Cursed To First - Sox and Pats forever.

Papi's House

About 18 months ago, I made a wonderful new friend through a community organization that has nothing to do with baseball. So it wasn’t until earlier this year that the Red Sox happened to come up in conversation, and as is so often the case when that’s the subject and I’m involved, I began to wax verbose. Eventually she stopped me, but not because she wasn’t interested: instead, to my surprise, she said she wanted to schedule an evening to hang out so I could tell her more about it when we both didn’t have other places to get to. To my further surprise, she followed through on that idea, and last month, we sat on my couch watching Faith Rewarded with my commentary.

Thus, just last month, I happened to be in a position to explain to someone not familiar with the game just what David Ortiz means to Red Sox fans, and to the City of Boston in general. My friend does a lot of work in the field of racial justice, so I started there, recounting the shameful legacy of the Yawkey years and the fact that the Sox were the dead last team in the league to integrate, 12 years after Jackie Robinson signed with the Dodgers. In fact, Jackie Robinson and two other promising Negro League players were given a tryout (of sorts) in Boston shortly before Robinson broke the color barrier with another team. The legend goes that someone – someone who was never identified, but who is believed by some to be Tom Yawkey himself – hollered “Get those n-----s off the field,” and that was that until the Sox signed Pumpsie Green in 1959. It would be another few years before the Red Sox had a bona fide star player of color in Hall of Famer Jim Rice, who had more than his fair share of run-ins with the notorious Boston sports press that had been sarcastically nicknamed “the knights of the keyboard” by Ted Williams.

There were several other players of color, such as Mo Vaughn and Pedro Martinez, who laid the groundwork for David Ortiz – Martinez most directly, when he alerted Red Sox management that the Minnesota Twins had let Ortiz go to free agency in early 2003. But in his 13 years with the Red Sox, Ortiz reached a status among Boston fans and press that had been totally unknown to his predecessors – he was one of the few athletes of any cultural background the Red Sox fan base and press corps never turned on in a way they seem to love to do with star players, even the posthumously canonized Williams. Pedro, too, had his run-ins with Boston’s “fellowship of the miserable,” particularly following an injury and conflict with pitching coach Joe Kerrigan in 2001. Despite Pedro’s legendary performances in his early seasons with the Red Sox, there was a time period in 2001 and 2002 where the talk of sports radio was whether he was a “prima donna” for refusing to speak to the press for a while after the Kerrigan affair. Pedro, like so many star Red Sox before him, was not immune to Boston's bitter court of public opinion. Nor were so many other Sox darlings, in the end – even the manager that brought the team their first two World Series championships in 86 and 89 years, respectively, would eventually be dragged through the mud on his way out of town. Yet, even with the shadowy accusations of the Mitchell Report on his record, Ortiz never suffered that total fall from grace in the eyes of local fans. For any player, that was impressive. For a player of color, it was unheard of.

But there are also ways David Ortiz changed the culture of baseball in Boston that have nothing to do with political issues. In actions and in how he carried himself, Ortiz both represented and helped to create a kind of optimism among Red Sox fans that was light years away from the reputation for “Calvinistic self-doubt” and cursed fatalism that had belonged to “lovable loser” Red Sox fans before 2004. His smiling face cheered Sox fans from above the Brookline Avenue Mass Pike bridge that would eventually be renamed after him in early 2004, as Sox fans still stung from the bitter loss to the Yankees in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS. And between the lines, he delivered the opposite of what Red Sox fans had been conditioned to expect – clutch hit after clutch hit to spark comeback wins. By the time Ortiz was through here, what he began even before he threw a desperate town and team onto his back in the epic Games 4 and 5 of the 2004 ALCS had become the full-blown baseball zeitgeist. His sunny disposition and dazzling smile were contagious, and he became the new face of a team whose members and fan base truly believed victory was always possible. As with his escape from Boston’s historical pattern of racial animus, he had plenty of help from teammates and predecessors, of course, and he didn’t singlehandedly solve all of the city’s problems. But he undoubtedly changed the tone.

Last month, I happened to meet some men from the Dominican Republic at a work-related event. I didn’t want to presume they were baseball fans solely because of where they were from, but once business niceties were out of the way, eventually the conversation moved to the sport that turned out to be our common passion. In Boston and in the DR, the days Pedro Martinez started, everything else shut down. One of the men said the phrase where he comes from was “Pedro lanza hoy” – “Pedro pitches today.” Nothing else needed to be said, and nothing else mattered.

Eventually, he asked me who was more popular in Boston, Martinez or Ortiz. It was a tough one to answer, since Boston literally would not have one without the other. And Martinez, a first-ballot Hall of Famer, was probably the superior player overall, as Ortiz’s Hall of Fame future as a designated hitter remains in doubt for now. Martinez also did plenty to introduce Boston, and the US in general, to Dominican culture and paved the way in more ways than one for Ortiz’s popularity here.

But, I said, at least for Red Sox fans, while Martinez is objectively legendary, Ortiz is subjectively personal in a way Pedro isn’t. The time I met Ortiz at a fan appreciation day in 2009, it took him at least five times as long to circle the field greeting fans as the rest of his teammates. People of all ages could not get enough of him – they handed him their infants and small children without a thought, and just about everyone wanted a hug, myself included, which he obliged. A heartfelt emotional attachment to Ortiz that went far beyond the fans' affection for other players was clear that day, and in the ensuing years of his career, which culminated in the outpouring that marked his final season in 2016 and his number retirement ceremony last June.

It’s also clear that while Ortiz’s playing days are over, his days as a Red Sox icon are not, as he was the only former player, and certainly the only local celebrity of his status, to appear in the Opening Day ceremonies at Fenway Park yesterday. His work as an ambassador between Red Sox Nation and the world – and vice versa – is also clearly ongoing. Aly Raisman is locally heralded in her own right for her accomplishments on and off the Olympic gymnastics mat, and she was greeted with real fervor when she made her entrance at Fenway to kick off the game with “Play Ball” alongside Ortiz on the mound.

What happened next, however, was above and beyond what politeness and ceremony required, and demonstrated why Ortiz remains both a beloved and a groundbreaking figure here. He shed his jersey, tossing it behind him to reveal a black t-shirt underneath emblazoned with the words GIRL POWER. As Ortiz and Raisman left the field, he stopped in full view of the crowd and took a selfie with her. In other words, in front of the fans that worship him, Ortiz made a great show of being her fan. Raisman is her own person with her own stellar career and well-deserved fanbase, but yesterday, at Fenway, she was undeniably on Ortiz’s turf – and he made a point to show the fanbase that would follow him anywhere in just what direction they should look next. Few other athletes in Boston history would dare take such a political risk, but as always, the rules are different for Ortiz. He truly can do no wrong in Boston’s eyes. And Boston will be better for it.

The last night of the Patriots dynasty

…may not have happened yet.

Had the Patriots lost last night at the scene of the XLII crime, it could be said to have ended that previous night they played in Glendale, Arizona, the final cruelty of a game that still hurts to think about.

But instead, this morning, the conversation is much different. We’re talking about the Greatest of All Time and Dynasty and other things that warm my heart on this furiously snowy Monday morning, and the possibilities still seem endless.

As the Seahawks drove down the field and Jermaine Kearse made an utterly impossible catch to put them on the New England five yard line, that previous Super Bowl heartbreak loomed large in this Pats fan’s mind.

“The only reason this isn’t going to be more painful than XLII is because a perfect season isn’t on the line,” I thumb-typed into Twitter, which had been the outlet for my angst all night. “That’s it.”

You can talk all you want about how blessed Patriots fans have been over the last 14 years, and I acknowledge that. But to get to the Promised Land…again…only to have heartbreak visit you in nightmarishly familiar fashion…again…is a terrible feeling, and no amount of prior records can assuage that feeling, any more than a 16-0 regular season makes up for a last-minute loss with the trophy on the line.

Other than Tweeting, I had been quiet for most of the game at the point when the Seahawks went to a passing play, and Malcolm Butler flashed through the line, jumped the route, and put an unexpected end on the game.

