No playoffs? Surprisingly, no outrage from Sox fans
Thursday, August 26, 2010
I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I miss the “old” Red Sox fan. I long for the days when card-carrying members of “The Nation” lived and died with every pitch and would spend three and a half hours on hold just to bitch for 30 seconds on sports-talk radio following a brutal loss to the Yankees.
You’ve all gone soft since your beloved Sox shed their “Loveable Losers” label in 2004. You went from pathetic to obnoxious to apathetic in less than a decade.
A bully becomes disinterested when the dweeb in third-period algebra no longer responds to his derisive insults. Likewise, I’m bored with the majority of you so-called “fans” since you don’t seem to care whether or not your team makes the playoffs this season.
Where’s the outrage? The Red Sox added $41 million in payroll during the offseason and raised ticket prices for what seems like the 800th consecutive season and all you’ve done is sit in those glorified folding chairs Fenway Park refers to as “seats” with your $7 Sam Adams while the team’s decaying carcass parks itself in third place for three months.
To top it off, the front office basically waved the white flag by standing pat at the trade deadline, which, in a nutshell, tells you what they think of the team’s chances of making the playoffs. They weren’t even willing to dump a couple of A-ball pitchers to snag Kerry Wood from the Indians or grab a bat off the scrap heap to improve the lineup.
The worst part is each and every one of you bought into the company line of how getting Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury and Victor Martinez back from the disabled list is just like making a blockbuster trade at the deadline. How’s that working out? Two days after returning to the lineup, Pedroia wound up back on the DL. Nine games into his comeback, Ellsbury collided with a pitcher in Texas and is done for the year and Martinez has hit one home run since returning to the lineup at the end of July.
Then the front office had the gall to claim Johnny Damon off waivers from the Detroit Tigers, as if forcing NESN to rerun a few highlights from 2004 will warm the cockles of your hearts and make you forget about how horribly unwatchable this team has been all season. Theo Epstein thinks you’re all idiots, and not in the enchanting, 2004 sense of the word.
When all else fails – and it has, indeed, failed miserably – the Red Sox will just fall back on their injury woes to explain why they couldn’t even sniff the Wild Card despite spending more on their players than all but one major-league team (Yankees). And, of course, you’ll eat it up like Sally Struthers when you should be questioning what any of that has to do with players such as Josh Beckett and John Lackey underachieving.
I hate to side with the stat nerds who seem intent on ruining baseball with their pie-charts and graphing calculators, but Beckett is a prime example of why you don’t lust over a guy based off the small sample size of postseason baseball. This fraud basically parlayed one epic World Series game against the Yankees seven years ago into two lucrative contract extensions with the Red Sox, including the unexplainable four-year, $68 million deal he signed in April.
Since Beckett only pitches well in odd-numbered years, you’re basically paying close to $70 million for what will likely amount to two solid seasons – or, if my math is correct, just a shade over $1 million per win. That’s not nearly as offensive as the $82.5 million the Red Sox wasted on John Lackey, a career bridesmaid who is famous for his own postseason heroics in 2002 when he won Game 7 of the World Series as a rookie. Again, beware of small sample sizes.
You could blame the injuries to Pedroia, Martinez, etc., for the team’s problems or you could use the small percentage of your brain designated for rational thought and point to Lackey and Beckett (ERAs of 4.51 and 6.50, respectively) as a major reason why the playoffs are a long shot with September on the horizon.
Blame general manager Theo Epstein for the brilliant signing of 37-year-old outfielder Mike Cameron, who – surprise, surprise! – is about to undergo season-ending surgery to repair an abdominal strain after playing in only 48 games. Or, if you really want to get creative, blame the organization for not sealing the deal with Mark Teixeira last winter. The 67 home runs he’s hit in pinstripes would look nice in Boston instead of this “run-prevention defense” rubbish they tried to fool you with, which is nothing more than fancy talk for “a bunch of Nancies who can’t hit.”
No matter how many times this organization insults your intelligence with its uncanny ability to put a positive spin on its own internal failures – or by keeping the park open for an additional half hour during a rainstorm to get you to buy a few more concessions knowing full well there won’t be baseball that night – you’ll keep coming back for more. You’ll pose for Facebook self portraits in the bleachers with your pink-hat-wearing girlfriend butchering sappy Neil Diamond songs (“So good! So good!”) while the team suffers another deflating loss to a sub-.500 team in the heat of a pennant race.
Keep whistling past the graveyard. Like the self-loathing bimbo who keeps coming back to her verbally-abusive boyfriend, you’ll continue to get crapped on until you give the Red Sox’ front office a reason to do something proactive.
Throw a chair across the room. Scream at the radio while sitting in traffic on the Boston Turnpike. Just do something. You guys are getting boring.
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- For once, this Bud’s for integrity
- Johnny Damon - A True Idiot!
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