No Room for Pedro at Motel Red Sox

Nine years ago, Pedro Martinez had what's arguably the best pitching season of the modern era. Five years ago, he was the flawed but still game half of the one-two rotational punch that helped garner Boston its first World Series victory in far too long. Today, he's hoping to make a good showing pitching for the Dominican team in the World Baseball Classic in order to impress someone (like, say, the Pirates) so he can get himself a contract and keep playing professional baseball. This situation is why I could never be a professional athlete: I can't imagine going from "best in the world at what I do" to "scrapping around for any job I can find" in nine years. Best of luck to ya, Petey.

Bill Lee Cares Not About Your Opinions

An excellent idea for anyone looking to create an Internet sensation: put a microphone in front Bill Lee for a few minutes, give him a starting point, and let him hold forth. Kinda like what happened at the Red Sox Hall of Fame induction ceremony a few days ago. I had read Lee's Little Red (Sox) Book a few years ago, but I had forgotten about how much Lee does not give a crap about what anyone thinks about him: he's here to speak his mind and be clever, all at the same time. Does Lee blog at all? Because if not, he really should.

A few life lessons from The Spaceman:

• Winning is everything. No, really.
  
• When marrying Canadians, make sure the first one is cold before moving on to the second one.
• The Boston media gets the New York media's sloppy seconds.
• We should all be grateful to star players for gracing us with their presence, no matter what the result.

After watching this video, my friend Fred had a good point: Lee's vitriol about Manny may be a bit unfounded, but it's a comment on the long-held Red Sox tradition of crapping on star players when they leave town. After doing a quick mental tally, I can only think of two stars who escaped the pariah treatment when they left the Sox: Williams (he got while playing, instead) and Yaz, who both left because they retired. But Fisk, Lee, Pedro, Damon, Nomar, Manny...they either suffered the Vader force choke from management or the rabid dog attack of the fan base on their way out. It's not a particularly pleasant legacy to contemplate.

Game 47: Entering Into History

Final Score: Boston Red Sox 7, Kansas City Royals 0

For my bachelor party almost two years ago, my friends brought me up to Cooperstown, NY, to the Baseball Hall of Fame. A couple of things come instantly to mind from that trip: the exhibit on Manny Ramirez's uniform and how he wears it at the largest size allowed by regulations to give him better freedom of movement when he hits; Robin finding Joe Morgan's picture and flipping it off in tribute to all of Morgan's "skills" as a broadcaster; seeing the championship ring display, finding the one from 2004 and reliving the good times all over again. But the section I always think of first, the place that really brings everything that the Hall of Fame is about home to me is the wall of no hitter and perfect game balls, each with the date, the score of the game, and the picture of the man on whom fortune smiled to deliver a night of truly devastating pitching. Pedro's up there, and Derek Lowe; Hideo Nomo back when he was good, A.J. Burnett when he was a Marlin and David Wells when he was a Yankee. Nolan Ryan has seven - more than anyone else - and now, after tonight, the Sox have 18 - or 26, if you believe ESPN - which seems to be more than anyone else [Edit: now that I'm awake, I've realized that 26 is for Boston teams as a whole, going back to the 1870s. Robin's got it right: the Sox have 18, the Dodgers have 20].

Many love baseball for the excitement of the big hit, the powerful smash over the wall, the crooked number inning with runners pilling across the plate so quickly you'd think the bases were on fire. I do not deny these moments their
ability to move us fans into transports of delight, but what I love most about baseball is the pitching: the strategy of pitch selection, the psychology of the guessing game between batter, pitcher, and catcher, the tension of a duel between the man on the mound and the man at the plate. The addition of the no hitter possibility makes these pitching moments that much more precious, adding in the dimension of necessarily superb defense, of a team uniting behind its pitcher to guarantee a moment in history.

Tonight's game had all of these rarefied elements, combined together into one noble gas that burned with a stark beauty upon the cold earth of the baseball field. At the plate, Manny battled Luke Hochevar with the bases loaded and home run number 499 looming large, fouling off pitch after pitch before settling for a walk, while every starter but Lugo found a way to get on base. In the field Jacoby Ellsbury saved the day with a second spectacular diving catch in as many days, delivered as effortlessly as his stolen base advance from first to second to third in two plays, channeling Rickey Henderson all the way. And astride the mound, befitting his stature as the star of the game, stood Jon Lester like a giant, flinging away the doubts about his abilities - doubts for which I now humbly apologize - and delivering strikeouts by the handful. It was one hell of a way to make an entrance into history.

