Fighting Words

In which I announce my return with one-hit wonder analogies and much writer handwringing

2010-04-19T05:20:00.003-04:00

If my career had a voice, this is the song it would be singing!

Why hello there. Long time no see. OK, I’m not kidding myself that anyone has been hitting refresh here with any sort of regularity since my last post a mere 172 days ago, way back when the adjective “long-suffering” still preceded the words “Yankees fans.” Ahh, the good ol’ days.

The plan was to post occasionally throughout the off-season, but I ended up much busier than anticipated at my other blog, Defiantly Dutch, where I write and Tweet about sports at my alma mater, Hofstra. To localize it for you: We no longer play Division I-AA football, either.

Turns out that killing football a mere 10 days after Northeastern dropped the ax (and if you believe THAT’S a coincidence, I’ve got some great land below the Throgs Neck Bridge I’d like to sell you) was just the beginning of a wild few months for Hofstra, whose men’s basketball team had a rollercoaster season highlighted by the morning in January in which I alienated the entire fan base of the Patriots by declaring their coach a classless bully who runs up the score.

The season ended with one of the best games I’ve ever seen, a double overtime loss to Northeastern in the conference quarterfinals, followed by the most depressing game I’ve ever seen, a wire-to-wire loss to something called an IUPUI in something called a CBI (Northeastern won a game in the tournament last year while Boston University won two games this year, and if you know that, I’m pretty sure you should read Defiantly Dutch). And after all that, longtime head coach Tom Pecora—who arrived at Hofstra while I was still a student—left for Fordham.

Add into the equation a foray into copy writing and there hasn’t been a whole lot of spare time. In addition, I’ve been uncertain how to proceed with Fighting Words: The Blog. The book has been out for almost a year now, and the harsh truth is the shelf life of a book is about as brief as that of a movie. (Don’t let that stop you from buying a copy today though!) That’s right: This weekend’s Date Night is next month’s Fighting Words!

I worry about becoming multiple versions of That Guy—either the one who keeps prattling on about a book that long ago collected dust or the one who continues to yammer on, long after he has become irrelevant, about the teams and players he covered.

I have spent far too many Sunday afternoons watching those VH-1 marathons that alternately celebrate the ‘80s and mock those whose careers peaked when Ronald Reagan still occupied the White House. Am I becoming the sportswriter version of one of the has-beens of my youth, performing long after everyone has stopped paying attention?

I mean, look, I loved Pretty Poison’s one hit, but I’m not in any rush to see them in concert, you know? (Parenthetical digression: The movie from which it came, Hiding Out, is one of the true rainy day gems of the ‘80s, and notable because Jon Cryer looked older there than he does more than 20 years later in Two And A Half Men).

I can just hear the vaguely condescending narrator now: “Twelve years after [Name of Behemoth Media Company redacted] booted his ass to the curb, Jerry continues to write about the Red Sox at his blog!” Then I’d say something about how I write for the love of the art and how I’m working on a new book that will be released next year!

I’m also pretty sure the world doesn’t need another guy blogging about baseball from his recliner or couch. Reporters with access and credentials have enough trouble getting people to eyeball their work, never mind the rest of us. And writing about baseball is another reminder that another season has begun and I’m not absorbing the sights, sounds and smells of a ballpark. I’m not going to lie to you, that’s a downer.

But as Carl Van Doren once famously said—before he died in my hometown, I didn’t know that until just now—“It’s hard to write, but it’s harder not to.” (Meanwhile, my seventh-grade teacher from said hometown sadly shakes her head at a sentence ending in a preposition)

Writing is a narcotic, or so assumes this teetotaler. Writing about baseball is particularly addictive. As much as I’ve come to enjoy covering college basketball, writing about baseball is still my first and true love. I’d rather write about it from here than not at all.

Plus, let’s face it, I need to write if I want to rewrite my Pretty Poison fate. So the goal now is to revive this blog and opine every weekday on the Red Sox, Major League Baseball, the media and whatever else comes to mind. I won’t push the book too much, but I’ll post one of the many Q&As I’ve still got in my back pocket if there’s a worthy reason to do so. Hopefully, the chance to do some actual reportage—here or elsewhere—appears as well.

And if not, well, I’ll try to have fun anyway and hope someone out there is enjoying it, too. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to begin waxing poetic again about the idea of a six-man rotation.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Pedro’s still got it

2009-10-29T08:38:00.002-04:00

Pedro Martinez was at his best Wednesday. Photo from this site.

Who knows how Pedro Martinez will fare tonight when he takes the mound for the Phillies in Game Two of the World Series, but judging by his press conference Wednesday, he’s still performing at his Hall of Fame peak in front of the microphones.

Former Boston Herald beat writer Jeff Horrigan was right: This guy is the best quote in any language. I understand when fans roll their eyes at reporters gushing over the quote-ability of players, and I’ll freely admit my Martinez bias eight days a week after he provided me the best interview of my career virtually sight unseen in 2005, but I think everyone understands Martinez is a once-in-a-generation guy when it comes to filling notebooks—and that he really stands out in a world in which players are coached to say a lot without saying anything at all *cough* looking at you Derek Jeter *cough cough*.

His post-game press conference after Game Two of the 2004 ALCS was the stuff of legend—so much so that when a reporter thanked Martinez for his “mango tree” answer, such deference actually almost felt warranted. Martinez was almost as captivating at the new Yankee Stadium Wednesday, during which he gave a pretty revealing glimpse into his brilliant mind during an 11-question session.

Martinez gets the complexities of baseball (he made sure to point out that while the convenient storyline is the Mets choked the previous two seasons, the Phillies and Marlins—the latter of whom beat the Mets in the season finale in both 2007 and 2008 to knock the Mets out of the playoffs—played tremendously down the stretch as well as the coverage of the game and the emotions of the fans watching it.

Unlike so many of his peers, he gets that it’s not really personal when the back pages and those in the stands are shouting at him and calling him the bad guy. Yet he still expects—demands—people to separate the competitor from the person and is offended by being characterized as a bad man or a devil. He can lecture the media about his unfair portrayal, yet instead of sounding overly sensitive, he provides so much evidence for his case that it should give headline writers and cartoonists everywhere pause.

He can put into eloquent terms the power a player feels when an entire stadium is either rooting for or against him and how it fills him with equal parts arrogance and humility. And he can explain why he could feel bad over what happened with Don Zimmer during Game Three of the 2003 ALCS yet not apologize for reacting naturally to the sight of Zimmer charging at him.

Martinez turns 38 in less than a month and has hinted he could retire after the season. Let’s hope he sticks around for a while longer and continues providing an increasingly vanilla game some much-needed personality. But just in case he’s serious, tune in tonight, when I imagine Martinez will be at his charismatic best both on and off the field.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Root for the Phillies…for America’s sake

2009-10-29T08:30:00.003-04:00

Do it for the rest of us, Phillies. Photo from this site.

I’m the 1962 Mets when it comes to predictions, but if you’re one of those people who thinks baseball mirrors America, you should root for me to be correct when I pick the Phillies to win the World Series in six games.

There was a nice bit of symbolism last September, when our financial system collapsed just as the Yankees were missing the playoffs for the first time since 1993. Finally, it seemed, we had reached a point where even the deepest of pockets could not spend their way out of trouble. It was a time of reckoning, in which the people whose recklessness led to the Great Recession had to be held accountable for their actions…as did those who signed Carl Pavano to a four-year deal worth nearly $40 million.

Finally, even in the capitalism capital of the world, restraint was no longer an option, it was a necessity. We had to realize good times would not last forever, and that it was time to build something more sustainable and conservative…that it was time to spend more time building one’s farm system than shopping for the biggest and splashiest names.

And then the Yankees went out, spent nearly half a billion dollars on the three best free agents on the market and won 103 games and the AL pennant. Doesn’t really fill you with hope that the rest of America is leaning its lesson, does it? So we need the Phillies to win, to remind those who hold our financial fate in their slimy little hands of the consequences of unrestrained and unfettered greed.

Or maybe you should just root for the Phillies because the grief and anguish of Yankee fans who think it’s their birthright to win the World Series provides sustenance for the rest of us. Either/or.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Sox' only failure this season is one of perspective

2009-10-13T23:47:00.008-04:00

The painful end to the Sox' season doesn't make it a failure for Dustin Pedroia or his teammates. Photo from this site.

I don’t know about you, but when Jonathan Papelbon moved within one strike of closing out the victory in Game Three of the AL Division Series Sunday, I began clearing my viewing schedule for Wednesday night’s decisive Game Five in Anaheim.

I mean, did anyone doubt the ALDS was going back west at that point? The Sox had withstood several flurries by the Angels, who were beginning their usual Fenway fade with Mike Scioscia squawking at the umps and Reggie Willits channeling Matt Holliday and getting picked off first base by Papelbon to end an eighth inning rally. The Sox would gain more momentum in Game Four behind Jon Lester who, even on three days rest, was a far safer bet than soft-tossing Angels lefty Joe Saunders. And you’d have to like the Sox’ chances against the reeling Angels in Game Five.

But now I can watch Glee, because Papelbon channeled the man he succeeded as the most prolific closer in Sox history by failing to record that final strike multiple times and blowing the save as the Sox suffered a 7-6 loss.

The manner in which the Sox lost was shocking—who would have guessed Papelbon would have his Mariano Rivera moment in the ALDS; even when I’m right I’m still wrong—but that their season ended so early should not come as a surprise.

