Cursed To First - Sox and Pats forever.

We interrupt this losing streak for some Patriots news

Matt Walsh has got nothing on the Patriots the league didn't already know about, the Boston Herald has apologized to Pats fans for running the story claiming that he did, and generally, there are a lot of Pats haters out there who have had their thunder stolen this week.

But that, similar to a lack of credible evidence about WMD, isn't going to stop our government!

In particular, it's not apparently going to stop one Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania (R, natch). Nope, he wants our government to fund another Mitchell Report, but this time on only ONE football team, because clearly, IT'S ALL TEH BIG CONSPIRECY!!11!!

Jamie at the Patriot Act raised a really good point about the role hefty contributions from Comcast (currently embroiled with the NFL over the NFL Network) may be playing in Specter's zeal for this particular issue. But really, at this point, I have to wonder if ol' Arlen has, say, looked outside or read a newspaper lately.

Given the number of pressing issues he could and should be focusing on at this time - a foreign war, an economy in recession - his continued obsession with this issue passes beyond the absurd, in my opinion, and into the morally reprehensible. Personally, I think the public would be better served by an ‘independent investigation’ into how Mr. Specter is using taxpayers’ time and money.

You can read further bloviating by me on this whole hot mess over here.

Fenway pls

We've had, what is it, 20 Opening Days now?

Opening Day - Tokyo. Opening Day - Oakland. Opening Day - Toronto. Two weeks and three road trips to three countries in three different time zones. That's enough. Bring them back home.

I'm still not in midseason form yet as a fan, if by 'midseason form' you mean 'curling up into the fetal position and cursing all descendants of Julio Lugo over a loss'. Or even the milder 'prioritizing baseball over all other activities of daily life', which I did not do for most of this weekend (except for geeking out about Beckett's return. In fact, I'd like to nominate that for recognition as a fifth Opening Day).

A big part of this is because, in my mind, it's not really, fully baseball season until the Sox come back to Fenway. That's even more true this time around, because there's still a ring ceremony to get to before settling down to the business of 2008.

This year, I could've been there - a mixup with work meant I missed my chance. And yes, I am very bitter.

But even on television--even on TiVoed television--it's just not right until I see the deep green interior of our lyrical little bandbox behind the faces of our players.

And there's one more thing I find myself still needing to check off my 'baseball cravings' list this spring, now that my Beckett withdrawal has been taken care of - I need to see Jonathan Papelbon introduced at Fenway Park.

I need to feel the gathering energy, even through my TV screen, as the crowd anticipates his name. I need to hear the frenzy they break into when it comes. I need to watch him bow his head at the edge of the warning track, fist-bump the cop, and come trotting over his home turf to save the day.It's amazing how quickly this collective ritual between crowd and cop and Papelbon has come to embody Red Sox baseball for me.

As far as I'm concerned, it's been too long coming, and it cannot get here soon enough.

Red Sox: Hell no, we won't go

A defiant spirit seems to be the first aspect of the 2008 team's unique personality to come to the fore. First there were Jonathan Papelbon's outspoken comments about his own contract. Now the team as a whole has apparently banded together to fight the power! about coaches' paychecks instead.

According to SI, the Sox refused to take the field for their final spring training game before the trip to Japan this morning because coaches apparently are not going to receive a stipend during the trip. They also said this morning that they would not board the plane to Japan if the situation didn't change. More recent reports say the Sox will take the field this afternoon; the assumption is that if they're playing in Florida, they'll probably be playing in Japan.

But now I'm imagining lots of possibilities for our Activist Red Sox. Like Jacoby Ellsbury and Jon Lester stumping for Barack Obama, Josh Beckett campaigning for hemp-crop legalization, and Jason Varitek, Mike Lowell and Kevin Youkilis staging pan-flute concerts in support of Tibet.

WTF happened to Dougie?

Steve is aghast, originally uploaded by tekfiend33.

A series of questions about the reported release of Doug Mirabelli from the Red Sox.

