From the Media Guide

In my collection, I currently have every Red Sox Media Guide dating back to 1998. I love flipping through them to see what tidbits they contain. I figured that if I liked it, you might enjoy taking a look along with me. So, I had a somewhat random number generator select a page from the 1998 edition to talk about today.

It selected page 88.

That's the first page in Reggie Jefferson's entry. 

The first thing I notice is that the media guide was very low on frills in 1998. A black and white pictures, and then just txt followed by text followed by text. I wonder if there was a change in philosophy that added some style to the guide, or if it's just a matter of cheaper printing processes these days.

But, what do we learn from looking at this page? 

Well, first off we see that Reggie's middle name is Jirod. That's a little unusual.

The first segment on the page deals with his 1997 season. We see in bold that Reggie had three two-homer games that season. That's not bad at all. We also see that he had a 22-game hitting streak. Now, I'm not a big fan of calling streaks "important", but it does indicate that he was probably having a pretty good month. I like the last sentence in his 1997 section. Reggie hit 11 balls off the LF wall, and two more over it. I love that they were keeping track of that. I can also imagine after Reggie did it for the first time in 1998, the announcer saying something like. "And there's a double iff the wall for Reggie. The first time he's done that in 1998. He did it eleven times last season." 

I like the next part in bold as well. Reggie hit a "game-ending" home run. Interesting choice of words there. It looks like "walk-off" was still a ways off from being the go-to term. But, you'd think "game winning" might be a better option. 

He also had another long hitting streak in 1996. Right there in bold it tells us that it was 18 games. That's a pretty lengthy streak in consecutive seasons. 

We also see in bold that Reggie had another three two-homer games in 1996. So, he's a pretty consistent hitter in that regard. Can't ask for much more than that.

All that information can be found on this Media Guide page, along with lots of other great information.

Just like every page.