Marlins reunite pair of former players from historic Red Sox team

It was reported on Friday morning that the Marlins had agreed to hire former San Francisco Giants manager (and Red Sox outfielder) Gabe Kapler to be their assistant general manager.

Following five-plus seasons with the Giants (1996-2000, 2002) and one-plus season with the Chicago Cubs (2001-02) to begin his playing career, Bill Mueller signed with the Red Sox in January 2003. Kapler opened his days on the diamond in 1998 and bounced around from the Detroit Tigers (1998-99), Texas Rangers (2000-02) and Colorado Rockies (2002-03), before landing with Boston in June 2003.

The outfielder was a role player with the Red Sox, seeing no more than 310 plate appearances with the club during his three-plus years (2003-06) in Beantown, but Mueller was the team's primary third baseman in all three seasons (2003-05) with Boston. Mueller's best offensive campaign came in 2003, when he won the AL batting title with a .326 average, earned a Silver Slugger award and finished 12th in the league's MVP voting.

The duo teamed up with star shortstop Nomar Garciaparra and ace starter Pedro Martinez among others to get the Red Sox all the way to Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS against the rival New York Yankees, before Aaron "Bleepin" Boone hit a walk-off home run in extra innings. The Yankees, ironically, fell to the Marlins in that year's World Series, which was the last time the franchise made the Fall Classic.

Behind the leadership of then-first-year Boston manager Terry Francona and the clutch postseason hitting of designated hitter David Ortiz, Kapler, Mueller and company avenged their 2003 ALCS loss to New York. After losing Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS 19-8 at home and entering the bottom of the ninth of Game 4 down one run, Kevin Millar walked, Dave Roberts pinch-ran and stole second and Mueller singled to centerfield to send the game to extras.

The rest was history.