1) Has anyone gotten Tim Wakefield's comment on this? I've seen him say in at least one interview that he doesn't want to pitch without Dougie. I'm worried about how Wake is taking the news right now.

2) Who's going to catch the knuckleball? Kevin Cash did ok with it last year...is that who they're having take over for Dougie?

3) Why did the Red Sox release Mirabelli? There's a fairly salient one. I guess it's a little sad (and telling) that it's my third question...

4) If they were going to release Dougie two weeks into Spring Training, why did they sign him this past offseason to "a salary of $550,000 which also included a $275,000 roster bonus, a $150,000 conditioning bonus and the possibility to earn $1.25 million in performance bonuses," to quote Cafardo on Extra Bases?

5) The official Doug Mirabelli Appreciation Night at Kow Loon in Saugus was broadcast well in advance to the public on the Internet. The Sox couldn't have come to this conclusion in time to save us all some bucks on Scorpion Bowls?

Pay Jonathan

The guys on my morning show were having a vociferous argument about this today. Apparently the Red Sox, true to form, have dragged out contract negotiations with a key player, though they're saying that Jonathan Papelbon will get a new deal soon (the deadline is March 11). I have to say I really dislike this tendency with the Sox--since the Pedro days, following player contract negotiations with this team has frequently been an anxious experience.

According to the Herald:

The Sox are believed to be talking to Papelbon about a pay raise much more modest than the nearly 100 percent increase he is seeking. Papelbon made $425,500 last season. Based on Papelbon’s save totals of 35 and 37 during the past two seasons, the club is believed to be considering a raise of about $100,000. That is far below the $900,000 figure Papelbon told the Providence Journal he is looking for.

I understand the following: that this is a business; that emotions have no place in it; that the Red Sox can't go around doling out 100 percent raises to all its players just because we love them; that even David Ortiz was signed for a relative song the first time his contract was renewed, and as a veteran player, too.

And yes, everybody knows his rookie salary is a joke, but that's the way the system works. I'm also aware he'll be eligible for arbitration next year, and could stand to receive ten times even the amount that's too rich for the Red Sox blood right now. So eventually, he'll probably get his due anyway.

Still, I wonder--when they have a choice, why would the Red Sox quibble over paying him a tenth of what he's probably worth? $900,000 is absolute chump change for the best closer in the game and a linchpin of the pitching staff that just won us a World Series. More importantly, I personally can think of few things more devastating than seeing Jonathan Papelbon in anything other than a Red Sox uniform.

They have an opportunity to lock Jonathan in right now, and I believe they should do everything possible not to alienate one of their most important players, regardless of when he's eligible for free agency (2013) or his age. He's the best in the game at his position, and his age means he could be a player the Red Sox cultivate and develop as a long-term employee of the team, rather than thinking short-term, as they appear to be doing right now.

For a big-league franchise to be quibbling with a player like Jonathan over half a million dollars strikes me as something that could come back to bite them down the road, and in this case, I don't think it's worth the risk, given what they potentially stand to lose.

Turning the Corner

Each year, it comes at a different time--my flip of the switch from football back to baseball, and from baseball back to football. Sometimes a particularly mind-blowing finish for the Red Sox has delayed my serious interest in football until late in the season, Christmastime in the dark post-Grady days of 2003. This year is the first time I have experienced a similar bittersweet combination in reverse.

I haven't been unenthused through as good a chunk of the Sox regular season as I was with the Patriots in '03, but then the end of baseball season also overlaps well into the beginning of football season. And I've still spent a good three weeks now in a funk about the Patriots, when not in a fury over some of the crazier invective being thrown around vis a vis Bill Belichick being the son of Satan, the stripping of trophies, etc.