I don’t remember exactly what I screamed, but I screamed. I screamed words that included “Intercepted it” and “Holy shit” but it was just a pure, primal outpouring of all the stress that had built up as I involuntarily cringed from the third quarter on at every Patriots miscue. The empty Coke bottle I’d been clutching went flying across the room. I have felt great sports pain in my life, and great sports joy, but this was off the charts even by a spoiled Pats fan’s standards.

I still kind of can’t believe it. I had settled in so readily to the idea that defeat would be snatched once again from the jaws of victory that I’m still watching that highlight over and over again, trying to make it familiar, expected, as Malcolm Butler jumps the route.

We’ll talk about the ending ad nauseam, but in the meantime there were so many other stories, other efforts, that went into it. Say what you want about Pete Carroll’s play call, but give Bill Belichick credit. Not only was he not fooled by the pass play, but he put an undrafted free-agent rookie in the game to replace the floundering Kyle Arrington and that player, more than anything else, cements Belichick’s legacy as a legendary coach even as he buries Carroll’s.

There are precious few teams in the NFL who have such a well-disciplined, well-prepared team. Credit Belichick for the atmosphere he creates around his team, for that kind of preparation from a rookie who, by all rational measures, never should’ve expected to see the ice.

Those of us outside the walls of Gillette Stadium wailed and moaned when Wes Welker left us, and then we’ve watched him become a shadow of his former self, while Julian Edelman, his long-lost twin on the field, held on where Welker could not in 2012. How did Belichick know?

And then there’s our quarterback. What a big swing for him – from .500 in Super Bowls to a winner of four out of six, a record-setting performance that puts him in the rarified air of Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana, and of course, one of those signature last-minute drives that an incredulous world first saw more than a decade ago.

The world, apparently, remains incredulous about Brady. He won the MVP of the game but was quickly subsumed in the kerfuffle about the game’s ending.  But a look back at this game, two interceptions and all, shows that in the end, Brady was the key. He led the winning drive once again, and this time the defense held on.

Brady and Belichick. Their like will not soon pass this way again.

Soon the conversation will begin about the future, about how much longer New England gets to enjoy those two legendary figures stalking the sidelines and calling signals under center. Was this most satisfying redemption their final farewell to the league’s biggest stage? With Brady pushing 40, it may have been. Maybe we’ll look back on this as the last night of the Patriots dynasty. Which is why I’m trying to savor every second. 

About this blog

As is probably obvious, this blog is on hiatus, which may or may not be permanent. I really can't quite decide, which is why I haven't officially closed up shop here yet. 

In the meantime, see the sidebar for other great sports blogs and, if you're so inclined, some essays I'm proud of.

Also in the meantime, I'm Tweeting up a storm @CursedtoFirst. 

The Zebras in the Room

Disclaimer: I'm not blaming last night's loss on the referees -- that honor belongs to the Patriots defense. But that doesn't mean this isn't an issue that needs to be addressed.

When it comes to Bill Belichick grabbing the official after last night's debacle against the Ravens, I can't help but think of Chris Rock's line about OJ Simpson: "I'm not saying he should've done it, but I understand."

By the time that vengeful, deeply personal battle of a game was over, I'm sure most fans on both sides would've liked to grab a referee, too...by the neck. 

Look, you know it and I know it: the officiating this year has been absolutely terrible, across the league. In the first half of last night's game, the refs seemed not to call much of anything, including a vicious forearm to Julian Edelman's face in the end zone courtesy of Ed Reed, and it took quite some time before the flags came out to stop the fights that seemed to follow every play. The refs were clearly intimidated and in over their heads, as the intensity between the two teams threatened to spiral out of control. 

I might've felt sorry for them, getting their ears chewed off by both head coaches at every turn, if I hadn't been so mad at them myself. Someone is going to get seriously hurt if the replacements can't get games under better control than that. 

The first half was bad enough, but the second half was an absolute travesty. There were too many ridiculous calls to name them all, but in particular I remember a holding call on Devin McCourty on the Ravens' second-to-last scoring drive that was absolutely pathetic.

And of course, who can forget the remarkably synchronized chant of "BULL-SHIT!" that rang out from Ravens fans after an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on coach Jim Harbaugh late in the fourth quarter?

It's been argued that the league has no incentive to hurry up its negotiations with the real refs as long as America keeps tuning in to the NFL. I would like to think that the sheer danger these incompetent refs pose to the league's players would be incentive enough for something to be done about this atrocious situation.

But, like most NFL fans increasingly grappling with the thorny moral issues surrounding footbal fandom, I sadly know better than that by now. 

Goodbye, Johnny Pesky, Part 2

I'll admit it. I've been less than enthused about baseball lately. For me, it's full-on football season, and the Red Sox and their losing ways are an afterthought. The current team just doesn't have my heart the way past teams have. I don't know if it's the oboxiousness of Bobby V or the flood of newbies putting on the uniform in the late season, but, well, there you have it. Occasionally I tune in, as I did at a pub on Friday night, to a TV with no sound and watch Dustin Pedroia get the game-tying RBI, and as usual, he makes me smile. But that's about it, of late. 

Until tonight. 

I actually didn't even watch today's game, but I did watch the Pesky trbute that was on afterwards, and not only did it choke me up, wring me out, and otherwise leave me verklempt with its pitch-perfect plucks at the heartstrings, but it reminded me how I usually feel about baseball, when things aren't a plodding forced march through gratuitous amounts of suckitude at the hands of a largely unlikeable band of misfits led by the Pied Piper of Smirk. 

Ahem.

Memorable moments:

• Dick Flavin's speech and beautiul poem left me choked up, with goosebumps. 
• Keith Foulke showed up. That man's graciousness after the way he was treated on his way out of town is not something we should take for granted. Toward the end of the broadcast, as Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield shared their memories of celebrating the 2004 World Series with Johnny Pesky, NESN cut to a shot of him in the stands. Well played, NESN.
• Roger Clemens showed up, and he talked, AND he received a nice ovation from the crowd that was gathered at Fenway for the event. Will wonders never cease. 
• Bill Lee saying players today are spoiled. "They've got more grounds crew than we had fans."
• Rich Gedman saying, in his softspoken way, that he "gets nervous in these places" before he shared his memories of Johnny. 
• The sheer number of times the word "Peckerhead" was used on live TV (this was Ted Williams' nickname for Pesky, and Pesky's nickname, ultimately, for a lot of other people, including Pedro Martinez when he first arrived from Montreal). 
• Of all the stories told, the one that stands out the most to me was Dustin Pedroia's about when he first got called up and was struggling at the plate. He said Pesky took him aside and was trying to give him a pep talk when a screaming foul ball liner zinged into the dugout and hit Pesky on the arm. "See, that's what ya gotta do, kid," Pesky told Pedey. "Get hit by the ball so you get on base. I want you to practice that." Pedroia said he wasn't sure if Pesky was serious until Pesky assured him he was joking, and reminded him that the game was supposed to be fun--gave Pedroia permisison to have fun. This both echoed and summed up a sentiment expressed by several other players who paid tribute to Johnny, that for all the seriousness and earnestness of his dedication to the game, his sense of fun and joy in it was essential to him as well. 
• Clay Buchholz's wide eyes in the stands as he watched Pedro speak. 
• After the players told their stories of Johnny, they walked out to the big "6" that had been painted into the infield, and laid roses on it. Papi lingered with a faraway stare next to the number after his teammates had moved on, until Pedro Martinez walked over, took David by the arm, and gently led him away. That moment was just breathtaking. 

By the time the players past and present were all signing the Pesky Pole, I was a complete mess. But I had remembered the deep emotions that has made baseball a passion of mine, after a period of unfortunate forgetfulness about that.

Thanks, Johnny.

A New Hope

 Believe it or not, this was the face of victory...

I never wrote about it, but I did watch the Super Bowl this year. You know, the one that was a mirror image in many ways of the Super Bowl that remains my No.2 most painful sports memory of all time? Yeah, that one. 

So, first, the Patriots begin the 2012-13 season under the expectation that they will avenge that most recent, stinging loss.

Then there's also the expectation, at least in some circles, that they will 'heal our wounds and be a blessing to us' after a Red Sox baseball season that has been nothing short of miserable, never more so than in being dissected by a Sports Illustrated cover story this week.

That piece summed things up this way:

On Aug. 31, 2011, a comfortable evening at Fenway with a sweet breeze blowing in from rightfield, the Red Sox beat the Yankees 9-5. They had the best record in the American League, stability in the dugout and in the front office, an MVP candidate in Gonzalez, an AL ERA leader in Beckett and a nine-game cushion on a playoff spot. 

That moment in time seems ancient now, like a lost civilization.

No pressure, Pats.

Fortunately, the New England Patriots who showed up to play today in Tennessee were easily able to bear up under the weight of those expectations and frustrations, and trounce the Titans for a thoroughly satisfying 34-13 win. 

Before the game, I was worried about the New England offensive line, which had looked a little shabby in the preseason, but it turns out I had no reason to fret. The Patriots controlled the running game on both sides of the ball today, netting 162 yards rushing, the kind of effort that can only be led by strength up front.

Tom Brady was sacked only once, though the Titans made that one count -- DE Kamerion Wimbley first tackled the QB and then kneed him in the face, resulting in a less-than-stylish Band-Aid on the bridge of Brady's nose and a right nostril packed with gauze to begin the Patriots' fourth offensive series of the game. 

More impressive was the way New England controlled the run on defense. The Titans netted just 20 yards and only one of their first downs rushing as a defensive front led by Vince Wilfork crushed their efforts to carry the ball upfield. 

That set the tone for a solid defensive effort that's sure to put a spring in any Pats fan's step this week, early though it may be. The remodeled defense, particularly the front 7, looked more than solid today.

Especially encouraging was the way the Patriots reaped the fruit of their 2012 draft class on a play in the second quarter -- after a sack by rookie Chandler Jones forced Titans QB Jake Locker to fumble, the ball was scooped up by fellow rookie Dont'a Hightower, who scrambled into the end zone for what I dubbed the Police Academy Touchdown. 

The passing game was a little bit more of a mixed bag overall -- the defense looked disconcerting, for example, on an 80-yard drive for the Titans in the third quarter that took all of a minute and a half to eat up the field with a series of long passing plays. It took a while, too, for Brady and Co. to find a rhythm at the beginning of both halves.

Still, it was the passing combination of Brady and newcomer Brandon Lloyd -- who looks to redeem the number 85 for the Patriots this year -- that had me salivating most in anticipation of the rest of this football season. Lloyd lead the team in receiving yards with 5 catches for 69 yards, but it was more the quality than the quantity of his catches that made me pay attention. 

Lloyd stopped running and thus missed the first attempt Brady made to hit him deep, but on the second attempt, made his first catch as a Patriot in grand fashion with a somersaulting grab up the sideline. After that, Lloyd didn't look back, and watching Brady's passes find his back shoulder in stride as the game went on was a thing of beauty. I look forward to more of their work together. 

Resetting the Red Sox

Boom goes the dynamite.

Unless you've been living as a hermit somewhere in the wilderness, you've heard by now about the mega-trade that's going down between the Red Sox and the Dodgers. 

Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto head to Los Angeles, while the Red Sox are relieved of 95% of the $275 million collectively owed those players in salary.

Meanwhile, in return, Boston gets right-handed Dodgers reliever Rubby de la Rosa, who just pitched Wednesday night for the first time since having Tommy John surgery 13 months ago, along with an assortment of players which includes first baseman James Loney and prospects Allen Webster (right-handed pitcher), Ivan De Jesus (infielder) and Jerry Sands (outfielder), per yesterday's Gordon Edes blockbuster scoop.

Update: according to the official announcement, the Red Sox are receiving Loney, DeJesus and Webster, and two players to be named later.

I hate losing Gonzalez, who really hasn't been the bust some people make him out to be. He's acquired a reputation for being un-clutch, but a cursory glance at the situational stats will tell you otherwise: He's hitting .415 and slugging .818 this year with bases loaded, for example. With runners in scoring position, he's hitting .398 and slugging .677. RISP wth two out, hitting .333 and slugging .567. These are not poor numbers by any stretch of the imagination. 

But Gonzalez is the linchpin of the deal. How else do you get anyone in their right mind to take Josh Beckett, for example, never mind absorb a quarter-billion dollars? So, it must be. And they at least got some value in return for the albatross contracts, like Beckett's, that they're unloading, which is not to mention the freed-up payroll space to pursue free agents this off-season. Some are skeptical that money can be well-spent, but this remains to be seen. 

So that's the clinical part, the dispassionate part. The emotions are slower to come, but they're there, at least when it comes to one of these players, at least for me. 

I've had a strange sort of love-hate fascination / repulsion with Josh Beckett since he was signed. I was loath to give up Hanley Ramirez to get him, though I would obviously come around given Beckett's dominance while in a Red Sox uniform and Ramirez's later behavior problems in Florida. It was, for all the drama in the end, one of the better trades the Red Sox made in the HWL era. 

His first year, 2006, Beckett struck me as a pigheaded SOB, unwilling to change his approach to suit the AL East, unwilling to admit he couldn't just blow it by guys anymore. I still maintain his problem that year was 98% mental, though much was made of his mechanical readjustments before the 2007 season. Personally, I think he got an attitude adjustment, somehow, that offseason as well, and that made all the difference. 

In 2007 we saw the flowering of all his potential, channeled perfectly from preparation and work ethic to execution and attitude on the mound. He'd toned down his more bombastic tendencies, and by the 2007 playoffs was a stone-cold pitching machine, the key to the Red Sox' victory in the hard-fought ALCS against Cleveland.

I'll never forget that 2007 season, particularly the playoffs. I'll never forget that ALCS Game 5, when all Beckett's swagger and arrogance was aimed in the right direction, and he singlehandedly shut down an entire exuberant stadium. 

In games like that, Beckett wasn't just tough and mean -- he was also a beautiful thing to watch. He had, in games like that, a fluid grace, a freakish coordination from head to toe, and over and over, you could wath the ripple of kinetic energy flow from his legs to his back to his shoulder to his arm and then the ball, rocketing toward the plate. He was something else. 

Yet all along, there was a negative undercurrent tempering my admiration of his feats on the field, something I couldn't quite put my finger on, not being in the clubhouse day to day, but something clear and unmistakable as he dropped F-bmbs in press conferences and generally came off an eccentric, prickly sort at best. 

The roller coaster that peaked with him that year then began its long descent. Little by little, that attitude problem increased in direct proportion to the fading of his talent. He grew heavier, clunkier, slower, and the arrogance that had served him at the Jake in Game 5 grew to caricaturish proportions.

He had been my favorite player,or at least the player I spent the most time thinking and talking and writing about, but I could  no longer defend him to anyone, on any front, even to myself. The fire was out, the spark was gone, and he'd become the poster child for the clubhouse's considerable problems. It was time for him to go, and even ater everything he'd done for my team, I wouldn't even miss him. 

At tthis point, about the only feeling I can muster for Josh Beckett is a sense of regret about just how sad all that is. 

Still, I can remember a time when I thought I'd never get over Nomar, or Bill Mueller. A time when Beckett upstaged Pedro Martinez at Fenway and I was incredulous. The first time I realized I was falling in love with the upstart rookie Dustin Pedroia.

The beautiful thing about baseball is, there always seems to be another favorite player waiting, just around the corner. 

Two Red Sox Fans Discuss the Current, Er, Situation

My coworker friend Shamus and I got to chatting on IM about the Red Sox, and what we talked about covered pretty much every permutation of reaction to Jeff Passan's story that I would've wanted to write about in a blog, so I just decided (with Shamus' permission) to copy and paste the conversation here.

Warning: contains strong language.

Beth: They are awful.

Shamus: Yeah, I'm so done with this BS drama. The team's so shitty to watch... who cares about how they feel. I can't stand the sight of them.

Beth: I hear ya. It all went so wrong so fast.

Shamus: Actually, it's been a year -long death spiral…

Beth: I think things have been FUBAR since last September, and just haven't come back from that abyss.

