Fast-forward a year, with the Red Sox newly arrived in Fort Myers for 2017 spring training, we will be standing at the threshold of a glorious celebration of all things 1967. Be prepared. There will months upon months of reliving the “Impossible Dream,’’ the astonishing, magical, all-things-Yaz tour de force that reinvigorated a moribund franchise and ultimately forged Red Sox Nation.

Before we salute ’67, though, let us remember 1966, an innocuous season that not even the most ardent Sox fan could recall.

It was yet another risible 162-game slate, despite fresh faces such as George Scott and Joe Foy settling in as cornerstones of what a year later would be the club’s captivating renaissance.

For all its forgettability, 1966 needs to take a brief bow, because it marked the end of our hardball hard times. We didn’t have a hint of the pandemonium we would know a year later, and now a half-century gone by, 1966 at the very least should be remembered for some of the players and times from an entire era we’ve so eagerly dismissed.

It was a time, for instance, when Gene Conley and Pumpsie Green made headlines, not for their play, but for their wanderlust. The duo popped off a team bus after a 13-3 thrashing in the Bronx in July ’62, and vanished for nearly 72 hours. Turned out, Conley tried to fly off to Israel, only to be rebuffed at the gate, ticket reportedly in hand, for not having a passport. The early ‘60s Sox were never big on details.

Those Sox teams weren’t good. They didn’t leave their mark. They were the Sad Sack Sox, who had us wryly muttering, “Wait ’til next year,’’ before they even broke training camp.

They played in a shabby, near-abandoned city, 15-20 years into its postwar white flight to the suburbs. Their owner, Tom Yawkey, spoke eagerly of abandoning Fenway for a shiny new ballpark with open acres of parking. A spot along Route 128 in Newton was high on his radar, even well into the ’67 season, just as the good times finally began to roll back to the Back Bay.

The ’66 Sox went 72-90, good for ninth place in the American League, and the ­only solace was that they finished ahead of the dead-last Yankees (70-89).

In those days, that was saying something. Yankee hate here ran deeper and more toxic than the Charles River. The Bombers forever were the top dogs and the Red Sox, well, just dogs, particularly with Ted Williams freshly retired and paltry crowds of 8,000-12,000 standard fare at the corner of Jersey Street and Brookline Avenue.

Highlights of ’66 were few:

¦  In his sixth season, Carl Yastrzemski was named captain during spring training, at the urging of vice president Haywood Sullivan and manager Billy Herman. The 25-year-old Yaz embraced it, noting, “We can get more unity and less independency.’’

¦  Of the regulars, Yaz hit best for average (.278), a decline from his .312 in ’65, and the drop led to trade talk prior to the ’67 season (when he would win the Triple Crown and gain guaranteed passage to the Hall of Fame).

¦  Tony Conigliaro, in his third season, belted 28 homers. The handsome kid from Lynn had 20 through 94 games the following season when a Jack Hamilton beanball effectively ended his career. Senior Sox fans still wince every Aug. 18.

¦  Scott was second on the club with 90 RBIs. “Boomer,’’ splitting time between first and third base, made the All-Star team and finished third in AL Rookie of the Year balloting, won by Tommie Agee.

¦  Righthander Jose Santiago made the most starts (28) and collected the most wins (12), followed by Jim Lonborg, 10-10 in 23 starts. A year later, Gentleman Jim would be hoisted up the hero on fans’ shoulders when the Sox beat the Twins on the final day of the season.

¦  Reliever Dick Radatz, the behemoth fan favorite, was dealt in June to Cleveland for veteran hurlers Don McMahon and Lee “Stinger’’ Stange (a key figure in the Impossible Dream). “It hasn’t been fun with a ninth-place team,’’ lamented the Monster upon leaving town.

¦  His club 64-82 in his third season as manager, Herman was canned in mid-September. Former Sox first baseman Pete Runnels, who won two AL batting championships, skippered the club to an 8-8 finish, went home to Texas in October, and never worked in the bigs again.

¦  Dick Williams, Boston’s minor league manager in Toronto for two years, in late September was named the next Sox skipper, on a one-year deal that paid $25,000. Among his first decisions: to rescind Yaz’s captaincy. A bad idea, said Williams, to have “too many chiefs.’’ Once a Sox utility infielder, Williams was noted for telling scribes, “I’m a low-ball hitter and a high-ball drinker.’’

By midway through ’67, the early ‘60s had been lost in a cloud of pixie dust and pine tar. We had seen Yaz’s early years. We witnessed no-hitters by Bill Monbouquette, Earl Wilson, and Dave Morehead. There was the arrival of Rico Petrocelli, the departure of longtime favorite Frank Malzone, the joy and sorrow of Tony C.

They were the dreary years, when games weren’t always on TV. We stayed up to watch Don Gillis roll the highlights, few as they were, at 11 p.m. on Channel 5. All in black and white, of course, the Citgo sign in every shot when home runs landed in the net above the left-field wall.

We have seen the good times roll here over the last 49 years.A year from now, we will be transported anew on the magic carpet ride of 1967, reminded of the Cardiac Kids, a Rich Rollins popup to Petrocelli, a midsummer’s night when a mellifluous Ned Martin uttered, “If you just turned your radio on, it’s happened again.’’

Somewhere between there and Williams’s last at-bat in 1960 linger some 1,000 games full of Eddie Bressoud, Roman Mejias, Jim Gosger, Don Buddin, ­Felix Mantilla, Ike DeLock, Gary Geiger, George Smith, Bob Tillman, Chuck Schilling, Jackie Jensen, and scores more.

Like the times in which they played, most weren’t very good. Some were downright awful. But they were all we had, and 50 years later, they’re worth remembering. Perhaps for a last time. Because, just wait, next year will be different.

Kevin Paul Dupont’s “On Second Thought’’ appears regularly in the Sunday Globe Sports section. He can be reached at dupont@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeKPD.