Jimmy Piersall is almost as famous for his unique baseball story-telling ability as he was for his great career with the Red Sox.

Both were recalled Friday as Piersall joined Tommy Harper, John Valentin and Don Zimmer and former club executive and manager Eddie Kasko as Red Sox greats of the past to enter the club’s Hall of Fame.

How legendary were his tales? Let the current Red Sox manager explain.

“My dad has some of the best Piersall stories,” Francona said. “I don’t know if they’re true or not, but they’re great stories. I’ve heard them and heard them and heard them and they never get old.”

But the best story of all to Terry Francona‘s way of thinking is how his dad – Tito Francona – got his big chance in the majors with the Cleveland Indians in 1959.

“Did Jimmy explain how my dad broke in?” Francona asked. “There was a Sunday day game but Jimmy didn’t want to play. Whether he was hurt, whether it was shadows, but my dad played center field that day and never looked back. That was the year he hit .363.”

“I think Jimmy is pretty dear to [baseball people]. My dad said, ‘Make sure you give him my best.’”

Tom Brunansky’s catch on October 3, 1990 to end the regular season and give the Red Sox the Eastern Division title will also be recognized as a Red Sox ‘Memorable Moment’.

The Class of 2010 will be recognized during pre-game ceremonies on the Fenway Park field, beginning at 7 p.m.

Francona said J.D. Drew [ankle] will start on Saturday after taking batting practice on Friday and getting the previous four days [three games] off.

“[He's feeling] pretty good,” said the skipper. “After not playing for three days and a day off, we just thought we’d get him in here, hopefully have him take BP and get him back going. We’d start him [Saturday] and have him available today. We’ve got guys who’ve actually done a pretty good job. Get him a day to kind of settle in.”

Mike Cameron returned to the Red Sox clubhouse on Friday, seeing many of his teammates for the first time since abdominal surgery late last month.

“Cam had gone home for the week to spend it with family and you could see he was excited to be back in the clubhouse,” Francona said. “He may go in the pool soon and start moving around in the water. He’s been walking and doing some lifting off his feet. He looks good though. He looks like he’s excited to be back. He’ll go with us on our next trip.”

As for Dustin Pedroia, who remains on crutches with a Red Sox-styled removable cast on his surgically-repaired left foot, he was showing off his healing foot to several players around his locker.

Francona said he is not allowing himself to think what might have been with names like Cameron, Pedroia and Youkilis all in the clubhouse but unavailable.

“No, no I never think like that,” Francona said. “It’s not productive. I’m glad to see Pedey. He’s bright in the clubhouse and everything and I care about him getting better. But it’s just not productive. It doesn’t help. Our challenge is to win tonight and that’s what we’ll [prepare to] do.”

Red Sox skipper Terry Francona was right.

Earlier in the day, he said his team would still have fight in them, even after the bout is long over.

Whether it’s Marco Scutaro belting a pair of home runs to left with a bum right shoulder, Josh Reddick collecting three hits in his career for the first time or Lars Anderson breaking through with his first two big league hits, the Red Sox showed that Tuesday night’s 14-5 embarrassment at the hands of the Rays was wiped from their memory banks.

That skill will come in very, very handy as they play the Yankees six times and the White Sox four times in the final three weeks. The Red Sox, if nothing else, showed Wednesday they will play hard to the end of the schedule.

The Red Sox were rewarded Wednesday night with an 11-5 win over the Rays, completing their homestand with a 2-4 mark as they have Thursday off before embarking on a six-game road trip through Oakland and Seattle.

WHAT WENT RIGHT FOR THE RED SOX:

– Marco Scutaro sure knows how to handle pain. Fresh from his first start at second base since 2008, Scutaro returned to shortstop on Wednesday and had his second career two-homer game. He also collected a double and a single in posting his seventh career four-hit game. His other came on Aug. 9, 2009 vs. Baltimore.

– The Rays had a pitching meltdown starting with Matt Garza. The Red Sox took advantage of the right-hander who had one of his worst nights of a good season. Coming in, he was 14-7 with a 3.46 ERA. But on this night, his fastball was flat and the Red Sox capitalized by going deep four times.

– Tim Wakefield hits his payday. By getting one out deep into the fourth inning, Wakefield guaranteed his contract for 2011 at $2 million, up from the base of $1.5 million when he agreed to a two-year extension last November. On top of that, Wakefield earned his first win since before Independence Day by lasting five innings, allowing six hits and five runs – four earned. It was his first win since July 2 and a 3-2 win over Baltimore at Fenway.

– Rookie first baseman Lars Anderson looked a lot more comfortable. Not only did he collect his first two big league hits but he drove in his first run in a three-run seventh and made a diving grab of a Brad Hawpe grounder down the right field line. He scooped and threw onto Scott Atchison covering.

– The long ball brigade was out in force. Not only did Scutaro go deep twice, David Ortiz, Adrian Beltre and Victor Martinez all went yard as the Red Sox turned the tables on the Rays pitching staff from Tuesday night.

WHAT WENT WRONG FOR THE RED SOX:

– J.D. Drew continues to slide. Drew went 1-for-4 and struck out and now has a season batting average of .254. He finished the homestand 3-for-17 and has homered once this month, on Sept. 1 against Baltimore’s Jake Arieta.

– Rays manager Joe Maddon was managing the late innings as if the game were a one-run playoff contest. This wasn’t really that bad for the Red Sox but terrible for the loyal fans who chose to stay behind and get their nine innings-worth of baseball. Despite the Red Sox scoring three in the fifth, one in the sixth and three more in the seventh to make it an 11-5 contest, Maddon saw fit to use six pitchers in the game, with four of the changes coming in the middle of an inning.

So when is an 11-2 lead not particularly safe heading into the seventh inning?

Well, when you have a bullpen that has walked in five runs over eight innings in the span of two  games, you can’t blame Terry Francona for not feeling secure.

He watched as Jon Lester settled down after laboring over his first three innings and 69 pitches. He went to his bullpen and gave Robert Coello a chance to make his major league debut with a nine-run lead. Poor Coello. He faced six batters, retired one, allowed three hits and three runs and walked two, both of which forced in runs.

Dustin Richardson followed with a walk of his own, bring his total to two batters faced and two walks over the last two days.

Scott Atchison came in to save the day and Francona’s blood pressure, if not the game itself, by getting the final out of what was a three-run Tampa Bay seventh, an inning that featured six Tampa Bay pinch-hitters.

WHAT WENT RIGHT FOR THE RED SOX:

– They pounded bad pitching. This is something the Red Sox have a legendary reputation of doing. And they got back to basics on Monday. Despite a lineup featuring rookies Daniel Nava, leading off, Ryan Kalish, Lars Anderson and Yamaico Navarro, the Red Sox pounded Jeff Niemann for four runs and six hits and chased him after he retired only five Red Sox batters.

The Red Sox continued the onslaught against Andy Sonnanstine with five more hits and five more runs as they built their lead to 11-2 after four innings.

– Jon Lester survived. The lefty was clearly not having his best night but he still managed to strike out 10 over six innings to earn his 16th win of the year.

– Ryan Kalish is quickly becoming the odds-on choice to win a starting outfield spot in 2011. Whether it’s center field, we’ll have to wait on the fate of Jacoby Ellsbury to see about that. But Kalish, with his second career grand slam and two steals on Monday, is going a long way to make his statement.

WHAT WENT WRONG FOR THE RED SOX:

– Bullpen is still very shaky. On a night when they didn’t have Jonathan Papelbon available, Francona had to rely on the major league debut of Robert Coello, a converted catcher to begin the seventh inning. Dustin Richardson walked the only batter he faced.

– Jon Lester still doesn’t look himself. All you needed to see were the early walks and the hard-hit balls to know that Lester is still having a puzzling time trying to command his fastball. His curve got him out of some tight jams, including two strikeouts of Evan Longoria with runners on.

– Not quite the debut Lars was looking for. The highly-regarded first base prospect went 0-for-4 with a pair of strikeouts in his big league debut, falling short of the accomplishments of fellow rookies Daniel Nava, Kalish and Yamaico Navarro, all of whom had hits in their first at-bats.

[Click here to listen to the world according to Lars Anderson.]

The Red Sox didn’t just promote a hard-hitting, highly-regarded first base prospect with power on Monday. They called up perhaps the most advanced 22-year-old philosopher in the game.

The much-heralded, power-hitting first baseman prospect Lars Anderson was called up Monday by the Red Sox to make his major league debut. Anderson got word from the Red Sox following Pawtucket’s game Sunday and made his way up to Boston, where he was immediately slotted into the starting lineup, batting eighth and playing first base.

Anderson batted .355 in 17 games with Double-A Portland before being promoted to Triple-A Pawtucket. He struggled with a batting average near .200 before getting hot in the summer months and finishing with a .262 mark, including 10 homers and 53 RBIs in 113 games.

“Baseball is such an ebb and flow throughout the year,” Anderson said. “I’m just happy with way I’ve handled the downs and ups as well.”

For the last 25 games with the PawSox, he hit .330 while clubbing eight homers.

But well before that 25-game stretch, Anderson never doubted he’d wind up in the majors, specifically Boston.