Shamus: Yeah, Larry Lucchino is the real cancer, I think. He needs to go.

Beth: What makes you say that?

Shamus: Valentine was his call.

Beth: Ah.

Shamus: Epstein left because of him. Some of the horrible contracts were his call. Crawford was a Lucchino move, wasn't it?

Beth: I'm not sure.

Shamus: I've never liked him. I've always heard he's difficult to work with. That he wears out his welcome. But since he's part of ownership, he's not going anywhere unless Henry steps up and recognizes the problem.

Beth: Doesn't seem like that's going to happen…I think Beckett, Lackey and Lester need to go, but that's probably not going to happen either.

Shamus: When a team goes searching for someone like a manager... that should be left up to the GM, not some business guy who's specialty is buildng parks.

One of them will go. Probably Beckett.

Beth: Yeah, but how are they going to get rid of him? Who's going to take him?

'This guy's a real shithead, and he makes a ton of money, but we can give him to ya for the low, low price of two prospects!'

I mean, yeah right.

Shamus: Sox will eat the contract to trade him. They always do.

Beth: Ugh. Though it may be the lesser of the evils.

Shamus: Just the sight of his face or Lackey's repulses me. I can't even look at them, let alone watch them pitch.

Beth: Yeah, Lackey is just a poor excuse for a pitcher / human.

Shamus: John Henry sending out emails to the media refuting the Yahoo! story was the last straw for me. That asshole needs to step in front of a camera and set things right. Instead he's hanging out on his yacht with his trophy wife sipping margaritas and day-trading on his fucking laptop.

Beth: I really put it at the feet of the players, mostly. Obviously I can't know everything that goes on behind closed doors, but really. Many of these guys are a disgrace to the uniform and the tradition at this point.

Shamus: The Red Sox are like a pack of dogs who've been tied up in the back yard with no food or shelter for months, while the owner sits on his couch guzzling beer and watching football. It’s his absenteeism that's led to this crap.

Beth: Should professional ballplayers really need hand-holding from ownership? Isn’t the manager supposed to deal with their day to day care and feeding, so to speak?

Shamus: Ownership sets the agenda. It’s Henry who took the meeting with the malcontents to hear them out.

Beth: Yeah, that REALLY sucks.

Shamus: Why wasn't Valentine in that room?

Beth: I know. But the players being malcontents in the first place is something that enrages me. Like, you fucked up last September, you have continued to fuck up, what the fuck did you expect? 

Shamus: Valentine was an absolutely stupid hire. He’s known throughout the baseball world for being a complete asshole media whore. He'd been banished from MLB managerial jobs for 10 years for that very reason. Hiring him was on Lucchino, and by extension, Henry. If they wanted to get the clubhouse back in order, they should have hired a hard ass who could earn the players' respect, instead of a clown who belongs on Dancing with the Stars.

Beth: Well, okay, that's a good point. But I still think the players are supposed to be professionals, more professional than they have been, and they shouldn’t need 'adult supervision' in order to make that happen.

Shamus: They play a game for a living. And they've been told they're special all their lives, from little league to high school and college to the bigs. They were always the best player in town growing up, everyone kissing their ass. The odds are against them being mature and professional.

Professional athletes are spoiled by default. It’s only the really good ones who emerge from that with a sense of humility.

Even Pedrioa has shown his true colors now with this bullshit. Even he is an entitled asshole. I always thought he was above that, but put him on a team with a joke like Valentine for a manager and that inner spoiled brat creeps out.

Beth: Yeah, although he was also always Tito's boy. That's gotta factor into it too.

Shamus: Yeah, true. But he would have been more accepting of a Tito replacement if it was someone who wasn't such a fraud like Valentine.

Beth True. Conclusion: everyone involved here sucks.

But it seems like this time last year, with most of the same people, things were not so sucky. Then, suddenly, this mess started.

Shamus: Yeah, I don't get it.

Beth: Me either.

Goodbye, Johnny Pesky

Everyone's used this photo already. And nobody seems to know the original photographer. But it's perfect, so I'll use it again. 

This was the first thing that came to mind when I heard about Johnny Pesky's passing today -- this exact moment in St. Louis after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, when Curt Schilling swept Pesky off his feet in a giant bear hug. 

He wasn't technically a part of the team (unless I'm missing something -- what did he do? What was he coach of, other than morale?), and yet, he WAS the team, the ultimate connection between the hallowed past and a blessed future.

Time after time after that, he was brought out amid whatever assemblage of transient players the Red Sox currently had signed to the roster for ring ceremonies and a pole dedication and to see his number retired and for the hundredth anniversary of the building, and I'm sure I'm missing a few...the one guy on the field who wasn't ever going to leave the uniform. And it never seemed tired or trite -- his love and enthusiasm, every time, were just too genuine. 

He was, in short, a priceless living treasure. Those of us alive today will not see his like again. 

Rest in peace, Johnny Pesky. Thank you for the gift of yourself. 

Thoughts on an Atrocious Loss

Here is Fenway, standing for Aceves, moments before That Thing Happened.

It had been a nice, neat little game up until the eighth inning; two quick runs had crossed the plate for the Red Sox in each of the first two innings, and while a fumble by Kelly Shoppach had allowed a Twins run across, Clay Buchholz left the mound with a quite respectable line. Andrew Miller came on to replace him. 

"So we're six outs away from winning this thing," said Hunter beside me. I shushed him, believing out-counting to be a monstrous jinx. (Hunter doesn't believe in too many jinxes or superstitions.)

As Andrew Miller issued a walk to open the inning, I amended the statement: "We're Andrew Miller away from winning." 

"And there may still be six outs by the time he's done," added Hunter. He turned out to be correct. 

A few minutes later, on came Alfredo Aceves with the bases loaded. He is supposed to be our closer, but with inherited runners is worse than league average; true to form, he allowed the tying run to score on a sacrifice fly. But he let no more runs across, and so there was still plenty of hope heading into the bottom of the inning, as Pedro Ciriaco stepped to the plate in place of Ryan Kalish. 

On the second pitch he saw, the svelte Ciriaco belted the ball into the Monster seats, a no-doubter from the moment it left his bat, and the triumphant roar of Fenway rose with the ball into the night. 

It's a mistake to do this, but immediately I assumed the game's narrative would come to an end. Sure, there was the insurance run courtesy of Cody Ross and Dustin Pedroia, but that would be essentially a tasteful garnish setting off the main dish.

And sure, there was another half-inning, at the least, to go, but I had made up my mind. I think many of us had. Ciriaco's heroics were to carry the day; the rest was just formality. 

Hunter was a bit more reserved about the whole thing. "It's a good thing they got two runs, because Aceves is going to give up at least one," he said. "And he'll probably end it with a man on third and a full count." 

He turned out to be almost exactly rght. Except instead of ending the game with the man on third, Aceves would work a 1-2 count on Joe Mauer, prompting the Fenway crowd to rise to its feet, clapping rhythmically, sure that the next pitch would send us home...

...and then Mauer would jolt a homer of his own into the Monster seats, this one a three-run job, putting the Twins ahead, 6-4.

Some people screamed. Overall, the sound of the crowd became a rueful howl as the ball sailed over the outfield. I gasped. Clapped a hand over my mouth. For all the team's struggles this season, I still couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. 

But, well, that's baseball. You've got to throw it over the plate and give the other man his damn chance. The low point of the game for me would actually come a few minutes after Mauer put the nail in the coffin. 

Between innings, as half the remaining crowd filtered out and the rest of us stayed out of some sense of duty, or paralysis in the face of what had just happened, or both, "Shipping Up to Boston" started blaring out of the PA system. The big screen started cranking out propaganda. You could even hear whoever was operating the PA system turn the volume up a little louder, as if cranking it to 11 would encourage Sox fans to get to their feet and start losing their minds, believing in the comeback. 

In the stands, most people exercised their right to remain silent. 

It was a sad moment, not because the Red Sox were losing the game, but because it felt like the disconnect between the franchise and the fans hadn't been bigger during the HWL era. "Shipping up to Boston before bottom of 9th?" Tweeted Joe Haggerty, summing things up succinctly. "Supposed to remind everyone Papelbon doesn't live here anymore? I'd say we just saw the evidence."

