Bob Lobel: Why Can’t We Get Players Like That?

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Bob Lobel, GoLocalWorcester Sports

When Johnny Damon hit his grand slam home run in Yankee Stadium in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, it was followed by Manny Ramirez winning the World Series MVP and the most satisfied person on the planet was nowhere near Busch Stadium.

When Derek Lowe gave an MVP worthy performance, there was one person who legitimately could have gloated to the tune of “I told you so.” When people talk about the greatest trades in Red Sox history, two deals immediately come to mind. People don’t think of the deal that landed us Eric Gagne but they do recall the ones that put Pedro Martinez, Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe in Red Sox uniforms for the likes of Heathcliff Slocumb, Carl Pavano, Chris Rose and Tony Armas, Jr.

These were Dan Duquette’s guys, along with Nomar and Youkilis. And where was the banished Dan Duquette? My guess he was sitting in his favorite seat at the Stockyard Restaurant, a footnote in Red Sox history, with an “I told you so” in his thoughts.

In 2004 nobody cared where any of these guys came from or who brought them here. They saw Ortiz at DH, Millar, Mueller, Cabrerra, Bellhorn, Roberts, Foulke and Schilling. This team made its own history and called themselves “idiots” while doing it. They were an amalgamation of an unimaginative Yawkee Trust and the New Kids on the Block. If you think this is about giving credit where credit is due, it’s not. It’s about rewarding those who deserve rewarding.

Dan Duquette was not the perfect GM but he had a track record of potential success. Before he came to Boston he built a terrific team in Montreal which was later derailed by a strike. No one is denying while in Boston he did some things that belied his Amherst background like claiming, “Clemens was in the twilight of a great career.” This among other slights did not gain him favor with fans, media and most importantly, his players. He was not Bobby Valentine smooth. Not Lou Gorman approachable. Not Theo aloof, or Tito predictable.

He was not a people person, but he was at least, if not more, responsible for 2004 than most who subsequently claimed the credit. If Duquette was not at Yankee Stadium for Game 7 and if he was not at Busch Stadium to watch history unfold, where was he? He was in exile - blackballed - call it what you will; he was persona non-gratis by some of the Red Sox front office.

But sometimes things do change, sometimes people do change, people see things for what they are and want to do the right thing. The right thing in the spring of 2005 would have been to give Dan Duquette a World Series ring, not necessarily on the field where he may have stepped into Theo, the boy wonder’s spotlight, but present it to him quietly in appreciation for a job well done.

It may be urban myth that at the time, most members of Theo and the Trio wanted to give Duquette that very token of appreciation. All except for one, who approached the owner and said “let’s not go there.” Mission of appreciation cancelled.

Now, fast forward to 2012, Theo is gone and Dan Duquette is back in baseball, ironically as the general manager of an American League East team. Duquette, by all reports, and that includes this first person singular, has become a changed man. Sometimes, enforced absence does wonders. Clearly, he doesn’t take himself so seriously, he laughs more, and he seems to be secure in his own skin.

Only time will tell, but it is time to tell him that he did a good job, that he had as much to do with 2004 as anybody. It’s time for the Trio to give him the ring they wanted to before the veto went out. Duquette is back in baseball, Theo is gone. By the way, if the guy that replaced Theo gets a vote on this, it was Dan Duquette who hired Ben Cherington. Do the right thing and give him the ring, not in front of 38,000 people but somewhere quiet at a place of his choosing, like maybe The Stockyard.