unreliable on the mound got fixed before the World Series and he bounced back as well as you could possibly hope in a series where fresh and consistent bullpen arms were treasured commodities.

The Red Sox and Dodgers broke a lot of records during World Series Game 3, the longest game in postseason history by time and the longest World Series game by innings. There were a record 131 plate appearances, a record 46 players used, and a whopping 561 pitches thrown by the 18 pitches used by both teams. That last one isn’t confirmed to be a record or not, but it’s a ton of pitches.

Red Sox pitchers threw 283 and Dodgers pitchers threw 278, and home plate umpire Barrett had to click ball or strike on every one of them. Click, click, clicking away while standing up for more than seven hours. As good a keepsake from that fever dream of a game as any.