There was a time when this ownership had this whole town, myself included, swallowing cornier treacle. Since last September, though, some people's patience with blithely blasting "Shipping Up to Boston" or "Tessie" (or "Sweet Caroline") while Rome burns has been wearing thin.

It felt, in that moment last night, like some spell cast by the marketing wizards under Dr. Charles Steinberg had been definitively broken. Many of us were still there, at least physically, but on this particular evening, we weren't going to be playing along. 

Photos

Thanking Youk

Maybe it's a sign I'm getting old. But it really doesn't seem like it was eight years and two World Series ago that Kevin Youkilis was given the silent treatment in the dugout after his first big-league homer in Toronto. 

Youkilis was one of the first players that I got to watch mature through the farm system -- my family saw him play for the Spinners -- and into the Major Leagues, and then from rookie newcomer into one of the stars of the team. 

It feels impossible to see him traded. I always get too attached to individual players, a bad habit of mine, but the homegrown players especially feel like they belong to us for good, even though they demonstrably don't. 

What I'll remember about Youkilis first will be the beginning -- that silent treatment and his air high-fives in response in Toronto -- and the end, today's standing ovations at Fenway, acknowledging the crowd and being embraced by his teammates.

There was some ugliness between Youk and Bobby V. earlier this season and earlier this week, but this afternoon, Bobby did the right thing letting Youkilis walk off the field a hero in front of the fans, the fans did the right thing giving him the heroic treatment, and for once we gave a departing player the sendoff he deserved. 

Another memory that sticks out in my mind is a random oddity -- the time Youkilis chased then-rookie pitcher Rick Porcello around between the mound and the plate, brandishing and then chucking his batting helmet at the kid after being beaned. Youk ran hot, that's for sure, but it was a byproduct of his relentless passion for the game, the kind that tends to endear a player to Boston fans, and the irascible Youkilis was no exception to that.

There are those individual things that jump out at me when I look back on Youkilis's time in Boston, but mostly, the memory I have of Youk isn't from one particular time or place. It's more like a collection of his habits, from hopping off the ground with every pitch to the obsessive-compulsive way he'd practice his swing on the top step of the dugout, in the on-deck circle, between pitches. The way he was forever dripping sweat, and the familiar series of gestures that came with the way he would wipe it away from his eyes. His quirky stance. His friendship with Dustin Pedroia. His gold-glove defense at first base.

His consistency, in other words, in hustle and in heart.  I suspect we'll miss it more than we can even fathom today.

Thanking Foulke

Today I got to cross an item off my bucket list -- I got to shake this man's hand: 

And thank him for the World Series he won us. 

I am not even remotely kidding or being hyperbolic when I say that. Keith Foulke is the reason we finally won the World Series in 2004, and you're never going to be able to tell me any different.

Let's review, shall we?

In 2004, in addition to anchoring the bullpen for the entire regular season, Foulke appeared in 11 of the Red Sox' 14 postseason games, threw a ridiculous 257 pitches over 14 innings, racking up 19 strikeouts, and gave up exactly one earned run.

I'm as much a fan or more of the Bloody Sock as the next Red Sox aficionado, but as Curt Schilling himself said it, later:

My overriding picture of the postseason was the ninth inning of any game, with Keith Foulke on the mound with the ball. To me there should be another award, he should have been the World Series MVP. Manny had a great World Series, he deserved it. But Folkey was the staple for us.

Every night when we walked off the field as winners it was because he shut the door, and seeing him with the ball in his hand... The guy had about a 12.00 ERA in spring training. I'm watching him in spring training going, 'Oh my gosh, man this guy is struggling.' And then here he is in the biggest games in the history of the franchise, night after night after night shutting people down.

Keith Foulke is also, considering his role in the 2004 Championship, one of the most underappreciated players in Red Sox history, from the fact that he was passed over for the World Series MVP award he so richly deserved to his reception in 2005.

I took up his cause with a vengeance that season. Keith Foulke quickly became more than one of my favorite ballplayers ever--he's my cause, my crusade, my talking point. I am prepared to be unfathomably obnoxious when it comes to Keith Foulke. Even when I've been a Bandwagon of One. 

To me, it is a shame, in the truest meaning of the word -- a black mark on us, as Red Sox fans, as a city, that we treated him the way we did in the years he remained here after 2004. I cringe when I think back on the "Johnny from Burger King" debacle, mortified that things even came to that point. I'm still filled with anger at the "fans" I remember taunting him from behind his own home dugout, all because he'd sacrificed his career to put on that collective ass-saving performance just a year (or by the end, two) before, and couldn't pitch anymore on two bum knees. 

As a fan base, we're sometimes lauded for our intelligence and savvy, and we appreciate many of the finer points of the game, like The Steal -- so how people keep missing the point about Foulke is beyond me. 

Frankly, I'm surprised Foulke came back anywhere near Boston. Of course, he's talked about loving baseball on the first and fifteenth days of the month, and it's not like I think he showed up at LeLacheur Park purely out of the goodness of his heart today.

Still, when I thanked him, his smile seemed genuine, and he said pleasantly in his Texas drawl, "My pleasure. You guys enjoy it."

He has no idea, of course, just how sincerely I meant that thank you. And it doesn't make up for how so many other people have acted. But it was its own little triumph for me, nonetheless.

Red Sox vs. Marlins Photos

More here

Hot Hot Heat

When the fourth inning began on a sweltering evening last night at Fenway Park, the game between the Red Sox and the Marlins was, well, still a game. 

Before a single out had been recorded in that fourth inning, though, the contest was all but unquestionably in the bag for the Sox, thanks mainly to the man whose smile is pictured lighting up the ballpark above. 

It used to be Manny whose presence at the plate would send the Fenway audience into hysterics; now his old friend has fully taken over the mantle of setting the faithful a-jangle with his every RBI opportunity -- and when he stepped to the plate that inning with the bases loaded, the place was more than aflutter. It was pandemonium. 

People were on the edges of their seats, the heat momentarily forgotten. Papi fouled off one pitch, and then connected with the next, sending it screaming out toward the right field foul pole as the crowd leapt to its feet.

Grand slam. 11-4 Red Sox. As Ortiz trotted the bases, he gave Marlins third baseman Hanley Ramirez a flippant little salute.  

An inning later, for a few moments, there was the possibility we might witness the same feat twice in back-to-back innings, as Papi once again stepped to the plate with the bags juiced. He would strike out (and anyway, Nick Punto scampered home from third on a wild pitch during his at-bat, de-loading the bases), but the situation alone ensured that a sweat-drenched crowd was risking heatstroke to get their money's worth. 

Years from now, those moments -- moments when everyone's problems, the team's included, were far away -- will be what I remember, not whatever Buster Olney or David Ortiz said about the clubhouse, or what the team's record was. 

These are the things I care about, that I treasure: the cheers as Big Papi approached from the on-deck circle, bat under his arm. His spit and clap, and his slow, hypnotic settling into his stance. Sweat pouring down everybody's faces. Then, a WHACK!! a rising roar, and the ball flying out over the field, into the waiting arms of the fans beyond the Pesky Pole. 

Good News and Bad News for the Red Sox

Will we see the return of the Rally Snuggie this year? Or merely a regression to the mean?

Okay, perhaps my last post was a bit harsh.

Though the Red Sox still stubbornly occupy the basement in the AL East, they also sit only 3 games out of first place. Peter Gammons has predicted on NESN that the pennant race will really start sometime around the end of July. I was reminded in comments that we're still missing two pretty decent outfielders who will hopefully have made their way back by that time. So perhaps I was also a bit premature in my declaration that "these are your 2012 Boston Red Sox, for better and for worse."

But for every outing like Clay Buchholz's complete-game gem last night, there seems to be a historic day of reckoning for someone like Daniel Bard, whose start last week in Toronto was so awful he was demoted almost immediately from the Red Sox rotation to Pawtucket. For every game like yesterday's 7-0 laugher, there seems to be a game like Tuesday's fizzle in extras or Wednesday's exercise in frustration.