I know a lot of people, like my dad, for instance, whose immediate response to the Patriots loss was "pitchers and catchers in ten days." I couldn't make the transition so fast, though. I couldn't take my mind off the loss, the same way I couldn't take my mind off the Red Sox for a while when they had lost, no matter how delightfully the Patriots might have been doing. The only way I can describe the feeling of such a loss, whether in 2003 at Yankee Stadium or 2008 in Phoenix, Ariz., is to quote one of the fans on the HBO Curse of the Bambino special talking about the '86 World Series: "It was like staring into the sun."

I've been accused of trying to rationalize certain things about the Patriots, and I may be guilty of giving them too much of the benefit of the doubt, but when it came to the game itself and the way it slipped away in the final seconds, that stuff I was facing full on, struggling to stare into that sun without blinking.

Ironically, I had braced myself for being mocked over the details of the game: how Tom Brady had been shown up by Eli freakin' Manning, legendary Super Bowl capping scoring drive for legendary Super Bowl capping scoring drive (because if the Pats had won that game, we'd have all been talking about how he threaded the needle to Randy Moss in the end zone to take the lead with 2 minutes and 40 seconds). How thoroughly the Giants defense had overwhelmed the offensive line. How cruelly they'd punished Brady throughout the night. How even with a lead and as early as halftime, I'd had a sick feeling in my stomach watching the Giants' D flat-out outplay the Pats, regardless of what the scoreboard said.

Instead, what I got was a whole lot of highly judgmental blather about cheating because of something that had happened months earlier and people wanting to offer their own personal condescending psychoanalysis of me as a Patriots fan, and of Patriots fans in general. I'd been expecting people to attack the team; I wasn't expecting them to attack me.

So there were two dimensions to the agony of the  Patriots' fall from grace this year,  which kept me for the first time moping about football this far into Spring Training--the gut punch of the loss and the swarmed-by-gnats feeling of the philosophical debates with my fellow fans afterwards.

But earlier this week, Thursday to be exact, I turned the corner. Football has begun to recede mercifully into the background and the Red Sox have caught my attention again.

The moment that first really got me going about baseball this year took place at the beginning of the SportsDesk highlights of the Sox thrashing the BC kids the other night. I know what you think--that it must've been seeing Josh take the mound like Godzilla compared to those college pantywaists (or so he'd be thinking in his head). But oddly enough, it wasn't. Instead, it was Manny, digging in at the plate.

It was, objectively speaking, a throwaway moment--not the outcome of the at-bat but this random image at the beginning of it, Manny with his hand to his helmet, settling it down over his dreadlocks, then planting his right foot and leaning back. But in just a few seconds, it made me turn the corner back to baseball again.

In that moment, a new nuance of contrast between football and baseball stood out to me, as usually happens during these transitional times: in baseball, you get to know the players' facial expressions and body language down to the last little tic and quirk, unencumbered by padding and face masks. And so in baseball, you have a particular kind of delight not found in football--watching Manny work his way into his stance during a meaningless at-bat in spring training can touch off the memory of the other times you watched him in meaningful games. Just seeing that particular angle of his foot to his hip to his shoulder made me start to get excited about baseball again.

So far, this weekend, the Red Sox have rewarded my attention with a win over the Minnesota Twins, a shelling for Jon Lester, a solid appearance for Papelbon wearing Manny's jersey, a shelling for Clay Buchholz, and the lovely relaxed sensation of watching games that mean nothing.

Welcome back, baseball. It's such a strange feeling for you to be my salvation this year.

An Ode to Tito

He's got creaky knees and a chewing-tobacco habit that just won't quit. He's been hospitalized over the last couple of years for possible heart trouble. And he's been ejected from more games than anyone else on the team. And yet, when the Red Sox signed him to a 3-year, $12 million contract with club options for a fourth and fifth year, I couldn't have been happier.

That's because he's the manager, and fortunately, in that job, what might be red flags for a player are acceptable byproducts of what has to be one of the most stressful jobs in the country.

I've written here plenty about how much I like Terry Francona, how his aw-shucks manner and witty quips never fail to give me a serious case of the warm fuzzies. I would still give just about anything to give him a hug--not only because he seems so sweet-natured, but also because it often seems like he really needs one. (Fortunately, he's got Big Papi to turn to if that's really the case).