Hell No! Don't Let Jacoby Go!

Ladies and gentlemen of Red Sox Nation, I want to thank (most of) you for not being retarded. I'll admit my lack of faith: When I saw that Boston.com had posted a poll asking users whether or not the Sox should include Ellsbury in a deal for Santana, I was pretty sure results were going to swing to a decisive yes, and that I was going to rant on for several paragraphs about why that would be such a bad idea. Instead, out of the 50,000 or so of you who answered, only 18.2 percent were so thick headed as to want Santana at any cost, and I appreciate that level of intelligence very much. (By the way, if you disagree with me, feel free to let me have it in the comments section.)

Whether or not the front office shares that same intellectual fortitude still seems to be a matter of worrying discussion, with silence on the matter reigning from the negotiating powers that be. If Ellsbury is on the table, I have two hopes:

1. That he's part of a ploy by the Sox to get the Yankees to abandon Hank Steinbrenner's latest foolish ultimatum and overbid by including Ian Kennedy in a deal. Sure, Santana would end up in pinstripes, but as I've observed before, that's not a situation that I find particularly concerning.
2. That Boston remembers that while they don't need Santana (they'd just like to have him), the Twins only have until July to get something for their ace before he walks out the door and leaves them with a draft pick. Santana may generate interest from multiple teams, but the Twins are still in the weaker bargaining position.
   

An Open Letter to Mike Lowell

The Red Sox have reportedly offered you a 3 year deal.
It is worth between $12 and $15 million a year.

Take it.
Take it.
Take it.
Take it.
Take it.
Take it.
Take it.
Take it.
Take it.
Take it.
PLEASE!
Take it.
PRETTY PLEASE!
Take it.
COME ON!
Take it.

You know WHY I want you to take it? Cause my buddies in Sox Nation (read: readership) and I will blow a frigging gasket if you follow the 4 to 5 year deal you are almost guaranteed to get elsewhere. We all know in our heart of hearts… you won’t last that long. WS MVP or not, you know that the front office is right not to give you a longer contract. They were right with Pedro, they were right with Damon and they are sure as hell right with you (honestly I think 3 years might even be a stretch).

So take the deal Mike. We just made something wonderful…why ruin a good thing?

I know it’s a lot to ask and I know it might not happen. For some reason ($$$) if you don’t end up back in Boston, I’ll be ok with it. I would hurt… but I’d live. Just don’t go to the Yankees. Right now I am so full of joy and jubilation and love for the world… you in New York would teach me how to hate again.

Take the deal Mike.
Take it.

Book Review: David Ortiz with Tony Massarotti - Big Papi: My Story of Big Dreams and Big Hits

Three years ago, the woman who is now my wife asked me to name my favorite Red Sox player growing up. It was a tough question: I had always held an irrational affection for the Gator, but nothing resembling favoritism. "Well," she said, "how about now?" "David Ortiz," I said. No hesitation needed.

Thus when the publishers of Ortiz's new memoir, Big Papi: My Story of Big Dreams and Big Hits, contacted me and asked me if I wanted review the book on this blog, I did a little jig: not only because a publisher was asking me for my opinion (one of the more gratifying things about running a blog is people acknowledging respect for your written thoughts), but because I would be writing about the writings of my favorite player. As it turns out, not too hard of a task: doing my best to keep things objective, I think the book is pretty good.

My biggest concern before I started reading My Story... was that the book might read like a typical post-game interview; a collection of bland quotes and carefully edited stories that said everything by saying nothing. I was curious as to how much of himself David would put into his book. I needn't have worried - it being David Ortiz I shouldn't have worried anyway - and I can happily say that the results, while occasionally a little repetitive, are an excellent window in Big Papi's thoughts, dreams and motivations over the ten years he's been in the major leagues.