Now they head into interleague play, which will only muddy the waters further. There'll be greater potential for meaningless victory against non-division / league opponents, as well as puzzling losses due to Unknown Lefty Syndrome and the like. (I didn't really mind in the past, but I am starting to understand all the cantankerousness among veteran fans about interleague play.)

So Gammons is probably right as usual -- we won't really know what's up until Crawford and Ellsbury return, the crowded outfield gets sorted out, the rotation settles down, and the trade deadline is at least near if not already past. 

In the meantime, your outlook will depend on your general disposition, because there is both good news and bad news for the Sox. 

In Good News:

• Clay Buchholz seems to be righting the ship -- As Brian MacPherson notes in his excellent recent case study on Buch, "he has allowed three or fewer earned runs in four of his last five starts — a span during which he has a 3.98 ERA. It’s a far cry from the 9.09 ERA he had before that." MacPherson chalks it up to a returning feel for the changeup and the discovery, along the way, of a splitter, thanks to some tutelage by Josh Beckett, and generally that article is really worth a read if you haven't seen it already.
• Daniel Nava and Jarrod Saltalamacchia are nice to have on our team right now After a decent but not earth-shattering run with the Sox in 2010, Nava returned from Pawtucket this year a changed man. His average over 110 plate appearances (in '10 he had 188) so far has been .306 as opposed to .242, his OPS .951 vs. .711. Salty has also been stepping it up big time; this year he's hit 11 homers in 155 plate appearances, while last year he hit 16 in 386. Bleacher Report points out this puts him on a record-setting pace for a Red Sox catcher. The best thing about these two guys kicking ass is that they're not the guys who were necessarily expected to do so when the season began, but as some of the top asskickers have succumbed to injury, they've helped keep the team's head above water.
• They're over .500! .509 to be exact, but winners of 6 of their last 10 and owners of a 15-12 road record (This is supposed to be Good News, so I won't mention the home record).

In Bad News:

• Dustin Pedroia's injury When I heard about this, I almost kicked the TV into a million tiny pieces. The Sox have proven remarkably resilient against injuries to big names so far this season, but this is one player they can't afford to even have compromised, let alone out for any period of time. So Pedroia, ever the tough guy, has returned to the lineup with a brace to protect his thumb, which has a torn muscle in it. This is a guy who played in the World Series, and mashed, with a broken bone in his wrist, I'll give you that, but it's only early June, and he's already banged up in a critical area. It's unknown how it'll affect his hitting the rest of the year and in general it still makes me want to throw a tantrum. So. There's that.
• About that home record... It's 14-16, just FYI. Generally, the Red Sox are built to win at home. They count on winning at home. When they don't win at home, it's, well, bad news.
• They can't seem to hang with the rest of the East -- In 25 games so far against the rest of the division, the Sox are 11-14; a surprising 5-3 against the second-place Tampa Bay Rays, but 3-3 against Toronto, 0-2 against the Yankees, and the Orioles are really killing them, at 3-6. They're 18-14 against the rest of the league so far. 

Me, as if it wasn't obvious by now, I tend toward the pessimistic side. As George Will put it, "The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." I'm not expecting miracles from Carl Crawford, who's just beginning to throw again, and I just plain don't know what we can expect from the ever-delicate Mr. Ellsbury upon his return. Daisuke pitches tomorrow, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing. The bullpen has done a remarkable job so far, but will they regress to the mean? And I'm sorry, but I just don't trust Bobby V. Guy's always smirking. Even when there's nothing to smirk about. Gives me the creeps. 

Anyway, what do YOU think?

Adventures in Mediocrity: the 2012 Boston Red Sox Season

Well, here it is, folks. I'm calling it right now -- these are your 2012 Boston Red Sox, for better and for worse. 

They're not Minnesota Twins horrible, or Chicago Cubs horrible -- both those teams are in the basement in their divisions with a 15-30 record as May melts into June. The Sox had a chance last night to finally hit that elusive .511 mark, and remain a tantalizing 6.5 games out of first place. 

That's the word that'll sum it up when all is said and done -- tantalizing. This won't be the last time they go on a roll like they did coming into last night's game, winners of 10 of their last 13 and hovering right on the precipice of a winning record, and it wasn't the first time, either. In fact, last night was the Red Sox' fifth chance to taste the rarified air above .500 this season, and the fifth time they failed to get it done. 

I'd say by now this qualifies as a pattern. 

So on they'll go, not good, certainly not great, but just not-terrible enough to give us a little bit of hope, until, say, our top pitcher loses his mind at a stingy umpire and gives up a grand slam, and then another homer on top of it, and the winning record slides back out of reach. 

Can we accept it? In other cities, this not-terribleness might still be enough for a very nice season at the ballpark, promising the chance to bask in the occasional brilliance. Can we enjoy indivually-wrapped happiness, like the fact that Dustin Pedroia still exists and still plays for Boston?

Or is that just not our style?

Reading blogs over the last week or so, you can feel this tug of war within the fan base, between those who say Boston fans' competitiveness makes us who we are, to those who are contented with lots of little things to enjoy. 

Me, I tend to fall mostly in the latter camp. I have come to believe that two World Series can and should change the tenor of our rooting, even if it doesn't diminish the devotion we feel toward the team. Some people, the same people at the park cheering for every fly ball that doesn't even make the warning track and booing pitchers off the mound, may feel like they have to be intense at all times to be "passionate". Maybe it's just me growing older, but I don't feel that way anymore. 

I'd love to see the Red Sox go on another World Series run, and I eagerly look forward to the next time they do (and, in fact, believe there will be a next time, not just within my lifetime but in the near future -- that, to me, is what passion is and always has been about). There's nothing like the intensity of playoff baseball, nothing like reaching for the Pepto as your team fights through it, nothing like keeping the trusty portable defibrillator unit on standby as the nights grow chillier and the games ever more meaningful. 

But there's also something to be said for seasons where you get a chance to watch kids like Will Middlebrooks come up and play in May. Where you watch Scott Podsednik rock the high socks in the outfield. Where you get the chance to observe Alfredo Aceves' peculiar kind of brilliance. Where you are diverted by the occasional brawl. Where you watch the middle infield turn webgem double plays, and Papi hit home runs, and await the nights when Beckett and Lester are on and dealing, and you smell the popcorn and peanuts at the park, and sit back and enjoy your Fenway Frank, and that's it. 

Where the game on the field and on the screen maybe even fades a little, so that it's more about who you're with as you watch, and why you watch with them -- whether it's your immediate companions, or the entire ballpark and city around you, the whole experience of the cultural phenomenon that is the Red Sox. That all goes on, win or lose. 

Every fan base needs a fallow season or two, is the way I'm looking at it now. It prunes out the front-runners, keeps us a little more humble than we might otherwise be, and forces us to focus on what's truly important.

That is, if we let it.

Josh Beckett, Rorschach Test

I have a confession to make. After years on the wagon, I slipped this week back into my old sports talk radio habit. 

It was all too easy to get suckered back in. Toucher and Rich on the morning drive here, tuning in for the Whiner Line there, and the next thing you know I'm flying up 128 yesterday listening to Tony Mazz sounding like he's going to pop a lung over Josh Beckett playing golf.

"Your recourse as fans is not to attend!" shouted Mazz. "Not to watch! Vote with your feet!"

I flipped to the Big O show. Glenn Ordway and Michael Holley were taking a much more tsk-tsk-isn't-it-all-so-sad approach, but they were also debating what percentage of fans would boo Josh before he threw a pitch last night. Ordway said 50 percent. Holley told him to get real, that for most people the game was an "event" and they were just (sigh) happy to be there.

Tsk, tsk. What fools, just blithely taking in the entertainment, all but willingly being sold a bill of goods. Ignorance personified. Who wants to be that guy?

Not I, at least not yesterday afternoon, gripped in the spell of all the ranting and demagoguery.

As I've alluded to before, I wasn't fully present for the full pain of 7-20 last September, but I have gotten the impression that Beckett was at the heart of a kind of carelessness within the team, an attitude of disrespect not only for the work, but for the seriousness with which the audience was taking the work.