It’s funny, albeit in a way that’s not funny to most Sox fans, how the Sox are now the team that’s proving merely having a historical edge over a rival doesn’t make up for being the lesser team. When it came to breaking down the series a week (or three weeks) ago, it was easy to rely on the ol’ reliables when it comes to Sox-Angels in October—the Sox owning the Angels at Fenway, the Sox’ ruthlessly effective offense wearing out a workmanlike Angels staff, Scioscia getting too cute—and come up with a way the Sox would advance to the ALCS.

But all that stuff was irrelevant. The Angels were the better and more complete team while the Sox were far more flawed and inconsistent than their 95 wins might indicate.

The Sox were just 79-65 against teams not named the Baltimore Orioles. They went 27-11 immediately after the season-altering four-game sweep at the hands of the Yankees against competition that finished the season 53 games over .500. Yet they were just 12-16 in the second half against teams that finished over .500.

The Sox finished over .500 in every month, but by four games or fewer in May, July and August. They went 8-14 in the first 22 games following the All-Star Break, during which they went from three games ahead of the Yankees to 6 ½ behind.

Their September/October record (19-13) was boosted by four freebies on the final weekend of the season against the Indians, managed by Dead Man Walking Eric Wedge. In fact, the Sox lost their final nine games against teams that were still trying (Yankees, Blue Jays and Angels).

As usual, the Sox finished among the majors’ top offensive teams, but they were more dangerous at home, where they averaged 5.94 runs per game and recorded a .365 on-base percentage and .498 slugging percentage, than on the road, where they averaged 4.83 runs per game with a .340 on-base percentage and a .414 slugging percentage.

The Sox went cold on offense at the most inopportune time against the Angels, but sudden outages were a common theme this season. The Sox opened the season by scoring five runs or less in eight straight games, during which they went 2-6. Here are their other extended droughts with their record in that stretch in parenthesis.

—Scored four runs or less in seven of eight games from May 10-19 (4-4)

—Scored three runs or less in five straight games from May 26-30 (1-4)

—Scored four runs or less in five straight games from June 25-29 (3-2)

—Scored four runs or less in seven straight games from July 17-24 (2-5)

—Scored four runs or less in five of six games from Aug. 4-9 (0-6)

The team that seemed to have almost too much depth in the first half of the season with eight potential starting pitchers, a whole bunch of closer-type relievers setting up for Papelbon and players like Julio Lugo and Rocco Baldelli on the bench entered the playoffs with a three-man rotation, a long reliever (Paul Byrd) who was three months removed from pitching to his son’s team, two reserve outfielders (Brian Anderson and Joey Gathright) who spent the bulk of the season with other organizations and combined for just 33 at-bats with the Sox and a backup middle infielder (Jed Lowrie) who hit .147 in 68 at-bats.

This was a flawed team that Theo Epstein tried to retool on the fly with an atypical mid-season blockbuster trade. And he’ll surely work a hundred or so hours per week between now and mid-February trying to create a championship-caliber squad that will play a lot deeper into October next year.

But what if the Sox’ biggest problem cannot be fixed with a couple savvy transactions? What if the issue is the collective makeup?

This theory comes with plenty of caveats. Maybe, since I was sitting in my recliner Sunday night, I missed something subtle in Dustin Pedroia’s delivery earlier in the afternoon, and maybe his words cannot be taken too seriously since they were uttered minutes after a shocking season-ending defeat. And maybe I misread the vibe around Fenway Park during my brief visits to Boston this year.

But in spilling so many pixels earlier this season about how the Red Sox have turned into the Yankees, we never pondered what seems so obvious now: That the Sox, like the last few Yankees teams managed by Joe Torre, seem suffocatingly serious and sucked dry by sky-high internal expectations that declare anything short of a world championship not worth the effort.

“We all think of this year as a failure,” Pedroia told reporters after the game.

This is a team that plays in a city that worships its athletes and whose decision-makers have earned a deservedly wide benefit of the doubt from the vast media that covers it. So why are the Sox, from the very top on down, harping on the perceived negativity surrounding the team and dismissively waving away the attention with one hand while giving Google a workout with the other?

Again: Parsing coverage and attention in hopes of finding any slight, real or manufactured, is in the DNA of every elite athlete, as I write in Fighting Words (available now!). But at some point, doesn’t it become counter-productive?

The Yankees, meanwhile, are turning into the 2003-04 Sox before our very eyes, with the likes of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Nick Swisher infusing a goofy, relaxed aura into the once-stuffy locker room. That said, all the chatter about the looser, more carefree Yankees won’t mean a thing if they are disposed of by the Angels or the NL champion, and this is not a plaintive cry to bring back the Idiots.

It must also be noted that the Sox are less than two years removed from winning it all with a seemingly joyless team and less than 365 days removed from a thrilling, albeit aborted, ALCS comeback against the Rays that was almost every bit as unbelievable and gutsy as the one the Sox pulled off in 2004.

And of course there should be disappointment in the aftermath of a season-ending defeat, and of course the ultimate goal should always be a world championship. But there is no shame—and certainly no failure—in wringing every last bit of season out of a flawed squad. Infusing the roster with some more talent is key this winter, but not as pivotal, perhaps, as Epstein infusing it with some perspective as well.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Fighting Words Q&A: Theo Epstein

2009-10-07T08:10:00.004-04:00

Theo Epstein's approach to his job, post-return to the general manager position, makes more time for business and less time for answering reporters' questions. Photo from this site.

With the Red Sox preparing for their annual October vanquishing of the Angels (that’s right, I said it), there’s no better time than now to unveil the most pivotal interview I conducted in the writing of Fighting Words—a Q&A with Theo Epstein, who has been the architect of six playoff teams in his seven years as general manager.

As I noted in my Q&A with Bruce Allen last month, the follow-up with Epstein was the interview I needed to tie everything together. The book could have been written without his additional input, and at some point it would have had to have been written, but I can’t lie: Some nights I wake up in a cold sweat thinking the interview still hasn’t happened and that I’m still waiting on it to finish the book.

Here’s how I described the process to Bruce in our interview:

Landing Epstein for a follow-up (I interviewed him twice, once for a magazine feature and another time about the media, in 2004) was quite a delicate procedure that took nearly two years. Obviously, he really reduced his profile following the events of 2004 and 2005. He never definitely declined my requests, but he made it clear he was reluctant to talk about the media and to contribute to the celebrity culture that surrounds so many media members. I was beginning to think it wasn’t meant to be when he called me during a rain delay on the final day of the 2006 season and I missed the call because I had my phone on silent in the press box.

Finally, during a series against the Royals in July 2007, I saw him in Terry Francona’s office before Francona’s daily presser. When all the reporters went upstairs around 4, Epstein hung around talking to someone in the office, so I waited right outside the locker room door, figuring my best and last chance to get him would be when there was no one else around. He walked out, I made my pitch, said my book was about why the media was such a part of the story in Boston and that his input would be incredibly valuable. He agreed to the interview and it ended up being the one I really needed to tie everything together. Everyone knew Theo had changed since taking over as GM, but why? It wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting if I didn’t have supporting quotes and evidence from him.

I’m sure that if I started this project in 2005, instead of 2004 when I got to talk to him a few times under more relaxed circumstances, I never would have gotten him for such an in-depth interview, or even written this book.

Along those lines: The book, and in particular the chapters about the post-’04 era, would not have been complete without the contributions Epstein made during the July ’07 interview. I thank Epstein for his access and hope you enjoy this interview.

J.P. Ricciardi said that Boston is a great place to grow up as a baseball fan but a tough place to play and work. Do you agree with that assessment?

I think the nature of the media here adds an additional challenging element to what’s already a challenging job. It’s nothing that can’t be handled.

In 2004 you said that you thought you could “…provide a lot of answers” about what you and the front office are doing and that “…five percent of the stuff is best not publicized.” Has that ratio changed at all?

I think the ratio’s probably changed a little bit, because there’s more competition and I think lower standards in general among some media members. So information that could be perfectly innocent otherwise can be used in a way that’s detrimental to the club and to the benefit of that media outlet. So we don’t want to risk anything. We don’t want to risk putting out information that can be used in a fashion that’s going to harm our ultimate goal.

Has the ratio changed at all because of competitive reasons?

That’s always been a constant. I just think that a few years ago, there was a certain expectation that information would be used a certain way. There’d be a certain level of understanding, decorum. And I think with the increased presence of the Internet and the general sort of lack of standards that exist—I’m not casting a wide net, but [in] certain sections of the media world—it really limits the mount of trust we can have when we put out general information.

Has that media world changed since you’ve been here?

Yeah. Again: More outlets, more blogs, fewer editors, lower standards for accuracy, accountability makes it a little bit more difficult. And it’s a shame, because that limits the amount of interaction we have, the information we can put out there with the people who still have high standards and are still accurate and still do their jobs very well. That’s the way it is.

Upon returning, you said there was a lot that could be learned from how the Patriots disseminated information. What did you mean by that?

That was really more of an in-house [thing]. Some things that are happening internally—we had too many people with access to information, too many people who could share information for their own benefit. We just kind of tightened up our ship a little bit, made our message a little bit more uniform. It’s been helpful.

Have you been more cautious with injury information?

[pauses] Not more so injury information than other information. I just think that, these days, it makes sense just to make sure everyone’s on the same page internally. Get [out] the information, if there’s some official means, rather than answer a question here or there and letting it trickle out. Because, again, [of] the instantaneous nature of some media.

How much more cautious are you as opposed to when you took over as general manager prior to 2003?

I’m not any more cautious. I just think that since the environment has changed, I’ve changed with it.

Does the size of this market make it difficult to be as open and as accessible as you’d like?

