BOSTON – For the third time in his 13-year Red Sox career Tim Wakefield, the team’s longest-tenured veteran, is being left off a play-off roster.An emotional Wakefield was a surprise addition to manager Terry Francona’s press conference at Fenway Park yesterday, after Francona opened the media session stating that Wakefield would not be available for the World Series.”What we have of the rotation right now is (Josh) Beckett, (Curt Schilling), Daisuke (Matsuzaka), one, two, three,” Francona said. “The one decision that has been made is about Tim Wakefield and his availability, or lack of availability.”Wakefield, 41, was 17-12, with a 4.76 ERA this season, a career high in wins. But he was bothered by an ailing right shoulder and back this season, missing a start at the beginning of September.Prior to that, Wakefield had gone 11-3, with a 4.12 ERA over 14 starts from June 12 through Aug. 25, leading the majors in wins in that span. After returning Sept. 6, he was 1-2 with an 8.76 ERA in five starts. In the postseason, Wakefield got into just one game, a Game 4 start in Cleveland in the ALCS, going 4.2 innings, giving up five runs on five hits and two walks, striking out seven.”I really wish I was up here talking about my starting Game 2,” Wakefield said. “But unfortunately that’s not the case today. After long talks with (Francona) and (pitching coach) John Farrell and (general manager) Theo (Epstein), my health, advice from the doctors, it’s not going to happen, unfortunately.”Could I pitch Game 2? Probably. But are you going to get 100 percent out of Tim Wakefield? I don’t know that, either, until Tuesday. After that I don’t know, either, because dealing with this problem that I’ve had for the past two months, it seems like my recovery time is getting longer and longer and longer, and I just don’t think it’s fair to the other 24 guys on this team that I go out there and maybe I pitch well and maybe I don’t, and then I’m not available for the rest of the series. It’s not fair for the rest of the 24 guys in that clubhouse for me to put them through that.”Wakefield said the pain he is experiencing is not while he is pitching in a game, but during the days after, causing him to take longer between starts to recover.”I tried to throw a side (Monday) or the day before to see how it would feel,” he said. “Based on what the doctors were saying, they wanted me to throw a side and see how I felt the next day. I could barely even throw the side. It was maximum at 75 percent or 60 percent or whatever. My doctors and John Farrell was saying, trust me – this stinks for me, it does. As a competitor I want to be out there competing. This is the ultimate stage, this is what I’ve worked hard from spring training through the course of the season to get to this point, and now I can’t be available. I mean, it (stinks), to put it bluntly.”Francona, along with Wakefield. Farrell, and the medical staff had been building toward this decision.”It was not a quick one meeting,” Francona said. “It’s actually been over the – we communicate every day. Over the course of the last two months we have known where Wake has been, even when the public hasn’t, and the recovery time between each start has been getting more difficult and more difficult.”The emotion, it wasn’t a lot of fun. That’s part of the reason Wake is sitting here now, because of our respect and regard for him, that it wasn’t just a move made on paper and we’ll go on. Sometimes doing the right thing is certainly not the fun thing, but it comes back to having respect for the organization, for the team, and for the players, and that will never change.”While Wakefield was left off the ALCS roster in 1999 by then[-manager Jimy Williams, the circumstances were different than this year. That season, a key member of the pitching staff, Wakefield went two innings of relief against the Indians in the division series, allowing three runs on three hits and four walks, striking out four, before surprisingly