There is an element of insult in all that, insult which appeared to be continuing with Beckett's flippant press conference after his woeful start last night. Sullenly flat most of the time these days, the only real emotion he appears to express is a kind of perverse enjoyment at how easily he flabbergasts people around him with his behavior. 

Meanwhile, like everyone else, I bring a background to this which colors my perception of the jerky pitcher / gigantic Rorschach inkblot that is being turned over in the Boston baseball consciousness. For one thing, I am probably the least athletically inclined person I know. With a background as a musician, I know what it is to perform, but not to perform athletically the way Josh Beckett has. Thus his sheer mastery over his body on his good days utterly fascinates me. When he's "on," he pitches not just with grace but with flourish and flash, with enough magic left over to show off a little. It fascinates me. 

But certain formative experiences with alpha males who bore athletic gifts have also made me wary of his type. Let's just say that I know a smug BMOC when I see one. At the very least, most things I've seen and read about the off-field Beckett smack of a person I would, to put it politely, have trouble relating to in any way other than having pursued a craft at a certain level of dedication. 

In short, I have had a love-hate relationship with Josh Beckett since he donned a Red Sox uniform. I suspect I am not alone. 

Last night, then, I found humor in the guy who yelled "FORE!" as an Indians ground-rule double bounded for the right-field wall. I was frustrated, probably beyond reason, with Beckett's lackluster performance, and when I heard about his press conference this morning, my consternation was real. 

Then, I turned away from the radio and back toward the Web, where my fandom has found its home since I quit my three-packs-a-day of WEEI. 

The first piece I read today was by Evan Brunell writing for Fire Brand of the American League:

GolfGate was an overblown story before Beckett’s comments that should have died a quick death. But Beckett didn’t do his job, and now he’s created a major issue that will affect his legacy in Boston — all because he lacks simple common sense.

He sent a message last night: He cares more about his off day than his team.

He doesn’t seem to grasp that while his golf game might not have actually been an issue, the perception was out there that he was shirking his duties — compounded by the negativity already surrounding the team, due, in part, to his lack of leadership last season. (Remember, he was more concerned about who “snitched” about fried chicken and beer more than he was about how it affected the team’s collapse.) He should have worked to dispel the perception that he doesn’t care. He should have assured everyone that he did not risk his health, that he’s invested in the team and that he, just like everyone else, needs to step up. All he needed to show was that he cared.

Instead, he — one of the faces of the franchise –created a story where there didn’t have to be, all because he’s Josh Beckett and he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.

On I read, this time at FanGraphs:

[G]uys with lousy attitudes can struggle for reasons other than their lousy attitudes, and connecting the dots between poor media relations skills and on field struggles requires a leap of faith that we just shouldn’t be willing to make. We saw nearly this exact same scenario play out a year ago, when John Lackey was crucified for his on field struggles and off field attitude, only to have it revealed later that he needed Tommy John surgery and had been pitching with a bum elbow.

Hopefully, Beckett doesn’t have that kind of serious injury, but given his velocity loss, his lousy performance, and the fact that he’s already had to miss one start, it certainly seems like a distinct possibility. And Beckett pitching through an injury would explain his troubles a lot more than some personality defect would. Beckett’s been a prickly guy for his entire career and it has never stopped him from getting hitters out before.

It was at this point that I began to remind myself that I stopped listening to talk radio for a reason.

And then, finally, Joe Posnanski's blog really hit the nail on the head for me:

There’s a feeling many of us have … that if we had been given another person’s talent, we would use it better. Maybe it’s jealousy. Maybe it’s that we feel like we have a better appreciation for talent. But I do think it affects us. I would imagine a lot of people believe that if they had been given the talent Josh Beckett was given, they would have done more with it -- on and off the field. We wouldn’t clown around and drink beer in the clubhouse while games were going on. We wouldn’t play golf a day after being scratched from a start and then snap that days off are days off. We wouldn’t …

But, is that really true? In Josh Beckett’s mind, I suspect, he’s worked his butt off at this game. He’s pitched through pain. He’s delivered in big moments. He was the pitching force behind Boston’s World Series. He’s endured the pains of the game -- the slumps, the boos, the insults, the injuries. So he doesn’t want to sit in the dugout every stinking minute of every game … so he wants to take his mind off things on his day off by playing a little golf … so he doesn’t have the talent to entertain reporters and doesn’t feel like making the game look like it’s the most fun he’s ever had in his entire life … so he doesn’t want to perform Seppuku every time the Red Sox lose a game …

… I’m not celebrating him for any of this. I’m a fan of enthusiasm, and I dislike half-heartedness. I’m just saying it might be a lot more human than we want to admit. I’m just saying we might find a little bit of that in our own lives. I don’t think it’s the Josh Becketts who are unusual. I think it’s the ones who go out every day, every single day, with intensity and spirit and fire who are unusual. 

Peter Gammons, a man who has forgotten more about baseball than I will ever learn, has steadfastly insisted Beckett pitched through an ankle injury last September which he never commented on or allowed to be made public, even though it obviously would have helped his cause. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine a similar situation (and the pigheaded attitude that would have to go along with it) going on right now. 

Add it all up, and I find that my position on Beckett has taken a 180-degree turn in 24 hours. (It's not the first time.) I'm not saying he's not a Jerkosaurus Rex. But that, I am reminded, is nothing new -- this crapitude between the lines is. And about that, I am increasingly of the opinion that we may not have all the facts, or, perhaps it would be better put that we have been looking in the wrong places.  

There was also a lesson here to be (re) learned, for me, about commentary which enlightens vs. commentary which inflames. Now is a time, as a Red Sox fan as frustrated with the team as the next person, to be very careful about whose poison I allow to be poured into my ear, lest I lose sight of the fact that the game is, as always, more about what we bring to it than what is really there. 

The 5 Things I Think Of When I Think of Matt Light

Is Matt Light the greatest left tackle ever? Nope. Will he be enshrined in Canton? Doubtful. But he'll always be one of the more memorable Patriots, just based on sheer personality -- a personality I hope we haven't seen the last of around here, given all the opportunities he probably has open to him in broadcasting and similar endeavors. 

In the meantime, as Light remains on the fence about what the future will hold, here are my favorite memories of his antics while in uniform:

The "Snow Viking" Picture -- It's a desktop-sized photo of Light standing on the sideline in the snow. HIs red hair is standing out every which way, his beard thick and glorious, lip curled in a snarl, and his posture aggressive. At the time and since, this image summed up the raw, gritty talent of the 2003-04 Super Bowl squad for me, and is the first image that springs to mind when I think of Matt Light.  I hope it never leaves Boston.com's servers. The Internet would be lesser without it. 

Cutting Brady Down to Size -- Matt Light's most defining feature has always been his wit, which is probably not the first thing people associate with a 6' 4", 305-lb. guy who shoves around other huge guys for a living. But Matt Light has also always been the first example I could point to that puts the lie to the idea that football players, and especially linemen, are little more than barely-upright apes who couldn't spell "cat" if you gave them the "c" and the "a". 

Nowhere has this wit been more publicly evident than in the way Light has delighted in brutally dethroning his most idolized teammate whenever possible. Two specific things spring to mind when I think of this: 1) Light and the rest of the line taping Brady's goat picture to their backs in practice; and 2) an appearance on WAAF's Hillman Morning Show in which he was asked, "How's Brady look?" and responded drily, "Oh, you mean the hair...?"

The Bathrobe -- The year: 2004. The time: evening. The occasion: the Patriots' arrival as victors in Super Bowl XXXVIII at Gillette Stadium. And who should emerge holding the trophy but Matt Light, sporting an impish grin, another truly glorious beard, and a fuzzy bathrobe. 

It was a triumphant time for all of us. 

The Punt -- I got to talk to Bill Belichick once. True story. He was a guest speaker at a conference I was attending, and as part of his motivational speech (yes, really), he played the footage of Matt Light catching a punt in a high-stakes bid to get out of practice early.

Light had asked for the night off in training camp after a blisteringly hot day, and Belichick made him a deal—catch a punt and you get the night off; fail to field it cleanly and the whole team runs double the wind sprints at the end of practice.

