The New York Times - 19.09.2019

B8 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 SCORES ANALYSIS COMMENTARY

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Why Is a Boston Legend Beaming?

His Grandson Came to Visit

Continued on Page B11

23

3,308

3,419

Seasons

Games

Hits

A Hall of Fame Career

BOSTON — Forty-four years

ago, Carl Yastrzemski ended one

of the most electrifying World

Series in baseball history with a

flyout to center field at Fenway

Park. A little higher

and farther, and

Yastrzemski would

have tied Game 7

with the Cincinnati

Reds. He never

returned to the

World Series.

The year the Red Sox finally

won it, 2004, was painful for

Yastrzemski: His only son, Mike,

a former minor leaguer, died that

September of a heart attack after

hip surgery. Only 43 years old, he

had left behind a son, also named

Mike.

On Tuesday, Mike Yastrzemski

did something his father never

could, and that his grandfather

desperately wanted to do on that

October night in 1975. He played

a major league game at Fenway

and hit a home run into the cen-

ter-field bleachers.

“I just had to take a second

and understand what was going

on and appreciate that moment

and not take it for granted,” said

Yastrzemski, who later added a

double. “So I made sure to kind

of keep my head up and look

around and just soak it all in.”

The fans applauded politely

but did not implore Yastrzemski,

29, to make a curtain call. He

plays for the San Francisco Gi-

ants, after all, and they would

beat the Red Sox, 7-6, in 15 in-

nings. But even in this record-

breaking season for homers in

Major League Baseball, the blast

— on a 96-mile-an-hour fastball

from Nathan Eovaldi — res-

onated. It was the first by a

Yastrzemski in Boston since

1983.

That was the last of Carl Yas-

trzemski’s 23 seasons, all for

Boston. Nobody has ever played

as many games for one franchise

as Yastrzemski did for the Red

Sox — 3,308. By the time he was

29 — Mike’s age now — Carl had

played more than 1,200 games.

A Yastrzemski home run puts

Fenway’s fans in a quandary.

TYLER

KEPNER

ON

BASEBALL

Source: Baseball-

Reference.com

Statistics through Tuesday.

1

97

89

Season

Games

Hits

A Promising Start

Carl Yastrzemski, top, said farewell to Red Sox fans in 1983. Mike Yastrzemski, above, homered for the Giants on Tuesday in his first game at Fenway Park.

CHARLES KRUPA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

STAN GROSSFELD/THE BOSTON GLOBE

PARIS — Idrissa Gueye was at the

end of the line, anxiously hovering on

the fringes of a little clutch of Paris

St.-Germain players. Their coach,

Thomas Tuchel, was

walking slowly toward

them, in no great rush,

making sure first to

shake the hand of each

member of what — in a

contractual, if not spiritu-

al, sense — is apparently a Real Madrid

team, to offer a few consoling words to

P.S.G.’s vanquished opponents.

Only once that was done did Tuchel

turn his attentions to his own players.

He congratulated each of them as they

passed him, too, clasping outstretched

hands and clapping shoulders. He did

not stop walking, though, until he had

reached that last group — handshake

here, and there, and one for you, too —

and found Gueye.

Fairly or not, Tuchel has developed a

bit of a reputation for coldness: He is a

coach’s coach, a technician, a theorist,

obsessed with counter-pressing posi-

tions and detail rather than the human

touch. There was always a suspicion at

his former club, Borussia Dortmund,

that he was not really a people person,

that he lacked the charisma and

warmth and magnetism of, say, a

Jürgen Klopp.

At first, it seemed as if Gueye would

just get a fleeting pat on the back, like

all of the others, friend and foe alike.

But Tuchel lingered. He and Gueye

spoke for a couple of seconds. And then

Tuchel — this detached, almost aloof

figure in soccer’s collective imagination

— leaned down and kissed Gueye on

the cheek. He embraced him, and he

held on. He held on like a man who did

not want to let go: as if to an old friend,

thought lost, or a child with a favorite

toy.

It was easy to miss Gueye’s signing

for P.S.G. this summer. The deal, for a

not insignificant $35 million, to take

him to Paris from his former club, Ever-

ton, went through on July 30. Everton

was busy that day, announcing a coup

of its own: the capture of the Juventus

striker Moise Kean.

P.S.G., as it was all summer, was

trying to keep track of the endless,

spirit-sapping saga over Neymar’s

future, waiting impatiently for Bar-

celona to make plain its intentions

toward the striker. The signing of a

defensive midfielder — especially a

29-year-old one — who had spent the

last few years toiling in the mud and

sawdust of the Premier League’s mid-

table battleground could not compete

for intrigue or attention. Gueye did not

have a grand unveiling. Lines of fans

did not materialize outside the Parc des

After Quiet Move, Paris St.-Germain Roars as Real Madrid Sputters

RORY

SMITH

ON

SOCCER

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