The greatest continuing drama in Boston sports has reached its final conclusion. Manny was shipped out of town for an all-star left fielder. And now we have the ever present Red sox PR machine working overtime to make sure everyone understands that Manny was a bad person and a bad teammate and an overrated player. And the sheep from Red Sox Nation eat it up like so many blades of grass while they graze the Boston sports scene. I can’t explain why Manny pushed a retired cop/traveling secretary, nor can I justify Manny taking two days off with a phantom injury. But I can say with confidence that if the Red Sox hadn’t wanted Manny out of town, things would’ve been handled much differently. They publicly fought with Manny for the last few weeks. Team Owner John Henry had the balls to be indignant that Manny claimed the team says one thing to your face and something else behind your back. What makes this particularly ballsy is the constant PR game that the Red Sox have played every time a player left the team. They pulled it with Nomar, they pulled it with Damon, and they pulled it with Orlando Cabrera and anyone else who has left the organization. They even pulled it on one of their own when Theo Epstein had a contract dispute. This has been a Red Sox trick going back to the early 80s when they sent Fred Lynn and Carlton Fisk out of town. The Sheep continue to eat up what the PR machine feeds them. All that aside, it’s about more than a PR battle, this group has never appreciated Manny. They never understood the difference between an all-star and a superstar. The fans and the organization didn’t understand that a presence like Manny made the entire team better. The SABR-metricians think that numbers on a stat sheet can explain it all, but there still exist intangibles that will never show up on a stat sheet and those intangibles can mean the difference between a team winning a lot of games and a team winning championships. Manny batted behind Ortiz for a reason. It’s because Manny was the best hitter off his generation. Perhaps he is on the downside of his career, but he still commanded an opposing pitcher’s full respect and attention when he was in the lineup. Manny’s bat carried them in the playoffs whenever someone aside form Josh Beckett was on the mound. He hit a walk-off homer against K-Rod then clobbered the Indians in the ALCS. For everyone who doesn’t believe Manny deserved the World Series MVP in 2004, he more than made up for it last years when he was the best hitter in the playoffs but didn’t get the World Series MVP in their four game sweep of the Rockies. The Red Sox put Manny on waivers in 2003 but no one claimed him, the Red sox were lucky and The Yankees are still paying for not picking up Manny that year. Manny came back and helped them win two World Series. The Red Sox never understood how lucky they were to have the greatest hitter of his generation, and in this case it was better to be lucky than good. The Red Sox are going to find out the hard that you should be careful what you wish for, because they just came back to the pack on July 31st.
Since I’m on the topic of The Red Sox, I’ll just throw out a few more thoughts from this season. Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis have stepped forward as All Stars this year, and they’ve been fun to watch. Dusty is just a little guy who takes huge swings and you’d never think he’d be able to get away with it if you hadn’t been watching him do it for almost two years now. Dustin isn’t the only one defying logic, Dice-K has been playing with fire all year but almost never gets burned. He continues to allow base runners but allows very few runs. The best story of the year, the reason I keep watching games, is Jon Lester. Lester has really stepped up and become a potential All-Star. He had a rough patch at the start of the year but since has been the Sox ace. Despite the nice stats from Dice-K and the resume of Josh Beckett, Lester has been the Sox best pitcher this year. I only really care once out of every five games; it’s when Lester is on the mound. Over 162 games it’s impossible to really care every game, if the best teams of all time lost one out of every three, but if Lester is on the mound I can actually get into it, I care about all the small plays and long at bats that can lead to victories. There are just so many reasons to root for Lester. He’s a cancer survivor, and if you don’t root for cancer survivors you probably have some issues you should deal with; but even if he wasn’t there’d be plenty to like. He’s a quiet guy who has been brought up slowly through the organization. He was almost traded to The White Sox during one of the organizations ill-advised attempts to unload Manny. People had started to doubt his ability, but he just kept going strong and this year he has broken out and looks like he could be an elite left handed starter for years to come.
One final rant before I go. The Little League tournament is on TV right now, and they’ve added lots of rules to protect the kids. There’s a strict formula about how many pitches a player can throw each week and how many they can throw in a game, but for all these rules they’ve added the kids throw curve balls every damned pitch. It makes no sense, they don’t want to hurt their shoulders but it’ll be fine to blow out their elbows. Any coach teaching a 12 year old how to throw a curveball should be ashamed of himself. There’s no reason for a kid this young to be throwing a curve, they might do better as twelve year olds throwing curves but many believe they’re hurting their future, doing irreparable damage to their arm. OK…Rant Over.
-Bender Out