Written in a fun, loose, conversational style that reads like an informal pre-season chat between Ortiz and the reader, My Story...has two big things going for it:

1. The free-flowing narrative Ortiz and Massarotti adopted when editing Papi's conversations. Everything fits the time line of Ortiz's life, from his childhood in the Dominican through his time in the minors and majors with the Mariners, Twins and Red Sox, but thankfully, there's no rigid structure. If Papi wants to introduce a side thread into the main weave of his story, he does so as naturally as if he was telling you the story in person. It's very effective style; I don't think there's a better way to make a naturally distant figure like a celebrity seem more human.
   
2. To help establish historical perspective and to keep Ortiz's story in context, Massarotti wrote several interjectory chapters that he calls "Stepping Out of the Box." Each chapter covers someone from baseball who's had an effect on Ortiz's professional career - Pedro, Theo, Torii Hunter - and reinforces, in Massarotti's sportswriter style, one of My Story...'s main themes: no man succeeds on his own. Mixing with Papi's looser interviews, the straightforward Massarotti chapters give the book a nice balance.

All of this praise is not to say the book is perfect; as I mentioned above, David does start to repeat himself a bit at the end, as he tries to drive home his point about needing a support network to really succeed, but overall I found Big Papi: My Story of Big Dreams and Big Hits an interesting and inspiring read worth the price of admission.

To begin...after game 19

The idea for this journal has been kicking around in my head for a week or so, but this is the first time I've thought of it while sitting in front of a computer, so...

I've decided to record the trials and tribulations of a Red Sox fan in this, the 2004 season hunt for the world series ring. As any Sox fan will attest, being a fan of Boston's baseball team is an exercise in extreme optimism and extreme pessimism and I expect that like any year, even though I hope for the best at all times, come August I'll be in a nervous state from the ups and downs of the season. Maybe not...maybe this year it'll be smooth sailing all the way to the top (see, there's the optimism coming through already).

I'll do my best to listen to/watch as many games as possible (what's the point, otherwise?), but admittedly, the combination of living in NYC and that annoying habit of the MLB running ballgames at night when I'm frequently otherwise engaged can be limiting. Enough excuses though, let's get down to it.

Even though it is only April, things seem to going pretty well for the Sox, especially in light of last season's end-of-the-year debacle (and the crowd chants, "A thousand curses upon Grady Little and his lack of backbone!"). Schilling is proving to be everything we've expected him to be, Pedro is picking up, the rest of the rotation is doing well, the bullpen is like unto a combined God...sure, they aren't hitting as much this time around (yet), but that's with injuries to key players. And heck, it doesn't matter if they're hitting or not, cuz dammit, they're winning. Top of the AL East, 2 games ahead of the Orioles, one of the best records in baseball...oh and they've taken 6 out of 7 games from the Yankees. Ah revenge, a dish best served cold.

I didn't watch the game last night; I was off for a night of great amusement in the left field at Yankees Stadium with my friend Micah to watch Jeter fail, once again, to break out of that miserable slump. Yes, the Yankees won, but I don't like Oakland either...so I was happy pretty much whatever happened. Also, George Steinbrenner is a fascist for not letting me bring my bag into the Stadium.

Two more notes before I close this off (there is a game today and I will be back later to talk about it): first, I must say I'm psyched that the AL seems more balanced this year - I'm happy that teams like Baltimore and Detroit don't seem to be relegated to auto-loss status anymore. I love the teams in the Central Division (except the White Sox and the Indians); they're like glorious perpetual underdogs to me. I wish them all sorts of good...except against the Red Sox, of course. Second, after that little bit of idiocy on FOX the night of the friday game during the first Yankees/Sox game a few weeks ago, I'm never buying GMC. Great move, guys...let's show the Aaron Boone homerun, the Bucky Dent homerun and the Destruction of Pedro in three different spots and call them Great Moments in Baseball or something stupid like that. Whoever was responsible for that travesty should fired, tied up and left in Kenmore Square with a bag over their head and a sign on their chest after a game lets out. For good measure, they should tie up Joe Buck and Tim McCarver and leave them out there too, so we'd never have to hear their wretched, wretched commentary ever again.

Ok, that's all for the moment...I'll be back at some point after the 1:05 game is over to give my thoughts. Until later and always remember...YANKEES SUCK!