To me, it all boils down to what’s in the best interests of the team. And I don’t mean that from a marketing standpoint. I mean that from a wins and losses standpoint. Because, to me, that’s ultimately the most important thing. I think when we win, we’re popular. People are happy and that’s the bottom line. In a perfect world, yes, there is a way to be open and completely honest and still protect the vital information and allow us time to do what’s the most important parts of our job. I guess you could call that ideal.

But the reality is we’re in a slightly different age and we’re not living in an ideal world. There’s a lot of information, there are some people that use information in a way to promote their media outlets that prove to be sort of obstacles to us achieving our goals—not in any big way, but in a way that adds up over time. And so we’re just trying to make sure that we are aware of that when we interact with the media. And I think, in a way, it might make me personally less popular. But I couldn’t give a [expletive] about that. I care about protecting the interests of the organization, which is to win games.

Are you purposely maintaining a lower profile now than you did at the beginning of your tenure?

Yeah, yeah. I definitely do that on purpose. Because one, it’s hard to do my job when I’m available every day to every writer. So I just try to be around less. And I think one thing that I found and that others found is life goes on, you know? I think if people really need me to answer questions, they can find me. I’ll always respond to phone calls or emails or setting up an appointment or anything along those lines. Life goes on. It’s not the most important thing in the world to answer the same question 45 times from 45 different writers every day about injury status that’s the exact same as it was yesterday and is the same as it’s going to be tomorrow.

Ultimately, it’s not about me. It’s not about any one individual. It’s about the Red Sox and there’s plenty to write about over the course of nine innings and what our organization is, our competitiveness and our ability to try and win a World Series every year.

Do you think it’s tough for players to differentiate between the different types of media?

Yeah, yeah, Because I know it can be tough for us, and we have more time to try and hash through it. So for a player, certainly, it’s tough for them. And they don’t have an obligation to be able to tell 60 different people apart, you know? [laughs]

Do you think your renewed cautiousness has led or could lead to a strain with the reporters covering the team?

Again: I think people know where to find me. I just think that the thing about instant accessibility is that people always turn to whoever’s right there to answer a question. Ninety-nine percent of the quotes that are used are pretty mundane. Anyone can give them. If someone has a question they really want me to answer—if I can do so without compromising the interests of the organization—I know I’ll be there to answer that question. If not, then [talk to former director of media relations] John Blake. Email me. Call me. I’ll find a way to answer the questions. I don’t think it should cause strain. If it did, then life goes on.

Looking back on your first year or two as general manager, do you wish you knew then what you know now about the media relations part of the job?

No, I think it was a little bit different time. And my first attempt was to be sort of as open and honest as possible as I could while protecting the interests of the organization. That proved to be a.) extremely difficult, b.) extremely time-consuming and c.) as things changed in the media world, not possible. So now I’ve taken an approach that allows me to do my job. And as we said, life goes on with the media. There’s always someone else to fill up a notebook.

How do you go about preparing rookies for the media in Boston via the rookie development program?

We run through the media—what to say, suggesting approaches to dealing with it, about being accountable, accessible [and] cooperative while protecting themselves at the same time. I think our guys were lucky that guys come through Lowell, Portland and Pawtucket. By the time they get up here, they have a pretty good feel for what awaits them.

Do you think the demands on the time of managers, general managers and players in Boston is unique to Boston?

I don’t think it’s unique to Boston. I think it’s certainly as much of a factor here as it is anywhere else. I think there’s levels of intensity. Boston is, along with probably New York, Philly at times, one of the most intense. It’s not that big a deal. I just—if I have an extra 45 minutes a day to look through other teams’ farm systems or watch a minor league game on TV or do something else that’s going to hopefully help us make a good decision and someone else can kind of fill up a writer’s notebook. If that writer really has a question for me, they can find me. I think that’s fine. I think that’s a good solution.

Lastly, what did you think of the coverage of your resignation and return following the 2005 season?

I didn’t, really. That coverage of that winter—I just think there’s not a lot to write about in the winter. I don’t think I’m that important that I could generate that much coverage. But again, there’s no games going on. I think if something like that happened during the season, it would have been more of a secondary story.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

It’s just one indulgence on top of another

2009-10-07T08:00:00.003-04:00

If my predictions are right (for once), among the sights I'll be missing this month is Ubaldo Jimenez once again pitching against the Red Sox in the World Series.

Earlier sunsets, crisper air and Columbus Day approaching on the calendar: I’ll try not to bore you too much with the details, but damn, does this week ever remind me how much I miss covering the playoffs.

It was a challenge for various logistical reasons—the access is terrible, the interview room is a breeding ground for clichés, I worked for companies that didn’t pay for travel and there was the nightmare before Game One of the 2007 World Series, when I almost bought a new laptop at the Best Buy outside Fenway Park because a speck of dust in my hard drive completely shut the computer down—but the payoff was well worth it.

What I love about the regular season is it tests those who follow and chronicle it. It’s a challenge to not get lulled by the monotony that is inescapable at some point during a 162-game season. For entirely different reasons, the postseason also provides quite the test. You never know when the defining moment of the series and season will arrive, so full attention must be devoted to every pitch.

The playoffs symbolize baseball’s beautiful unpredictability. The anonymous are thrust on to center stage and superstars are reduced to underachieving understudies (cough, Alex Rodriguez, cough cough).

Baseball’s critics have a field day with the marathon games, and Bud Selig cannot be hammered enough for these ludicrous starting times, especially come the World Series. But there is nothing like the building suspense of a taut playoff game, nothing like the buzz increasing from the time the catcher throws the ball back to the pitcher and turning into a deafening roar before the next pitch is thrown.

Damn do I miss it. Email me if you need coverage. I’ll work cheap!

You probably didn’t want to hear some exiled writer waxing poetic/pathetic about the good ol’ days. You REALLY probably didn’t want some more playoff predictions from a guy sitting on his couch (well, I’m actually away at the moment, so it’s my wife’s best friend’s coach, but I digress), but…I’m so good at predictions, I figured I’d try again!

AL Division Series

Red Sox over Angels in 4. The Sox look more vulnerable heading into the playoffs than they have since 2005 and the Angels are nothing if not due to finally beat the Sox. The Angels’ speed should wreck havoc with the Sox, whose catchers have thrown out a meager 13 percent of opposing base stealers this season. All logic says I should pick the Angels. But Jon Lester and Josh Beckett easily provide the best 1-2 punch in the AL, and once again, I’ll take Terry Francona every single time over Mike Scioscia.

Yankees over Twins in 3. Remain quite skeptical of how CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett will handle October—not to mention Rodriguez as well as the super high-strung Joe Girardi—but this could be a historic thrashing. All the momentum in the world doesn’t change the fact the Twins’ starter tonight is Brian Duensing, who was bumped from his must-win start in the regular season “finale” Sunday in favor of Carl Pavano. That’s not good, and neither is this: Pavano, the most loathed Yankee in generations, would seem to be in line to start Game Two at Yankee Stadium. Oh well, at least the Twins have last night.

NL Division Series

Cardinals over Dodgers in 3. Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright is an even better duo than Lester and Beckett and Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday are a modern day version of David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez. Speaking of Ramirez, he’s been awfully quiet since his 50-day suspension, hasn’t he (.269-13-45-.492 SLG in 260 at-bats)? Another postseason fade for Joe Torre.

Rockies over Phillies in 4. As noted last week, the concept that the team that is hottest entering the playoffs is the most dangerous is pretty much bunk. But the Rockies were the hottest NL team two years ago, and look where they ended up. This team, too, seems to be bursting with positive karma, and it has the lockdown ace (Ubaldo Jimenez) the ’07 team lacked. The Phils did everything they could to make the NL East interesting down the stretch and their lack of stability at closer will haunt them at least once this series.

AL Championship Series

Red Sox over Yankees in 6. Lester/Beckett vs. Sabathia/Burnett, at least in October, is a no-brainer. Teixeira proves to be a lot like A-Rod when it counts most and John Henry returns to Tweeter to gloat about it.

NL Championship Series

Rockies over Cardinals in 7. A classic series and the Rockies get the last laugh on Holliday.

World Series

Rockies over Red Sox in 7. Three straight deep October runs catch up to the Sox and Jonathan Papelbon finally has his Mariano Rivera moment.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Some cosmetic games are better looking than others

2009-10-02T23:58:00.006-04:00

The Red Sox' cosmetic games this week are positively Jennifer Aniston-ian compared to those being played by their foes, the Blue Jays and Indians. Photo from this site.

There’s not a lot Terry Francona hasn’t seen in six seasons as Red Sox manager, but the last five games of the regular season are an entirely new experience for him. When the Sox clinched the wild card early Wednesday morning, it rendered the final game of the three-game series against the Blue Jays and the four-game series against the Indians completely irrelevant—or, as he called it, “cosmetic.”

There’s no AL East title up for grabs and no questions about whom the Sox will face in the AL Division Series. This marks the earliest the Sox have reached the “cosmetic” stage in a season in which they reached the playoffs under Francona.

In 2004, the Sox clinched a playoff berth with six games left and were eliminated from the AL East race with three games left. In 2005, the Sox clinched the wild card on the final day of the season. In 2007, the Sox clinched a playoff berth with seven games left and sealed the AL East with two games left. And last year, the Sox clinched a playoff berth with five games left and were eliminated from the AL East race with two games left. (In 2006, the Sox were knocked out of playoff contention with seven games to play)

“I hope we play good, because that’s why we show up,” Francona said Wednesday afternoon. “Every time we play, I want to play good…[but] the next five games are kind of cosmetic. I hope our record is better than it is worse, but these games have no bearing on what we do next week.”