But I think it's also worthwhile to point out what the cold, hard facts say: that Terry Francona isn't just one of the most likeable managers the Red Sox have ever had. He's also one of the best, if not the best ever.

You can quibble with his bullpen and sometimes with his pitching staff management--and plenty of people have. I have been known to shake my fist at him, still, for what almost happened to Jonathan Papelbon on his watch. But on the whole, in the midst of a pressure-cooker in which every move he makes is scrutinized by millions of self-qualified armchair managers, at the helm of a high-profile, storied, highly lucrative ballclub filled with quirky and sometimes difficult personalities, in a town that thought of itself as cursed when he first arrived, Terry Francona has done his job magnificently. As the first manager in 86 years to bring home a trophy, he'd earned himself a few mulligans--as the first manager since the turn of the 20th century to bring home two Red Sox World Series trophies,he's reached another level entirely. Especially when you factor in that in the course of both victories, his ballplayers have poured in their best performances at the end of their postseason journeys, resulting in not one but two Series sweeps.

He's done it all, and he's done it all without winding up in a strait jacket. Lots of us think--and loudly declare--we could do his job, but in reality, I don't know that most of us could hack four years on the hot seat in this town, let alone with such results.

Here's to another three years of lineups and one-liners from our Skipper. I truly believe there isn't a better man for the job.

Be right with you....I hope

I'm sick of this. The days are getting longer and the beginnings of baseball are blooming down in Ft. Myers, Fla., and I should be reveling in the upcoming ring ceremony at Fenway Park and the endless source of delight that is Jonathan Papelbon. On top of it, I am well and truly sick of bickering and name-calling and scandal! scandal! scandal! over the Patriots.

And yet, the continuing drama over the Pats is really all I can think about when it comes to sports. I spend more time ruminating on Spygate and the latest flame war over the Patriots than I do contemplating whether Clay Buchholz will make the starting rotation or what the deal is with Curt Schilling's shoulder. I'm poring over comments threads on Boston sports websites, tossing back and forth the various existential questions, thrown gauntlets and moments of cognitive dissonance that accompany the latest fresh bad news about Bill Belichick's reputation, instead of hunting for the latest bleeped-out sound-bite from Josh Beckett.   

Since I'm thinking about it anyway, I've thrown out my point of view on things over at MVN--detailed the admittedly uneasy resolutions I've come to for now on the whole mess.

I can't speak for other Patriots fans, nor do I intend to. I can't answer for other Patriots fans who may have been obnoxious in the past, and the issue of whether or not we deserve this as a fan base is a pointless argument I'd rather not continue to have. Right now there's enough complexity just sorting out the facts.

So here's how I see things... 

Schilling's embroiled shoulder

And so it comes to this. Curt Schilling might have walked away at the end of this season as he had already decided, but it appears now an injury and being "embrolied [sic] in a medical controversy" may be what cap off his career, in a much more undignified manner.

In a way it's more romantic, I guess, for them to have to pry the baseball out of his cold, dead hands, but this late-breaking news could leave a hole in the rotation that might have been filled if he'd bowed out when he said he would.

And now the Red Sox have to wrangle with the medical experts, and, if you believe the Herald's account (which Curt disputes), engage in a battle of wills with a 41-year-old pitcher about whether or not he should continue a rehab program or have major surgery on a shoulder that's been repaired before. At the very least, regardless of the course of treatment, it now appears that if Curt pitches in 2008, it will be in a spotty manner similar to, if not worse than, 2007.

I love Curt Schilling, and I have been his biggest defender on many occasions. But in this case, the prescription I'd advise for this problem--for the Red Sox and for Curt--is retirement.

True Colors

It's such a big game today, even our US Senators don't have anything better to worry about. So it should follow that the Statue of Liberty has weighed in too.

Screw all the haters. GO PATS.