“Yes,” Anderson responded without hesitation when asked if he knew he’d wind up in the majors eventually. “I don’t know. I just knew since I was little.”

But that doesn’t take away from the sheer excitement of the 24 hours leading up to Monday night at Fenway.

“I’m shocked because at [about] one o’clock when I got into Boston last night, I really felt my nerves,” Anderson admitted. “Right now, I feel great, I feel pretty calm and excited and under control.

“I feel like I’ve progressed in a lot of the areas I wanted to progress and I’m happy about that,” Anderson said. “I’m sure I’ll have butterflies before game but I’m way more calm. Last night, I was really jittery. Now I’m happy to be here.”

“That was more of a physical thing,” Anderson said. “It’s not where I want it to be. From what I’ve gathered, that’s the last thing that comes and it’s just a product of maturity and maturation.”

“Some physical stuff. Some mental stuff. I think the biggest adjustment for hitting is not making too many adjustments because that can become overwhelming.”

Not too many 22-year-olds are so well-adjusted. But the Red Sox clearly feel that this is no ordinary 22-year-old baseball prospect. Another example you ask?

“Sometimes not as well as I would have like to and sometimes I was really proud of myself with how I handled it,” he professed. “When I handle it well is when I’m emotionally detached from it and it’s a failed action but not failed as a human being. It’s like a bad swing doesn’t turn into a bad player which doesn’t turn into being a bad person. A bad swing is just a bad swing. You can leave it at that, which is a great way to feel when you’re struggling.”

So, it should come as no surprise that Anderson, who also had his parents in from Sacramento, Calif., has formed a professional bond with Red Sox sports psychology coach Bob Tewksbury.

“He and I are great friends,” Anderson said. “There’s a couple of people back home and my parents and myself. Obviously, it’s a never-ending thing but just realize that all of us are good. We all have this innate quality of goodness in us just appreciate that and just see it in ourselves and others and not be so self-destructive.”

But that doesn’t mean Anderson needs to always be introspective when describing his feelings of reaching the bigs.

“I think I’m going to love playing here and hitting here,” Anderson said. “It’s good to be here.”

Jonathan Papelbon was left scratching his head as he blew another save Sunday. (AP)

[Click here to listen to Jonathan Papelbon explain his ninth-inning meltdown on Sunday.]

Jonathan Papelbon said he wasn’t feeling any ill effects from throwing a career-high 48 pitches during Sunday’s epic ninth inning meltdown at Fenway Park.

His voice said otherwise.

About an hour after his teammates lost an excruciatingly difficult-to-swallow 7-5 game to the hard-charging White Sox, an exhausted Papelbon stood in front of the TV screen in the Red Sox clubhouse with the same look that TV cameras caught him with in the dugout after being pulled. He tried his best to describe how a 5-3 lead with one out to go turned into a 5-5 game in the blink of an eye.

“A walk and a bloop hit,” Papelbon said in a very quiet voice. “I couldn’t finish the job, basically. I came in throwing the ball well and wasn’t able to execute a few pitches I wanted to in the end. I felt fine, physically. I don’t think it had anything to do with the amount of pitches.”

Papelbon has always been a stand-up guy when it comes to answering the bell after a hideous loss. He did it after Game 3 of the ALDS last year at Fenway against the Angels. He did it after the loss on Aug. 12 at Rogers Centre when he also came on to protect a 5-3 lead.

And he did it again Sunday.

“I’m coming in in a situation where every little thing matters,” he said. “Trying to come into a ball game and get the hardest outs of a ball game and every little thing matters. Bloop hit, ball right off the glove. Those things turned into being big things for them.”

So why the meltdown? Was it the 48 pitches or, more specifically, the seven heavy-stress pitches to pinch-hitter Manny Ramirez, the first batter he faced in the eighth inning?

“I think some of it is focus,” Papelbon answered. “For me, I’m able to make adjustments out there from pitch to pitch pretty easily, but I didn’t finish some pitches and out of my delivery on some and fighting to get back.

“I felt myself get out of my delivery a little bit and not finish some pitches. There’s no question it was a long weekend, but tiring and Manny at-bat and all this and that has nothing to do with my performance.”

So after Papelbon threw his 48th and final pitch, it was up to the relievers left in the ‘pen to do something about it, namely Dustin Richardson and Robert Manuel. They didn’t exactly have the major league experience of coming into a situation like this with the game on the line, but no time like the present to learn.

And Papelbon said he didn’t feel sympathy for them, either.

“No, I don’t feel for them. They’re job is to come in there and get outs just like everybody else, and to sit here and say you feel sorry for them coming into that situation — no, I don’t feel sorry for them.”

The Red Sox woke up Monday morning knowing they’re 10 games behind the Yankees and 7 1/2 games behind Tampa Bay in the wild card chase.