The uselessness of these games, as well as the D-list lineup Francona wrote out in the aftermath of Tuesday’s late-night celebration, made for a predictably ugly game Wednesday in which Roy Halladay flirted with history and the Sox danced with ignobility. Joey Gathright’s clean single broke up Halladay’s no-hit bid in the sixth inning, but Tim Wakefield’s continued struggles and Francona’s reluctance to use his top relievers in a meaningless contest meant we were all treated to the sight of Dusty Brown becoming the team-record third position player this season—and first catcher ever—to take the mound in a game.

Not fun for Francona to witness, but, as he noted, completely irrelevant in the grand scheme. And, by the way, a whole lot better than the cosmetic nature of these games for the Jays and Indians.

The Jays entertained thoughts of competing for a playoff berth when they raced out to an AL-best 27-14 start, but reality—as well as the task of actually playing their division rivals, against whom they played just three times in those first 41 games—hit in a big way for the Jays, who are 48-71 since then—and that’s after winning nine of their last 11 games—and, reportedly, uprising against Cito Gaston.

At least the Jays’ last playoff appearance is 16 years in the rear view mirror. Imagine how depressing it’s got to be for the members of the Indians who are just shy of two years removed from having a three games to one lead on the Sox in the AL Championship Series heading into a Game Five started by eventual Cy Young Award winner CC Sabathia.

The Sox, of course, didn’t lose again until 2008 while the Indians fell apart. Sabathia was dealt last July in the midst of a rotten first half and Cliff Lee—Sabathia’s successor as the Cy Young winner—and Victor Martinez were traded this year as the Indians endured an even worse season. Eric Wedge, whose uptight demeanor seemed to deaden the mood even as the Indians moved within a game of the World Series in ’07, was mercifully fired Wednesday, though he inexplicably agreed to remain the manager through the end of the season.

He’s probably wondering just why he subjected himself to five more games of this: Including tonight’s loss, the Indians are 0-3 since he was fired and have scored just two runs in 27 innings. They’ve been the perfect tonic for a Sox club that entered the series having been outscored 47-19 during a six-game losing streak.

It’s all still cosmetic, but at least it looks a little better. Of course, regardless of how the Sox fared, that would be the case anyway, since when it comes to final week ugliness, “wait ‘til next week” sounds a whole lot better than “wait ‘til next year.”

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Is this it for Tim Wakefield?

2009-10-01T06:14:00.004-04:00

It's been all downhill for Tim Wakefield since his first selection to the All-Star Game in July. Photo from this site.

BOSTON--Asked in his pregame press conference Wednesday what he would like to see out of Tim Wakefield later in the evening, Terry Francona said he hoped Wakefield could simply pitch—or some variation thereof—four times.

“I think the biggest thing we hope is that he can pitch—kind of pitch and not limp and not have [other issues],” Francona said. “He can pitch. That’s the biggest thing. There are no guarantees what the knuckleball’s going to do or [if] they’re going to hit it, but if he can go out and pitch, that would be real good.”

It did not turn out real good for Wakefield or the Sox, and it might be time to wonder if simply pitching is no longer possible for the knuckleballer, who gave up five runs on seven hits, including three homers, in three innings as the Sox suffered a 12-0 loss to the Blue Jays.

The start was just the fourth for Wakefield since the All-Star Break, and it is almost inconceivable that he’ll make another appearance this year. Even with plenty of time between outings, Wakefield has barely been able to make it to the mound due to a nerve issue in his back that has drastically sapped the strength in his left leg.

“My left leg is about 60 percent of what my right leg is, so fatigue sets in pretty quick,” Wakefield said. “I’m not going to make excuses on my back. I’m going to go out there and give whatever I have that particular night and try to win a game. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough tonight.”

That’s been a common theme for Wakefield since a storybook first half in which he made his first All-Star Game and seemed primed to make a run at becoming the oldest first-time 20-game winner in history. Wakefield went on the disabled list July 21, and since throwing seven innings of one-run ball and earning the win in his return Aug. 16, he has lasted just six, five and three innings and recorded an 0-2 mark with an 8.36 ERA and 2.14 WHIP despite making those starts on eight days, 15 days and eight days of rest.

It was painful to watch Wakefield limp throughout a laborious 76-pitch effort last night in which he looked every bit of his 43 years, right down to a waistline that looks as if it’s expanded during his period of relative inactivity. Wakefield limped coming on and off the field and looked particularly vulnerable moving off the mound in pursuit of a bunt by John McDonald.

“I think we all saw on the bunt, trying to reverse direction, you can see how much it’s hurting him or limiting him,” Francona said. “I thought after that play he was dragging a little bit in his delivery. He’d thrown a lot of pitches. He wanted to stay in and pitch, which I respect a lot. I didn’t think it was in his best interest.”

“You’ve seen it for two months now,” Wakefield said. “It’s hard for me to obviously cover first and it’s hard for me to field my position.”

Neither Francona nor Wakefield would confirm the obvious—that Wakefield will not make the AL Division Series roster, or, one must assume, any series roster thereafter—so it wasn’t a surprise that neither pondered the possibility Wakefield may have hobbled off a mound for the last time at 7:53 p.m. after he struck out Jose Bautista.

In declining to answer a question about Wakefield’s availability for the postseason, Francona said “There’s a lot of unknowns.” But the unknowns may just be beginning for Wakefield and the Sox.

Wakefield is expected to have surgery on his back after the season, but such a procedure seems particularly delicate when performed on a 43-year-old. This is also the fourth straight season in which his second half has been marred by injury and will almost surely be the second time in three seasons he misses a chunk of the postseason. The Sox will likely pick up Wakefield’s perpetual $4 million option this fall as long as he expresses an interest in returning, but at some point, the diminishing returns will make it difficult for the club to enter spring training him penciled into a starting spot.

There are some difficult decisions on the horizon for Wakefield and the Sox. And if last night was it, it would serve as a sad yet also somewhat appropriate finale to one of the most remarkable careers in Sox history.

There was no pomp or circumstance for the perpetually stoic Wakefield, no warmup tosses in the fourth before Francona walks out to the mound to pull Wakefield and allow him to exit to a standing ovation. For a pitcher who prides himself on his reliability, versatility and accountability, even when his body is letting him down, it was just another day.

“I don’t want to give up on the team, regardless if I’m 60 percent,” Wakefield said. “I feel like I’m needed. The staff has made it clear that I’m needed to be out there and I’m going to go out there at 40 percent if I have to.”

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Despite recent fall, Sox can still celebrate

2009-09-30T04:54:00.005-04:00

Jonathan Papelbon and the Red Sox should have saved the celebrating for the AL Division Series. Photo from this site.

The Red Sox clinched the John Blake Cup—and with it the American League wild card—in perhaps the most anticlimactic fashion possible early this morning, when, hours after the Sox dropped their fifth in a row (albeit after a frenzied comeback against the Blue Jays fell one run short), the Rangers were eliminated from contention with a 5-2 loss to the Angels.

Terry Francona said he wasn’t planning to stick around to watch the Rangers game, but apparently a lot of the Sox players did and whooped it up once the Angels won. Which, quite frankly, strikes me as somewhat lame. Clinch the berth on the field, or clinch it by virtue of a Rangers loss a few hours after a Sox win? Party until dawn. Watching the Sox clinch the AL East by watching the Yankees lose to the Orioles on the final Friday of the 2007 season—and the subsequent celebration—was one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever experienced as a sportswriter.

But celebrating a wild card berth clinched hours after a loss seems a little excessive. Of course, the Yankees celebrated a division title earned in alternately similar yet far worse fashion in 2000, when they were in the midst of losing 15 of their final 18 games, and things turned out pretty well for them, so what do I know?

(And this may be of interest only to me, but the Sox’ decision to celebrate without allowing the media—not even the NESN cameras—into the clubhouse is a fascinating one, one that perhaps symbolizes not only the Sox’ continuing desire to conduct even the most routine of business in private fashion but also an ever-increasing divide between the franchise and the media. I smell the extra chapter in the paperback version of Fighting Words…but don’t wait, order the hardcover now!)

Even though they qualified following a loss, I don’t think for a second the Sox backed into the playoffs. A team that loses seven of nine games and still makes the playoffs with five days to spare didn’t back in, it merely earned the berth by distancing itself from the rest of the field weeks earlier. I’m willing to chalk this stumble up to human nature—with the Rangers in the midst of a toxic stretch in which they’ve lost 12 of 18 games, including eight by at least five runs, there was no sense of urgency to the final lap of the wild card pursuit—as well as the Sox running into the buzz saw Yankees last weekend.

Still, it’s natural to grow a bit skeptical about the Sox in light of their recent hiccups. But having learned my lesson multiple times this year about burying the Yankees too early or declaring the sky was descending upon the Sox, I figured I’d try the middle-of-the-road approach and research how teams that stumbled into the playoffs fared once they got there.

Except, well, someone beat me to it, and did a bang-up job in the process. Lisa Swan at The Faster Times (link found courtesy of NBCSports.com's Circling the Bases blog) ran the post-Sept. 1 numbers on all of this decade’s playoff teams and notes that two playoff teams that played sub-.500 ball after September 1—the 2000 Yankees and the 2006 Cardinals—went on to win the World Series while none of the 10 playoffs teams that played .700 ball after Sept. 1 won it all. In fact, the only team that hot to make it to the World Series was the 2007 Rockies, who of course lost to the Sox in a four-game sweep.

Bob Harkins of NBCSports.com notes that the idea that a team has to be hot in September in order to win the World Series probably stems from the fact that of the four champions to play .600 or better ball in September, three were wild cards—the 2002 Angels, the 2003 Marlins and the 2004 Sox.