As the story goes, and as Belichick relayed it, Light suddenly had more coaching than he knew what to do with, from Troy Brown to Tom Brady, everyone around him babbling urgent instructions. Light eventually did field the punt, and was immediately mobbed by his overjoyed teammates.

I'd heard that story before. But I hadn't seen the video until Belichick showed it that day. It's still footage that, as far as I know, has never seen the light of day elsewhere, so you'll just have to take my word for it: it was awesome. 

The Mustache Song -- This is something that I'm happy to say you can still experience, at least while it remains up in the WAAF archives. If you haven't heard it, don't wait another minute to enter Matt Light's mustache realm. 

The Ballad of Darnell McDonald

Four score and seven years ago, when this game first began, we were at least prepared for the possibility of a nice, predictable loss behind the struggling Clay Buchholz, and a few hardy souls may have dared hope for the Red Sox to stave off the sweep with a small miracle or two. 

No one could have predicted the kind of scorched earth that would be left at the Fens today when all was said and done. 

That's not to say Buchholz wasn't true to form; in fact, we now find ourselves in the position of longing for Daisuke to save the rotation. Not good. 

Then there was the brightest moment of the game, the moment of highest hopes, when Will Middlebrooks stepped to the plate in the fifth and belted his first Major League home run. Which just happened to be a game-tying grand slam, over the Monster and onto the roof of the parking garage across Lansdowne Street.

It was almost cartoonish, how hangdog everyone* was right up until the moment Middlebrooks made contact, and how shocked and overjoyed we all were beginning with the moment his no-doubt shot headed for the Monster.

...until the eighth inning brought us back to reality.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia got things started by dropping a foul tip into his mitt, allowing Adam Jones to continue batting. Jones then reached on an "infield single" to (read: clank off the glove of) Vicente Padilla. After Matt Wieters flied out to center, Salty kept the O's rally going by throwing the ball into center field on Adam Jones' steal of second. 

There was some measure of redemption for Salty as his sacrifice fly tied up the game again in the bottom of the inning. But as it would turn out, tying the game would not be enough. Instead, it would be the beginning of a long day's journey into the ninth circle of baseball hell. 

That same inning, after David Ortiz doubled, he was lifted for Darnell McDonald, at which point, unbeknownst to us, the fate of the Red Sox was sealed.

In the 10th inning, instead of Big Papi, Darnell came up to bat in a key spot with two outs. And, predictably -- some might say inevitably -- just a few minutes later, NESN would cut to commercial wth Darnell standing toe to toe with the home plate umpire, arguing over the third called strike.

In a game and after a series seemingly designed to leave every last one of them an depleted shell of a human being, the bullpen pitched valiantly over the course of the many innings that followed. But ultimately, both bullpens would just plain run out of bodies. 

So it was that Darnell McDonald would come on to pitch -- yes, pitch -- in the 17th inning, an inning which went like this: walk, caught stealing, double to left, walk, Monster shot by Adam Jones to make the game 9-6 O's. 

If it was debatable whether Darnell should've been playing instead of Papi in the 10th, it was beyond argument that he never should have been on the pitcher's mound in the first place. In the bottom of the 16th, Marlon Byrd reached on an error at third base, and then Mike Aviles hit a double to deep center. But, inexplicably and indefensibly, as Byrd chugged around third base he was sent home, where he was out by a good ten feet, and ended the inning for good measure. 

But wait! Things would get still more ridiculous! Hapless Orioles DH Chris Davis pitched the bottom of the 17th after Darnell served up his meatball, and given he was facing Ryan Sweeney, Dustin Pedroia, and Adrian Gonzalez, all bets were still off.  

Sweeney reached on an infield single. Pedroia walked. Gonzalez can now say he capped off an 0-8 day by striking out against a freaking DH. 

And then who should come up to bat but -- you guessed it -- Darnell McDonald. He took one strike before grounding into a game-ending double play, becoming both the losing pitcher and the last hitter of the game at the same time. 

The Red Sox are now 4-10 at Fenway this year. They've lost 6 of their last 7, and sit in the basement of the AL East with an overall record of 11-16. 

It's not just the fact that they're losing that bothers me...it's the way they're losing, in such ridiculous and improbable fashion, all the while giving us hope right till the very end. If they're going to suck, they could at least suck utterly and spare us the ulcer flare-ups, that's what I say. Or, if there's going to be some kind of miraculous turnaround, well, there's no time like the present. 

_____________________________________________
* Full disclosure: when I say 'everyone' I'm basically referring to the people I talk to on Twitter. 

One of Those Days

Okay, maybe more like one of those weeks. Months? It's still too early to say one of those years, yet, but that's a thought starting to cross many minds. 

Right now, the Red Sox can't win for losing, as my father would say. And that fact was on striking display in today's game, a "Murphy's Law" game if ever there was one.  

Before the game there was some excitement -- possibly more than was warranted, but look, we'll take what we can get -- about the Red Sox debut of Aaron Cook, the injury-prone former Rockies hurler who'd signed a conditional minor league deal with Boston this year. He was called up as he was getting ready to take his opt-out clause May 1, and today appeared in place of Josh Beckett, who was sidelined with a lat strain. 

Cook, a sinkerballer who works quickly, breezed through his first inning and two-thirds, before giving up two hits in quick succession. With runners at the corners, Jarrod Saltalamacchia was charged with a passed ball that went right through the wickets, drawing Cook forward toward the plate. Cook dropped to his knees and slid a la Bruce Springsteen toward the dish as Chris Davis sprinted home, also sliding. As they collided, Davis's spike caught Cook's knee, tearing an ugly gash.

Then, in a move that must've had at least a few heads turning toward Beckett and his "soreness" in the dugout, Cook got the gash stitched or taped or Silly-Puttied up, or something similarly badass, and returned to the mound to finish the inning. 

It was a valiant and appreciable effort, but this was not to be any kind of storybook tale of heroism. In the next inning, Cook was torched to a crisp, surrendering four more runs before he was finally, mercifully pulled in favor of Clayton Mortensen, who promptly gave up a three-run homer over the Monster to make the score 8-zip, birds. 

One of those runs was charged to Cook, bringing his total to 6. He'd thrown just 48 pitches.

That'll learn us to show excitement about fresh pitching help. Or anything, really, in this snake-bitten season. 

***

And the suck, it is spreading. The product on the field has been frustrating, but fans and other observers have been far from winning form so far this season, too. 

For me, the prime example of this is all the bickering of late over "Sweet Caroline."

I feel like I'm kicking the proverbial hornet's nest, here, but I can't resist putting in my $0.02 after Wednesday night found me at Fenway for the first time this season, and I witnessed a spectacle among fans every bit as embarrassing and ugly as anything we've seen on the field this year. 

I'll admit, I'm a little sick of "Sweet Caroline." I don't stand up and sing when it comes on at the park anymore, regardless of whether the Red Sox are winning.  But I have in the past, and if other people want to continue singing it, it really doesn't make much difference to me, since it happens between innings and therefore doesn't interrupt the game (unlike the Wave, which is another topic for another time). 

It clearly made a difference, though, to a young man a few rows in front of me and to my left at the ballpark the other night, who stood up and started screaming a profanity-laced rant at a group of girls who were singing the song. He reminded them in no uncertain terms of how the only Red Sox run on the night so far had scored, on a sacrifice fly from Marlon Byrd, in a voice loud enough for me to hear several sections away.

When the bottom of the eighth ended on a strikeout from Will Middlebrooks, he made a point of standing up, turning around, and sneering in their faces, as if they were personally responsible, "SWEEEEEET CAROLIIIIINE! BAH BAH BAH!!! Congratu-f**kin'-lations!"  

From some of the shrill commentary I've seen fly by on my Twitter timeline this year, there are some in this town who would've given that guy a high-five (and I really can't help but frame this kid's behavior against the backdrop of all the scorn and derision that's been floating around between fans and commentators in general). But I fail to see how the bigger jerk in that situation was anyone who'd just been singing a song.

Maybe that's just me.