Red Sox Reality Check

It's hard to know where to continue, because 2012 has been such an inglorious disappointment. More than anything else, players, for the most part haven't stepped up and accepted responsibility for exactly how terrible they've performed. Yes, a few players have performed above the call, David Ortiz when healthy, Cody Ross, and the unlikeliest trio, Pedro Ciriaco, Scott Posednik, and Junichi Tazawa. What exactly do fans want? My list isn't expansive: Thankfulness. Players play a child's game for ridiculous money and receive the adulation of young and old alike. Appreciate the game. Passion. Play hard and have fun. Do the right thing at the right time, and stop with the knucklehead baserunning.  Humility. Yes, we understand that many are called and few are chosen.  Servanthood. Players don't get much time off during the season. I remember going through medical training in the Navy working 185 days in a row.  There was no 'off day' dealing with p...

Local baseball fans have a long and passionate relationship with our baseball team. After wandering in the baseball desert for eighty-six years, the Red Sox delivered a pair of World Championships using pluck, pitching, and "Moneyball". Somewhere, amidst ballpark restructuring, expanding the Fenway sports empire to include NASCAR and soccer, signing overvalued players to enormous contracts, and the death of player accountability, Red Sox Nation became a house divided.  Even players like the redoubtable Dustin Pedroia chirped "that's not the way we do things around here."  Well, in Parcellian fashion, "you are what you are." Post All-Star break the Red Sox are 17-23, eleventh in the AL, eight games behind Seattle during that time, and the Red Sox are closer to last place than the Wild Card. OPS, the Holy Grail of "Moneyball" has dropped to .733 during that time, the province of Minnesota and Kansas City.  With concerts, Socce...

Come in from that ledge. "It's only a game. Somebody has to win and somebody has to lose. The Sawx just won a championship in 2007." And so on. Ten years in the Navy taught me the value of pomp and circumstance. There's the initial excitement of commissioning on the U.S.S. Constitution. The military has bands to play at graduations and retirement ceremonies, and multiple orders of important functions. The Red Sox have adopted the same posture, raising it to an art form. Forget about Opening Day or championship rings, or Jason Varitek or Tim Wakefield day. The locals have Frozen Fenway, Futures at Fenway, concerts, Picnic in the Park and valuable charitable work like Run to Home Base and more and more. Unfortunately, what got left behind, amidst the applause and the endless events is a miserable baseball team. The team quit on their "beloved" manager last September and part of the exorcism ultimately included the exile of Kevin Youkilis to Chicago. ...