As usual, the truth is a little different than perception. Swan’s research reveals the average post-Sept. 1 winning percentage for eventual World Series winners is .586, a smidge lower than the .596 winning percentage recorded by World Series losers.

The Red Sox’ winning percentage thus far this month, courtesy of Harkins? .555. Not great, not awful and, as Harkins also notes, not relevant at all come the first pitch of the Division Series. Especially since—and this is me writing, not Harkins or Swan—the Sox are playing the Angels, which gives the Sox a pretty damn good shot at earning a second and far more appropriate champagne-fueled celebration.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

The 1-2 punch cannot be cut in half

2009-09-29T05:17:00.004-04:00

An injury to Jon Lester or Josh Beckett could put the Red Sox down for the count in the playoffs. Photo from this site.

The Red Sox will enter the playoffs (and yes, with the magic number down to one, we’re well within reason in assuming the Sox will win once or the Rangers will lose once in the next six days) with one obvious edge over the rest of the American League playoff field. But the Sox were reminded of the precariousness of their starting pitching advantage twice in the last four days.

Jon Lester’s availability for the playoffs appeared to be in serious doubt when he could barely walk off the Yankee Stadium field after taking a line drive off his right leg in a 9-5 loss Friday. There still seemed to be plenty of reason for concern when the Sox announced shortly thereafter he had suffered a “quad contusion,” which seemed to be the fun-with-semantics strategy they used in describing Josh Beckett’s finger injury as an “avulsion”—and not a recurrence of his familiar blister issues—in 2007 as well as Jonathan Papelbon’s “shoulder subluxation”—and not a dislocated shoulder—in 2006.

But Terry Francona said Monday Lester is expected to make his next start as scheduled against the Indians Thursday, which qualifies as off-the-charts good news considering Lester appears likely to start Game One of the AL Division Series.

Alas, any relief the Sox felt over that was tempered by, if not outright negated by, the decision earlier Monday to scratch Josh Beckett from his start against the Blue Jays due to back spasms. It’s probably just a matter of the Sox playing it safe with their co-ace, especially given Beckett’s stated desire last week to get some rest before the playoffs, and Francona hinted after the game Monday Beckett will likely make a tune-up start against the Indians Saturday.

But still, it was another reminder that for all of Beckett’s excellence, this is the first season in which he has exceeded 205 innings—a mark previously reached by every other member of the Sox’ Opening Day rotation except Daisuke Matsuzaka, who threw 204 2/3 innings as a rookie in 2007—as well as of the oblique injury that wrecked his postseason a year ago.

And it’s another reminder of how brittle the Sox are beyond their top two, particularly if Lester or Beckett is compromised. The Sox should feel pretty confident putting the baseball in the hands of Clay Buchholz—untested in October but brilliant lately—for Game Three of the ALDS, but the Game Four starter, if necessary, will be Daisuke Matsuzaka, as much by necessity as merit despite his recent effectiveness.

That the Sox would have to start in a potential elimination game a pitcher who missed more than half the season and produced an ERA well north of 6 would have been inconceivable way back when we were all gushing about the impressive pitching depth the club had compiled. But John Smoltz and Brad Penny didn’t have AL-worthy stuff and Tim Wakefield has missed most of the second half, which has left the Sox in the same position as a year ago: Scrambling to find live bodies—one named Paul Byrd—to take the hill in September.

As I noted in this post about Smoltz and Penny in May, the Sox received a season’s worth of starts last year out of the sextet of Byrd, Bartolo Colon, Justin Masterson, David Pauley, Charlie Zink and Michael Bowden. Those hurlers pitched to a 5.00 ERA in 163 2/3 innings over 28 starts. Only five AL pitchers who pitched at least 162 innings last season fashioned an ERA of higher than 5.00.

The filling-in-the-gaps pitchers performed even worse this season. Masterson, Byrd, Smoltz, Bowden and Junichi Tazawa have combined to post a 6.68 ERA in 129 1/3 innings over 25 starts. Add Matsuzaka’s 11 starts into the equation and the six pitchers have compiled a 6.50 ERA in 182 2/3 innings. The highest ERA among big league qualifiers belongs to Livan Hernandez, who has a 5.48 ERA between the Mets and the Nationals. The Blue Jays’ Brian Tallet has the highest ERA among AL qualifiers (5.32).

All of which is to say we’ve learned our lesson when it comes to extolling the depth of a team’s starting pitching—and that the advantage the Sox enjoy atop their rotation with Lester and Beckett is a tenuous one, one that feels ever more precarious with every ache and pain experienced by the duo.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

So root, root, root against Yankees fans...

2009-09-29T05:11:00.003-04:00

If you think Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter are relieved to have ended the Yankees' AL East title drought, you should see how their fans are reacting. Photo from this site.

After spending the better part of 16 years living on Long Island, I’ve come to think that it’s not so much the Yankees people hate as their fans.

Oh sure, it’s impossible not to direct scorn at Alex Rodriguez (it cannot be said enough: for sheer unintentional hilarity, there is nothing funnier than the sight of A-Rod on the fringe of a Yankees celebration or brawl, desperately looking for someone to hug or a couple bodies to pry apart). The cool corporateness of Derek Jeter long ago grew old, as did his penchant for the overly dramatic (seriously, he could have made that catch against the Sox in ’04 without crashing into the seats and bloodying up his legend) and the overwrought praise that means he is still overrated despite his MVP-caliber season (and by MVP-caliber, I mean he’s in the race to finish second behind Joe Mauer). And don’t get us going on Joe Girardi.

In addition, the Yankees’ off-season spending spree—conducted one winter after Brian Cashman preached financial restraint and patience with the Yankees’ prospects and in the middle of the worst economy in nearly 80 years—hasn’t exactly endeared them to the fans of the other 29 teams, many of whom are more steadfast than ever in believing baseball’s famously unbalanced playing field needs to be fixed with a salary cap.

But while those are all valid reasons to root, root, root for whomever the Yankees are playing, I’m more certain than ever, following the reaction to the Yankees clinching the division title, that loathing the Yankees is all about schadenfreude directed at their largely insufferable fan base.

To hear, see and read (via Facebook status updates) these fans celebrating the division title is to think they’d just been freed of the world’s greatest burden, that they were some kind of bastard product of a mad scientist who spliced together the DNA of fans of the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Browns and threw in a little bit of Los Angeles Clippers DNA just because he was feeling particularly sadistic.

But no, it’s just an overwhelming sense of entitlement that has most of these fans declaring, without any trace of irony, that a great drought is over now that the Yankees are AL East champs for the first time since 2005.

“We’ll get to the Yankees as they finally celebrated that elusive division title,” said Mike Francesa, the noted Yankees fan and always-tolerable WFAN afternoon drive host on his WNBC late-night show Sunday.

Even my wonderful wife, who is the sanest Yankees fan I’ve ever known, went to the game and walked in the door singing “We Are The Champions.” A little early, dear? Invest more than $200 million in a team and it should win the division (at least until the Mets up their payroll to $200 million), at the very least.

If you think this is bad, you should mention 1982 through 1994 to a Yankees fan. To hear their tales of those 13 consecutive playoff-less seasons is to think they walked across a desert carrying multiple appliances on their backs. Don Mattingly is their Sisyphus, destined to push a giant rock up a hill while wrecking his back in the process.

Look, the night Roger Clemens struck out 20 batters for the first time, I was listening to my Walkman as Claude Lemieux snuck the game-winner past Mike Liut to lift the Canadians past the Hartford Whalers in overtime of Game Seven of the Adams Division Finals. Don’t talk to me about suffering, OK?!

Yankees fans also have this annoying habit this season of trying to paint their favorite team as a scrappy, overcoming-the-odds bunch. Sure, the Yankees have produced a major league-best 49 comeback wins as well as 14 walk-off wins at the new House That Nobody Can Afford To Enter. But fans who root for teams with a $202 million payroll have absolutely no right to declare they’re cheering for some kind of plucky outfit. Come to think of it, NO professional team, outside of maybe the Major Lacrosse League, is a plucky outfit, regardless of payroll, but if you want to root for the plucky Twins this week, I won’t argue.

I can almost understand the goofy giddiness over the seemingly improved Yankees chemistry, seeing as how that clubhouse has been dominated by dour, no-fun-allowed personalities such as Jeter, Jorge Posada and Paul O’Neill. But let’s face it: A.J. Burnett’s celebratory pies in the face would be a lot more entertaining coming from a pitcher who didn’t fill much of the fandom with a giant sense of impending doom.

Speaking of that impending doom, and the Twins, if you’re hoping to derive pleasure from the misery of Yankees fans, you should be rooting like hell for the Tigers to hold off the Twins, because Justin Verlander in Game One against CC Sabathia and his miserable postseason resume is the one shot David has against Goliath. More on the Yankees’ still-shallow starting pitching next week, as well as the other historical trends that suggest the Yankees’ Biblical championship drought is going to extend at least another year. In the meantime, remember: It’s not the Yankees, it’s their fans.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Bits and Bytes: Five-year itch?

2009-09-25T23:59:00.005-04:00

Sorry for the longer-than-anticipated sabbatical, I had some other work that unexpectedly took up most of my week. Got a few things Sox- and Pats-related I’d like to chew on and a couple Q&As to post next week, so please stop by for those posts. But, in the meantime here’s a couple quick hits to get back into the flow heading into the weekend:

—None of this should be used in trying to project how the Red Sox will fare in the playoffs, but nonetheless, if you’re a Sox fan (and let’s face it, if you’re reading this, chances are pretty good you are), you’ve got to like the similarities between the end of this season and the end of the 2004 regular season.

