The 1975 Red Sox made me love baseball. And dread it.

My Red Sox passion is documented as far back as age 5 via a photo sitting in the bleachers with my family in 1970. A year later, my first-grade summary warned my parents about potential behavioral problems ahead. She then added this about yours truly: “His conversations are really interesting, and I’ve never known so much about the Bruins and Red Sox.”

Glad to see I didn’t waste all that knowledge on something like a career in medicine or law.

The emotional ups and downs of my Red Sox fandom go back as far as I can — or choose to — remember.

I turned 10 in 1975. The prime of my baseball youth. That season was my generation’s “Possible Dream.” We had no recollection of 1967, even though it came up in just about every conversation I had about baseball with my dad, uncles, or godfather.

(A World War II combat veteran and long-time Navy CPO, my godfather would be buried wearing his dress whites in a Red Sox-themed coffin.)

That the 2025 Red Sox had someone in their employ who did not know Hall of Famer Jim Rice once labored for the Local Nine remains an affront to history. Perhaps that’s another reason why I wrote this.

Tony Soprano whiffed when he said, “Remember when is the lowest form of conversation.” Tony, of course, was not a real person. Those words, read by actor James Gandolfini during Season 6 of The Sopranos, were written for his character by Terrance Winter.

Tony and Terrance could never believe someone employed by the Yankees would not know the name “Reggie Jackson.”

When it comes to the Red Sox, sometimes “Remember When” is the best game in town.

We’ll withhold judgment on that in 2025.

1975 is worthy of “Remember When” 50 years later.

Every year is “next year” when you’re 10. Especially in the Media Stone Age a half-century ago. NESN was a bread company. Only spiders dominated the web. The smartphones were the ones that hung on the wall with extra-long cords.

Every game (or so it seemed) aired on either Channel 38 or as an NBC Game of the Week. You waited for the morning paper to read the box score and the previous game’s story.

We had a color TV in the living room. But chunks of the 1975 season were seen in glorious black-and-white via a 12-inch TV in the kitchen, bedroom, or on the back porch/at the beach in the summer. The radios in both cars owned by my parents were permanently affixed to WHDH 850-AM.

When World Series tickets went on sale to the non-season-ticket-holding public, thousands ringed Fenway Park for a shot at the leftovers. My dad stuck it out for about six hours. He would wheel and deal his way to six standing-room seats and a pair of bleacher seats for Game 7.

My juvenile joy watching Carton Fisk’s Game 6 post-midnight home run fade into the low-def, 27-inch color RCA screen in our Arlington living room was propelled by the fact that I was going to a WORLD SERIES GAME 7 later that evening.

It was determined that my mom and I (being the youngest) would sit in the bleachers. My dad, brothers, and extended family members stood/sat in the aisle near first base.

The Red Sox choked in Game 7. They lost 4-3 after leading 3-0. Tony Perez’s moonshot off Bill Lee completes its 50th orbit around Earth on Oct. 22. Watching that calamity unfold live from Section 41, knowing there was nothing I could do, triggered a half-century of cynicism that remains unabated.

Soon, Red Sox faithful would sit enthralled listening to SUPER SOX ’75. A vinyl LP, narrated by Ned Martin, it offered a 54-minute audio recap of the season. The record ends with Fisk’s home run to close Game 6.

Game 7 never happens.

Sort of like The Sopranos ending.

“On Opening Day 1975, Lynn was just a city north of Boston. And Rice was the primary staple grain in the East Asian diet,” a politically correct Martin might say.

We were spared the “next great player” hype of today. Another reason that Red Sox season was so overwhelming. Many didn’t see it coming.

Much of it stands fresh in my mind as I look for my keys and wallet.

(I still have the full 1975 Topps full-size & mini set.)

Opening Day with Tony C. and Hank Aaron. Fred Lynn taking a wrecking bat and ball to Tiger Stadium. Watching Jim Palmer and Luis Tiant paint a dual masterpiece from the third-base grandstand on a September Tuesday night at Fenway Park. The Red Sox won 2-0 in just 133 minutes. Yaz flashing his brilliance in left after taking over for the injured Rice. The sweep of the A’s. Tiant going back to touch home plate in Game 1. Ed Armbrister’s interference. Bernie Carbo’s TWO pinch-hit World Series home runs. Dewey’s Game 6 catch. Fisk’s wave. Yaz’s lollipop to center that ended Game 7.

I was too young to appreciate the greatness that unfolded in front of me in person at Fenway that cool and clear Wednesday night. The 1975 Red Sox roster had three Hall of Famers, not including Dewey and Tiant. The Big Red Machine had three Hall of Famers, not including Pete Rose and Dave Concepción. We didn’t forget Sparky Anderson, either. He’s making a pitching change somewhere.

The 1975 Red Sox season remains paramount in my baseball soul. Bliss and torment. A reminder of the sadness that my parents never saw the Red Sox become World Series champions. And the joy that their oldest grandchild was 10 years old in the fall of 2004.

We’ll call that progress.

Bill Speros (@BillSperos and @RealOBF on X) can be reached at bsperos1@gmail.com