Red Sox Reality Check

Jason Varitek has provided Red Sox fans with terrific service over the past decade. He has caught four no-hitters, and most importantly was the catcher on a pair of World Series Champions. Like Clint Eastwood, he may merit a "Lifetime Achievement" award. But there's more than meets the "I" here. The "little people", the Great Unwashed of the proletariat, are suffering as they have not for eight decades. Unemployment, using cold, unenhanced data (government statistics have a tendency to shift unpredictably) approaches numbers not seen since the Depression (peaked at 24.6%). Free market proponents (I am one) encourage professional athletes and other entertainers to reap the benefits to which their unique status entitles them. If a free agent can find someone to pay him top dollar and multiple years, so be it. We can understand how players fear getting "left behind". But how many players have refunded part of their salary for underperformance, i...

John Updike passed today, another celebrant of the Fenway tradition gone. The author had written of the ballpark, "a compromise between Man's Euclidean determinations and Nature's beguiling irregularities." Rest in peace. And the Mexican standoff between the chintzy Sox brass, only willing to pony up five million dollars, and the Boras-Varitek brain trust, deepens as a Saturday deadline beckons. In one corner, management spending prudently and cautiously amidst the greatest economic crisis in eighty years. In the other, the flawless Darrow-like barrister whose mastery of hyperbole is not exceeded. The Red Sox have concerns about their veteran catcher's age and declining offensive skills. Scott Boras and his client remain worried about the denominations of Red Sox currency. What both sides need to accept (I think the Red Sox have) is not only the benefit (money on the table), but the risk, as Varitek lacks another suitable destination. If he had one then he would b...

I've read and heard people say that they didn't consider the recent inauguration of President Barack Obama that significant. They felt he had not achieved anything. As a 54 year-old man, I can recall a handful of seminal events, including the Kennedy assassination in 1963, the blackout of 1965 (I was playing electronic football), the lunar landing of 1969, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Challenger explosion, 9/11, and the Obama inauguration. That doesn't discount the many others including the Bay of Pigs, Arab-Israeli and Vietnam Wars, Iran hostage crisis and so forth. We're not counting the Red Sox' painful World Series defeats and redemption and of course the Patriots winning the Super Bowl. My wife was at the hairdressers and struck up a conversation with a woman whose husband played baseball in the fifties and early sixties , for the Red Sox. She generously shared her stories with my wife. Southern road trips meant African-American players (not that the Red So...

Go to about 3:20 of the video. Hot stove smoke. Scott Boras may be the best at what he does, and as the joke goes, his ethos of the 95% (of lawyers) makes the other 5% look bad. He played the Red Sox to a point and got Mark Teixeira megabucks. He's off the speed dial in Atlanta after stabbing the Braves in the back with Rafael Furcal. But then he showed Derek Lowe the money getting the erstwhile philander and righthander a four year deal with the same Braves. But Jason Varitek remains on the outside looking in. The Sox offered Varitek arbitration and he was not likely to get a significant pay cut with that route. But the Varitek-Boras alliance has not found willing suitors (or market) and both will get a pay cut, although in Varitek's case, he's the one to suffer not Boras. Of course, Boras will think (but not say) "it was your decision to test the market, Jason." "Love means never having to say you're sorry." Plenty of high priced talent remain out ...

Your father's Red Sox lived by the sword and died by it. The front office built teams for station-to-station baseball and three run homers. Jim Rice's 400 plus total bases in 1978 weren't enough to win the pennant amidst an August pitching collapse. Fast forward to 2009. The Red Sox seem to have lost the power battle, but may be winning the arms race, with potential starters including Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Brad Penny, Tim Wakefield, John Smoltz, Clay Buchholz, and Michael Bowden. If momentum 'lasts as long as the next day's pitcher, then the Sox could have plenty. In the bullpen, Jonathan Papelbon anchors, with plenty of help from Takashi Saito, Manny Delcarmen, Ramon Ramirez, Justin Masterson, Hideki Okajima, and Javier Lopez. In the game of finding new ways to skin the proverbial cat, the Sox have opted to double up on the run prevention side of the baseball ledger, without abandoning the offense. Amidst the worst economy since the Great Dep...

Most Red Sox fans are happy for Jim Rice that he finally received induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Sitting in the bleachers for Game 1 of the 1975 series, I wondered what it would have been like if the Sox had Rice, who was down after a fractured wrist. My fading memory prevents me from remembering who hit him...I think it was a forgettable Tiger pitcher. My memories of Rice aren't many but a few stand out. First, I remember a rocket just to the right of the original flagpole in left center, clearing the back wall. It wasn't a towering Harmon Killebrew backspin fly ball that keeps on going. It was milk...screaming. Second, I remember Joe Morgan pinch-hitting Spike Owen for Rice. Third, although he was no defensive marvel, Rice worked hard to become a competent left-fielder, and excelled at playing the wall. I recall Mike Lynch saying how it was hard to criticize a player whom he saw working hard and regularly to excel. Rice may have seemed like a surly star who wasn...