As they did in 2004, the Sox took a couple weeks to gel following a blockbuster trade before authoring a blistering sprint to the finish line. They went 8-7 in the first 15 games following the Nomar Garciaparra trade in 2004 and a sizzling 34-12 thereafter, a stretch that included 16 wins in 17 games at one point.

The Sox took a bigger post-July 31 stumble this year, when they went 3-6 in the first nine games following the Victor Martinez trade, but they’re 29-14 since then after tonight’s loss to the Yankees.

Then, like now, the Sox’ surge allowed them to bury the Rangers in the wild card race. In fact, how’s this for a fun bit of coincidence: Through Aug. 23, 2004, the Sox were 70-53 and the Rangers were 69-54, marks that left the teams just behind the wild-card leading Angels (71-52). While the Angels stormed past the slumping Athletics to win the AL West, the Sox left the Rangers (and the Athletics) far behind by finishing the season on a 28-11 tear. The Rangers went 20-19 over the same span.

Through Aug. 23 this year, the wild card-leading Sox were 70-53 and the Rangers 69-54. Since then, the Sox are 21-9 and the Rangers 15-15.

And just like 2004, the Sox, in running away with the wild card, also put some unexpected pressure on a Yankees team that was cruising towards the AL East crown and gave some meaning to a series between the two teams on the penultimate weekend of the season.

That 16-1 stretch five years ago allowed the Sox to shave a remarkable eight games off the Yankees’ lead—from 10 ½ games to 2 ½--in just 19 days. The Sox closed the gap to two games on Sept. 8 and were 4 ½ out the morning of Sept. 24, when the Yankees arrived at Fenway. A 6-4 win by the Yankees that night in the Pedro Martinez “Daddy” game all but ended the race.

The Sox’ recent 10-1 run cut the Yankees’ lead from nine games to five games. The deficit was at 5 ½ entering tonight.

That said, these Yankees are also 29-14 in their last 43 games and are finishing the season in far better fashion than the 2004 club, which was 26-19—7 ½ games worse than the Sox—in its final 45 games.

—As I’ve noted here a few times this season, I’m not very good when it comes to predictions. So now seems like a good time to clarify what I meant in April when I wrote the Indians would win the World Series. I actually meant they’d endure the worst stretch the franchise has seen since 1931. That’s really freaking remarkable, considering the Indians’ abject awfulness from 1932 through 1988 inspired a movie franchise.

But hey, not all my predictions were historically bad. I wrote in April that Clay Buchholz would win many more games than Brad Penny and John Smoltz combined. That won’t happen—with two starts left, Buchholz has seven wins, two fewer than Penny (seven) and Smoltz (two) recorded before they took their rightful spot over in the JV league—but Buchholz’ recent dominance (5-0 with a 1.32 ERA, 0.91 WHIP and .185 batting average against in his last six starts) indicates Theo Epstein might have made a rare mistake in bringing aboard the rehabbing Penny and Smoltz at the expense of Buchholz, who did, admittedly, have an awful season last year.

—Speaking of predictions, sort of, all those pixels spilled by myself and others earlier this summer about the possibility of Tim Wakefield not only succeeding Cy Young and Roger Clemens as the Sox’ all-time winningest pitcher but also pitching up to or even beyond his 50th birthday look sadly foolish these days.

Wakefield has made just three starts since the All-Star Break due to a fragmented disc in his back that will likely require surgery (and yeah, we were wrong in wondering if his back injury was just a convenient way to get Wakefield some rest and Buchholz some work). He has looked every day his 43 years in those starts, often appearing as if he can barely jog to cover a base, even though he has made his last two starts on nine days rest and 15 days rest, respectively, and is expected to get at least eight days rest before he next takes the mound. Given how much recovery time he needs between starts, it seems inconceivable he’ll make the playoff roster.

It’s long been assumed the Sox would have Wakefield back on an annual basis thanks to his team-friendly perpetual option, but this is the fourth straight season in which he has been injured in the second half and he is almost sure to end the season with his lowest innings total since arriving in Boston in 1995, a pretty startling feat considering he pitched predominantly out of the bullpen from 1999 through 2002. Can the Sox really spend $4 million on a 43-year-old pitcher who may be a half-season hurler?

The Hartford Courant’s Dom Amore suggests Wakefield should announce his retirement and make a farewell start at Fenway against the Blue Jays or Indians. While something that formal is unlikely to occur, it’s fair to wonder if Wakefield’s next start at Fenway will in fact be the last of his career—and to preemptively lament how cruel it would be for Wakefield to travel so far to approach the most hallowed record in team history and still fall short.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

No offense: Why the Angels will fall to the Sox—again

2009-09-19T23:56:00.004-04:00

Even Mike Scioscia grabbing a bat won't be enough to save the Angels from losing again to the Red Sox in October. Photo from this site.

The very, very easy thing to do after watching from afar as the Angels scrapped and scratched and whined and moaned and loafed their way to winning one of three games from the Red Sox this week in Boston is to declare the Sox will once again trounce the Angels in the playoffs, because scrapping and scratching and whining and moaning and loafing their way to a defeat at the hands of the Sox in the AL Division Series is what the Angels always do.

Now, admittedly, assuming something will happen just because it always seems to happen is borderline lazy, and the type of thing that used to really annoy people in Boston before October 2004. And relying on an I-can’t-necessarily-explain-it-but-I-know-it-when-I-see-it intangible such as Terry Francona outmanaging Mike Scioscia when it counts—as your friend and mine Jon Couture put it this week, Scioscia has a terrible habit of getting cute whenever he faces the Red Sox—will engender devotion from one half of the audience and derision from the Anaheim half.

Fortunately, there’s a reason that’s actual and factual (always a good night when you can quote TLC) beyond “it always happens” and “Terry Francona is a better manager than Mike Scioscia” why the Sox will almost surely cruise past the Angels when the two teams meet in the AL Division Series beginning two weeks and change from now. (And yes, with Yankees cruising to the AL East flag and the Rangers falling apart, we can safely assume the Sox and Angels will square off in October for the fourth time in six seasons)

Here it is: The Angels can’t hit a lick right now. Oh sure, they entered play tonight second in the AL with an average of 5.46 runs per game, snugly between the Yankees and Red Sox, and at one point last month fielded a lineup with nine .300 hitters.

But the Angels are in the midst of a massive slump, and plenty of evidence suggests this is a regression to the mean they’re not snapping out of anytime soon.

The Angels have scored 10 or more runs 21 times, but more than half of those outbursts came during a 34-game span from June 24 through Aug. 2 in which they reached double digits 12 times. On the other end of the spectrum, tonight’s 3-2 loss to the Rangers marks the 13^th time in the last 18 games the Angels have scored three runs or fewer and the 52^nd time overall. The Angels have scored four runs or fewer 70 times.

Those splits are remarkably similar to the ones produced by the Sox, who have scored three runs or fewer 52 times, four runs or fewer 68 times and 10 runs or more 19 times following tonight’s 11-5 win over the Orioles. The Sox have also scored four runs or fewer eight times in 18 games this month.

But the Sox have been far more consistent over the entire season, even with several stretches of offensive inactivity. The Sox have scored four or fewer runs in at least five straight games a total of four times this year, including two five-game streaks in May and a season-high six-game streak from July 17-22. Still, as denoted by the following list, they have scored four or fewer runs in more than half their games in just one month.

April: 9 times in 22 games (41 pct)

May: 17 times in 29 games (59 pct)

June: 11 times in 26 games (42 pct)

July: 11 times in 25 games (44 pct)

August: 12 times in 28 games (43 pct)

September 8 times in 17 games (47 pct)

That would look even more impressive on a graph, but such technical expertise escapes me. Regardless, it’s proof the Sox are living the cliché of never getting too high or too low and finding the steadiness most teams strive for but rarely achieve.

You know, like the Angels, whose four runs or fewer totals by month look like this:

April: 12 times in 21 games (57 pct)

May: 16 times in 28 games (57 pct)

June: 11 times in 26 games (42 pct)

July: 5 times in 26 games (19 pct)

August: 12 times in 29 games (41 pct)

September: 14 times in 18 games (78 pct)

If that were placed on a graph, it’d induce motion sickness.

Not surprisingly, the Angels’ overall record is also a bit misleading: They entered play last night at 88-59, five games better than their Pythagorean record. The only AL contender with a bigger gap is the Yankees (seven games). Last year, when the Angels were knocked out of the ALDS by the Sox in four games, they entered the playoffs with a 100-62 record that was an eye-popping 12 games better than their Pythagorean record.

Now, admittedly, in many ways, the Angels seem better prepared for the Sox this October than the last three times. They wreck havoc on the bases and have swiped 15 bases in nine games against the Sox’ noodle-armed catchers, including four in as many attempts this week. Their likely top three pitchers—Jered Weaver, John Lackey and Scott Kazmir—have combined to post a 1.95 ERA in 33 1/3 innings against the Sox this year.

But the bullpen, as it proved last week, is not the strength it has been in recent seasons. Angels relievers have a 4.53 ERA and 1.46 WHIP this year, way up from a 3.69 ERA and 1.34 WHIP last year.

A declining offense and a less effective bullpen is not a good combination heading into the every-run-is-precious postseason. The regression to the mean occurs again this October. Doesn’t roll off the tongue quite like “I live for this,” but hey, some catchphrases are more substantive than others.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Roll of the dice seems to favor Sox pitchers

2009-09-16T08:41:00.003-04:00

Daisuke Matsuzaka's performance Tuesday might have earned him a lot more than a pat on the back. Photo from this site.

