Monday, April 23, 2012

The End of the Red Sox Decade

Via The Atlantic:
The Red Sox will be good again one day, soon I hope, but for now we are left with a fragile, unlikeable team laden with underachieving prima donnas. A team that cannot pitch, that can only occasionally hit, and that saves its worst moments for the most crucial moments of the game. A team surrounded by questions. Why is Darnell McDonald still a Sox? Why are Sox pitchers so much consistently worse than management has projected them to be? And why wasn't current Sox favorite Dustin Pedroia fined for ridiculing his new manager early last week (the team has not won since)? You would think that Pedroia, Terry Francona's close pal, would have a dollop of shame after the Sox' epic collapse last September. And of course I will remember Nomar Garciaparra, Pokey Reese, Orlando Cabrera. Edgar Renteria, Alex Gonzales, Julio Lugo. Nick Green. Marco Scutero and Mike Aviles, the ten, count 'em ten, primary shortstops the Sox fielded during their decade at or near the top. All of them combined don't add up to Derek Jeter.

The worst thing that ever happened to the Sox was winning in 2004; it turned them from a lovable band of scrappy underdogs who hadn't caught a break in 86 years to just another bunch of assholes who, GEE, whaddya know, have the third-highest payroll in baseball. As a Yankees fan, perhaps the single greatest insult I can give the Red Sox is that when we play them, it's just another game. I care more about beating the Rays than the Sox. I couldn't care less about some "rivalry" because, for now, it doesn't exist - it's like the Jets/Patriots rivalry that the newspapers write about, which Tom Brady is completely unaware of.

No comments: