Watching Pedro lounge on a mattress while the Jordan’s furniture guy creeps about in the background, I got to thinking about some of my personal favorite commercials featuring current and former Sox players.

Obviously, the new Jordan’s commercials are stellar because, well, Pedro’s in ’em. And just seeing that li’l f$%ker somehow propelled me to buy $5,000 worth of furniture I can’t use.

The gold standard is probably that Curt Schilling truck commercial in which he says he’s coming to town to break the curse. The first time I saw it, I thought it was simply cool. Looking back, it’s stirring and amazingly prescient.

Any of those old WSBK-TV 38 spots were magic, especially the promos they’d run in anticipation of a big series. CHECK OUT THE SHIRTS ON MONTY AND McDONOUGH! Oh and let’s hope Wes Gardner can continue his winning ways!

Cheesy and sometimes silly, the TV38 spots sometimes looked like something a grade-schooler would cook up on his computer. But they conjure precious memories in me. I remember a classic from the late ‘70s/early ‘80s in which the Fenway organist complained about some of the things he hears the crowd saying about his beloved players, at which point a few of them (can’t even pretend to remember who they were) joined him to belt out “Feelings.” This is the best example I could dig up on YouTube—not the best, but still quite worthy:

The Ortiz/Posada ESPN commercial. The fact that the guy in the Wally costume didn’t get some sort of Emmy recognition is an outrage on par with GoodFellas losing Best Picture to Dances With Wolves.

Roger Clemens lip-synching for Zest. I was never quite sure which memory from 1986 has caused me more emotional distress: The Mets celebrating their World Series victory while Wade Boggs cried in the Sox dugout, or a shirtless Roger Clemens belting out the “Zest” soap jingle. But I think this might get the edge:

Then, there’s the lost classic. You know the one. Dan Duquette and Pedro Martinez’s anti-smoking ad. Folks, this was the Citizen Kane of Red Sox commercials. This one featured Pedro chastising a young boy for carrying a pack of smokes (“What is this? You think these make you cool?”), while a khaki-ed and blazer-ed Duquette nodded approvingly from the bench (before delivering the killer line, “Now that’s a winning pitch,” as the kid chucked the cigs in the trash can.) Fantastically surreal and, sadly, lost to me. If anyone has a copy, I’ll gladly pay top dollar just to see it again.