Daisuke Matsuzaka returned from the disabled list and pitched for the Red Sox last night, thereby rendering yet another one of my predictions null and void. Not only did he pitch, he actually pitched well in leading the surging Sox to a 4-1 victory over their familiar October foil, the Angels.

The concept of the Sox needing Matsuzaka in mid-September would have sounded impossible in June, when the Sox were trying to fit roughly 17 starters into five spots, and downright disastrous on the second Monday of August, right after the Yankees completed their demoralizing sweep of the Sox.

But Matsuzaka’s best start of the year—faint praise, yes, but the truth nonetheless, after he lasted six innings for the first time and allowed just three hits in the process—not only provides a flicker of hope the Sox can count on him as a fourth starter come October but also serves as a symbol of how far the Sox have come in the five weeks since scraping rock bottom.

While all the caveats were offered about how much baseball was still to be played, the feeling was the Sox were in a whole heap of trouble with an aging core that was being retooled on the fly. Yet guess who is tied with the Cardinals for the best record in baseball since Aug. 10? The Sox improved to 23-10 (.697) last night, percentage points better than the Yankees (24-11).

The Sox, just like they did in 2004, emerged from a brief adjustment process following Theo Epstein trades both seismic (Victor Martinez) and subtle (Alex Gonzalez) a much better team than they were in July.

The Yankees, meanwhile, have lost three of their last four games and are picking fights with the Blue Jays, who have been playing at a 100-loss pace since opening the season 27-14.

Maybe this hiccup is just an overdue regression to the mean for the Yankees, who are 42-16 since the All-Star Break but whose Pythagorean record through Monday was seven games worse than their actual record. And maybe their feistiness is typical crap from a team that leads baseball in hit batsmen (66) yet acts all wounded and offended whenever someone retaliates.

Or maybe the Yankees are stumbling in September again, just like they did in 2004, and heading for the playoffs with a largely naked rotation. CC Sabathia is infinitely better than anyone the Yankees trotted out to the mound five years ago, but with a 10.00 ERA the last two postseasons, he’s far from a sure thing to replicate his ace form in the playoffs. A.J. Burnett is doing one fine impersonation of Kevin Brown lately, which might be slightly less worrisome if Andy Pettitte—who was enjoying a resurgent second half—hadn’t been scratched from his start tonight due to “fatigued” left shoulder.

Beyond that, the Yankees don’t have anyone they can even remotely hope to rely upon in October. Fifth starter Sergio Mitre has a 7.63 ERA and sixth starter Chad Gaudin has played for four teams since the start of last season and fashioned a 5.13 ERA earlier this year for the Padres, who play their home games in one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in the land. The laughably undefined and flexible “Joba Rules,” meanwhile, mean nominal fourth starter Joba Chamberlain will probably be limited to one warm-up pitch every other week by the time the AL Division Series rolls around.

The Sox aren’t free of pitching concerns, not with Josh Beckett’s struggles (a 6.94 ERA in his last six starts) serving as a reminder of his atypically brutal performance last October and Tim Wakefield unlikely to be much more than a bystander in the playoffs due to a back injury that seems as if it could threaten his career. But Clay Buchholz has a 1.59 ERA in his last four starts, which allows those of us who were wondering just what the hell he was doing toiling the first half of the season at Pawtucket this season to bellow and thump our chests.

A rotation of Jon Lester-Beckett-Buchholz looks pretty good at the moment—not as imposing as the trio of Curt Schilling-Pedro Martinez-Wakefield did in 2004, but certainly better than any threesome any other AL contender can offer. And sure, even after his performance Tuesday night, the concept of Matsuzaka as reliable insurance sounds odd. But hey, back at this time five years ago, so did the idea that Derek Lowe could win all three playoff clinchers.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Never Forget

2009-09-11T09:29:00.001-04:00

Fighting Words The Director’s Cut: The Patriots Chapter (Part Three)

2009-09-10T07:17:00.011-04:00

Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are in sync when it comes to delivering the message. Photo from this site.

Below is the third and final part of my chapter about the Patriots and the media. Parts one and two can be found here and here. Today’s final installment delves into Bill Belichick’s famously secretive approach to the release of injury information (and how it compares to the rest of his coaching brethren) as well as how he dictates the message his players deliver to the press and how the Patriots in general have become adept at managing the news.

By the end of 2005, reporters were so accustomed to Belichick’s evasiveness regarding injuries they an entire news conference could come and go without anyone asking about a hobbled player. Defensive leader Tedy Bruschi, whose comeback from a February stroke was one of the top stories of the season, suffered a leg injury against the Jets on Dec. 26. Belichick fielded just one Bruschi question during his Dec. 28 press conference (“I’ve seen Tedy. We’ll release the injury report after practice. I think the best way I could characterize it is he’s day-to-day.”) and none at all during his press conference the next day. (Bruschi suited up for the game against the Dolphins Jan. 1 but did not play)

Part of this secrecy was a byproduct of Belichick’s famous focus: If a player could not help the Patriots this week, then it did Belichick or the team no good to talk about him because it distracted them from the challenge of winning without the player.

But most of the elusiveness was rooted in competitive interests. Belichick did not want to reveal anything that could help an opponent in its preparation. And though the Patriots were considered the least-revealing team in the NFL when it came to injury information—the Boston Herald’s Michael Felger wrote in October 2005 the Patriots are so secretive in revealing injuries “…that the NFL felt the need to institute the current policy in an attempt to keep things on the level”—Belichick was no different than most NFL coaches, who have grown increasingly secretive over the years.

Even former Jets and Kansas City Chiefs head coach Herman Edwards, considered one of the most cooperative coaches in the NFL, wanted complete control over the dissemination of injury news. According to the Jets 2005 media guide: “Head Coach Herman Edwards is the only spokesperson in the organization to report injuries to the media…(Players are not permitted to talk about their injuries to the media and should defer all inquiries to the head coach).”

When asked if his policies were similar to those of his contemporaries, Belichick—speaking through Najarian—referred to the Patriots game against the Atlanta Falcons Oct. 9, 2005, when the Falcons started backup quarterback Matt Schaub instead of first-stringer Michael Vick even though Vick—who strained a ligament in his right knee the previous week—was listed as probable (meaning there was a 75 percent chance or better he would play) on the NFL’s injury list until Saturday, when he was downgraded to questionable (50 percent chance to play).

However, Vick sat out most of the previous week’s practices, which would typically reduce a player’s status to doubtful. Given the differences in Vick, the most mobile and improvisational quarterback in the NFL, and Schaub, a prototypical pocket passer, it’s not difficult to ascertain the Falcons figured they were gaining an advantage in pronouncing Vick likely to start.

Felger wrote Oct. 12 that others in the league believed Falcons coach Jim Mora “out-Belichicked” the Patriots and theorized the Falcons should not be believed when they said Vick’s condition worsened despite barely practicing the previous week.

In 2003, Felger wrote the Patriots believed the Philadelphia Eagles’ openness about game plans and injuries helped the Patriots beat the Eagles, 31-10. The Eagles announced the Tuesday prior to the game three defensive starters would likely sit due to injury. Later in the week, their defensive coordinator announced the replacements and admitted the team would cut back on its original game plan.

The Patriots exploited the Eagles’ three new starters in their lopsided win. Meanwhile, the Eagles were almost certainly surprised to see rookie Eugene Wilson playing safety for the Patriots. Wilson spoke to Felger for 15 minutes two days prior to the game and never indicated he would move to safety against Philadelphia.

“I’m not sure why they would [reveal so much information], all I know is that we don’t,” Patriots center Dan Koppen told the Herald. “All I know is that we don’t. You don’t know who’s out there until they come out of the room on Sunday.”

“I’m not saying we’ve got all the answers,” Belichick told the Herald. “I’m just saying it’s right for us. There is some element of a competitive edge there. Maybe sometimes it’s negligible. Other times it may be more.”

While Belichick’s perfunctory press conferences would indicate he didn’t pay much attention to the media, his interest in controlling the words of Patriots players—as well as his ability to scour comments made by opponents and other outsiders in order to find any slight that could whip the Patriots into an “us-against-the-world” lather—suggested otherwise.

Before the Patriots won Super Bowl XXXIX in 2004, Belichick showed the Patriots the parade route the Philadelphia Eagles had planned in case they won. The Patriots went 16-0 in 2007 and posted their most dominating victory—a 56-10 trouncing of the Buffalo Bills Nov. 18—after Don Shula, who coached the 1972 Miami Dolphins to the only perfect season in league history, said the fact the Patriots had been caught stealing signals against the New York Jets in the season opener “…diminished what they’ve accomplished.”

Three weeks later, Steelers safety Anthony Smith guaranteed his team would beat the Patriots. Smith was beaten on two touchdown passes as the Steelers fell, 34-13. After one of the touchdowns, Brady yelled at Smith.

“We’ve played a lot better safeties than him, I’ll tell you that,” Belichick told reporters after the game.

The Patriots’ eagerness to punish anyone who doubted them appeared to make Belichick doubly determined to make sure his players didn’t provide bulletin board material for anybody else. Conformity was encouraged under Belichick— the most vocal Patriot of the Pete Carroll Era, Chad Eaton, was typically nowhere to be found when the media was allowed locker room access during the first several months of Belichick’s tenure—and players followed a carefully prepared script when speaking to reporters.

At Super Bowl XLI media day Jan. 29, 2008, Patriots cornerback Asante Samuel told the New York Daily News that 30 minutes of the daily team meeting is spent discussing what to say to reporters and how to say it.

Nobody echoed Belichick’s thoughts better than Brady—appropriate considering the two were the most indispensible parts of the dynasty. The Patriots were 5-13 under Belichick before Bledsoe’s injury forced Brady into the starting lineup—and 86-24 in regular season games with Brady behind center through 2007.