“I think we put ourselves in the situation and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Papelbon said. “You just have to go out each day, grind it out and and try to win a ball game. I don’t think that’s going to affect how anybody goes out and plays their game or goes out and win a ball game. You don’t look at the standings every day and let it determine how you’re going to play a ball game by any means.”

Just like the sun late Sunday afternoon at Fenway, the Red Sox season is fading fast.

The fate of the 2010 Red Sox is all but sealed and they will almost certainly be watching the playoffs and World Series instead of participating. But Sunday was one of the ugliest losses of the season, rivaling the 6-5 loss to Toronto when the decline began. And in both cases, Jonathan Papelbon was the lead suspect at the scene of the crime.

There were plenty of dramatics. Victor Martinez drilling a 3-1 pitch from Mark Buehrle over the Green Monster for a two-run, go-ahead homer, the seven pitches from Jonathan Papelbon to Manny Ramirez in the first-ever meeting between two old teammates, which ended with, of all things, a hit batter.

There was the bloop hit by Carlos Quentin that turned into a run-scoring double with two outs in the ninth. That was followed by a sinking line drive by Ramon Castro that fell in front of a diving Ryan Kalish for the game-tying single.

Follow that up with appearances by Dustin Richardson and Robert Manuel, the last of which included a pair bases-loaded walks and you have the recipe for what happened Sunday afternoon as the sun was going down on the 2010 Red Sox.

And fans could not be blamed if they compared this Sunday afternoon with the Sunday afternoon last October against the Angels when Los Angeles completed a three-game ALDS sweep against the same pitcher.

WHAT WENT WRONG FOR THE RED SOX:

– This time Josh BeckettDID NOT have his best stuff in the opening three innings. He allowed six hits over the first three innings of work but Chicago only penalized him with one run in that stretch. That allowed the Red Sox righty to stay in the game until one out in the seventh.

– Red Sox pitchers continue to bumble on the mound. And we’re not talking about their pitches. We’re talking about the inability to field the position. All season long, Red Sox pitchers have had a hard time fielding their position cleanly. On Sunday, in the space of five minutes, Beckett threw wildly back to second base, allowing Omar Vizquel to reach third. And Daniel Bard, from the seat of his pants, threw errantly to Mike Lowell at first to allow a second run to cross the plate.

– Terry Francona has very little back-end bullpen left. He had to go to Daniel Bard in the seventh and Papelbon with one out in the eighth to rescue the game. Forty-eight pitches later, Papelbon was left to stare hopelessly into space from the dugout as Manuel walked in the two go-ahead runs.

WHAT WENT RIGHT FOR THE RED SOX:

– The offense finally showed signs of life, and with two outs, no less. The clearest example of that was when Victor Martinez stepped to the plate with a runner on first and the Red Sox trailing 3-2 in the seventh. He drilled a 3-1 hanging pitch from Mark Buerhle over everything in left for his 14th homer of the season and a 4-3 Red Sox lead.

– After grazing Manny Ramirez with an inside fastball in the eighth to put runners on first and second with one out, Papelbon regained his focus, striking out Gordon Beckham looking and getting Juan Pierre to fly out to left to end the threat. Then, of course, came the ninth.

– Adrian Beltre again shows he’s 2010 MVP. He had three hits, joining Darnell McDonald, also with three hits, as the team leaders on the day.

And so it continues.

After hitting .314 and .271 in June and July, respectively, Marco Scutaro saw his average dip to .237 in the month of August as he dealt with nagging shoulder pain that first bothered him in May.

After playing both games Saturday, Scutaro was given Sunday off and will get Monday to rest as well before getting an MRI on his ailing right shoulder on Tuesday and not play until then, Red Sox manager Terry Francona announced Sunday morning.

Francona said Sunday he noticed Saturday night in Game 2 of the day-night doubleheader that it was bothering him again.

Francona, meantime, confirmed that Jason Varitek beginning two-game rehab with Triple-A Pawtucket today.

“He’ll catch about half the game. I’d like to get him to that third at-bat. Common sense needs to prevail. If the game is crazy but as long as he feels good he can spin around and DH [Monday] and get another three or four at-bats, see how he feels. I told him and Torey [Lovullo], he can play as long as he wants. It’s all up to how he feels physically.”

“Saw it on his swing in his second at-bat,” Francona said. He’s been feeling it for about a month. We’ll get him an MRI on Tuesday to make sure of where he is. We know he’s playing through a lot [of pain]. How much we don’t know but we’ll get him looked at on Tuesday.”

Scutaro was called into the manager’s office to sit down with Francona and general manager Theo Epstein to discuss his situation.