Unlike his coach, Brady enjoyed the perks of his success: He appeared on the cover of GQ, dated celebrities, guest-hosted Saturday Night Live and even occupied a choice seat at George W. Bush’s State of the Union address in 2005. But there was never a sense Brady let his off-field interests interrupt his preparation, and his focus and disdain for excuse-making made him a younger, more telegenic version of his coach.

It seemed, finally, Belichick had found someone he could trust as much as Parcells trusted the likes of Dave Meggett and Steve DeOssie, each of whom he coached with the Giants before he arrived in Foxboro. “Guys from the Giants, they were very open,” Boston Globe reporter Nick Cafardo said. “They wouldn’t just regurgitate what he said. They were very comfortable in being able to give you more than the norm. And I think [Parcells] made them feel comfortable doing that.”

Unlike those players, Brady could be counted on to toe the company line. Belichick declined comment when asked if he and Brady went over what they would say prior to their separate meetings with the press. But their answers were remarkably similar.

On Dec. 29, 2005, both men were asked to explain the Patriots’ recent red zone success. They did so by pointing out the offense had produced fewer “negative” plays inside the opponents 20-yard-line.

Belichick: “Fumbles, sacks penalties—it’s hard enough to get it down there in the condensed field anyway and then when you take one play that loses yardage or makes it a 15-yard series of downs instead of 10, then it just makes it that much tougher. If you lose a down, like we did…then the odds are really against you. Us or anybody else. Eliminate negative plays and going forward toward the goal line instead of backwards, away from it.”

Brady: “I think the one thing that sets you back in the red zone is if you lose yards. If you can keep going forward and eliminate negative plays and eliminate penalties in the red zone, you’ll be pretty successful. The hard part is when you lose 10 or you lose five or you take a sack or run the ball in early downs and come up with no yards or lose yards, those are hard to overcome.”

Belichick’s ability to dictate his players’ words spoke to a fundamental difference between the NFL and Major League Baseball as well as the Patriots’ uncanny knack for managing the message and dictating the news cycle.

The active Major League Baseball roster features barely half the players (25) of the active NFL roster (45), but baseball’s potent player’s union gives its members far more security. The mostly powerless NFL Players Association and the lack of guaranteed contracts meant conformity was good business for football players.

“No one’s going to toss Coco Crisp for saying I want to be traded or [Jonathan] Papelbon for complaining about his contract,” WEEI.com editor Rob Bradford said. “Everyone was saying Theo wants this team to be like the Patriots—there’s elements of truth to that, but he’s a smart guy. And I’ve got to imagine he understands the road goes in a different direction when it comes to what they can do with the players. Even the young guys who they do have some sense of control over—there’s just no way they can do everything and cover every angle.”

The Patriots, on the other hand, could not only control how their players spoke but also how the news was released. They were the first American professional sports team to embrace new media in 1995, when patriots.com was launched. That year, the Patriots also became the first sports team to publish its own full-color weekly newspaper (Patriots Football Weekly).

In 1997, the Patriots began a nightly online program called “Patriots Video News.” The team also has an online radio station, carries all Belichick and Brady press conferences live online and archives the audio and transcriptions of these press conferences online.

The Patriots remain the standard bearer of online and team-sanctioned media in a league which encourages fans to view its official outlets as the source of record. Former Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette would often decline comment by telling reporters to refer to the team’s website for information on the club, but he didn’t break news like the Patriots, who revealed, via Patriots.com, the trade of Bledsoe to the Buffalo Bills in April 2002.

Today, the other 29 teams often break news via NFL.com and the NFL Network, the latter of which carries regular season games and formerly employed Adam Schefter—a well-respected former Denver Broncos beat writer for the Denver Post—as its lead reporter.

Even when the Patriots don’t break the news on Patriots.com, they have a knack for timing leaks, press releases and their comments to ensure maximum—or minimum—impact. ESPN.com reported safety Rodney Harrison was suspended by the NFL for violating its substance abuse policy on Sept. 1, 2007, a Friday night. The Patriots held a conference call with Harrison shortly thereafter, assuring the crux of the story would break during the lightest news cycle of the week.

On Sept. 16, just hours before the Patriots hosted the Chargers in a prime-time game on NBC, ESPN.com reported that “…league sources and sources close to the coach” confirmed the Patriots had extended Belichick’s contract through at least 2013. The terms of Belichick’s deal were previously a closely guarded secret—“I don’t talk about contracts,” Belichick told reporters in July 2007—and the Patriots had not acknowledged his contract since July 2003, when they announced he inked an extension through 2006.

The news of his new deal arrived seven days after the Patriots were caught videotaping the Jets’ signals during the season opener. On Sept. 12, Belichick issued, via the Patriots, a one-paragraph statement apologizing to the organization and said he would “…have further comment” once the league made a ruling on his punishment.

The punishment came down the next day, when the NFL fined the Patriots $750,000--$500,000 of which was to be paid by Belichick—and took away a 2008 draft pick. But during his press conference Sept. 14, Belichick refused to discuss the incident and used the term “moving on” a reported nine times while continually saying he was just worried about the Chargers game.

The response to “Spygate” provided the most resounding proof yet: Under Belichick, the Patriots talked about what they wanted to when they wanted to and on their own terms. And in keeping with his low public profile and general air of mystery, Belichick was reluctant to explain his media relations philosophies.

His longtime friend Najarian declined to be interviewed for this book, and after numerous unsuccessful requests for an interview with Belichick over a 13-month span during the 2004 and 2005 seasons, Najarian asked the author to send the questions to him with the promise he would get Belichick’s answers.

Of the 10 questions sent to Belichick via Najarian, Belichick declined to answer six. His four answers comprised a total of 59 words—42 of which occurred in one answer about the media not traveling with the Giants during Belichick’s tenure with that club.

His second-longest answer was in response to whether or not he was surprised that the Sox received more media attention during the Patriots’ run of three Super Bowl victories in four years.

“I honestly am not very cognizant of it either way,” Belichick said.

When it came to the media and the Patriots, Belichick had proven to be quite cognizant of everything else.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Fighting Words The Director’s Cut: The Patriots Chapter (Part Two)

2009-09-09T14:16:00.008-04:00

Bill Belichick wasn't hired by Robert Kraft to become a media darling, but the coach knew he had to have a better relationship with the press in New England than he did in Cleveland. Photo from this site.

As noted Friday, I’ll be unveiling this week, in two or three parts, the chapter about the Patriots and the media that I had to cut from Fighting Words. Though I still have no regrets about axing this chapter—there was just no way to put this in the book and maintain some sort of flow—it is a little sobering to re-read the chapter and to be reminded of how many edits it went through for something that didn’t make it to print.

Part one, about the Patriots’ checkered first three decades and how the hiring of Bill Parcells made them relevant, appeared yesterday and can be found here. Part two is about Bill Belichick, his decidedly anti-Parcells approach to media relations and how he went about fixing a reputation in tatters after a rocky four-year stint with the Browns and a historically brief tenure with the Jets.

(I haven’t done too much editing here, hoping to preserve the chapter as I intended to present it in the summer of 2008.)

Bill Belichick is to the gray sweatshirt what Tom Landry was to the fedora.

Landry, the legendary former coach of the Dallas Cowboys, lent a stately air to the savagery of football by wearing a wide-brimmed fedora and a suit and tie on the sidelines Belichick’s apparel—a gray hooded Patriots sweatshirt with his initials on the waist pocket—only deepened the belief he was football’s brilliant mind, a man so consumed with digging through film in search of that elusive advantage that he had little time for such non-essentials as finding anything other than the most basic of wardrobes.

Belichick is the son of a former football coach (Steve Belichick, who died during the 2005 season, spent more than 30 years as an assistant at the Naval Academy) who was breaking down film as a teenager. He graduated from exclusive Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where he played lacrosse and squash, but little is known of his off-field interests other than an affinity for hard rock and a friendship with musician Jon Bon Jovi, who dedicated his band’s 2002 song “Bounce” to Belichick.

Between his monotonous voice, typically expressionless face, and reluctance to say much more than absolutely necessary, the gray sweatshirt is a perfect symbol of Belichick’s public persona and unyielding focus. And according to those who cover the team, it’s a personality as natural as it is painstakingly maintained.

The Patriots dynastic run is built on the belief nobody is bigger than the team. Belichick has embodied that by refusing to parlay his success into celebrity.

While some coaches unveil a more accessible personality with television networks and/or during appearances on the national stage in order to polish their reputations, those who cover the Patriots regularly say Belichick is less revealing than usual during heavily attended playoff press conferences.

When Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe suffered a concussion and a sheared blood vessel in his lung—the latter a potentially life-threatening injury—against the Jets September 23, 2001, a Patriots staffer told CBS sideline reporter Bonnie Bernstein Bledsoe’s benching was a “coaches decision.” Bernstein later told the Boston Herald she was “discouraged” the Patriots did not tell her Bledsoe was injured.

Parcells—whose most famous quote, “If they want you to cook the dinner, at least they ought to let you shop for some of the groceries,” was uttered at a packed press conference announcing his departure from the Patriots Jan. 31, 1997—capitalized on the Giants’ first Super Bowl win by penning his autobiography with powerful New York columnist Mike Lupica and has remained a multi-media machine in the subsequent two decades.

With co-author and Boston sportswriting legend Will McDonough, Parcells penned a book called “The Final Season” during his last year with the Jets in 1999 (four years later, he returned to the sidelines as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys) and became a well-known endorser and media personality during his four seasons with the Patriots, when he appeared on one weekly television show and made two weekly radio appearances. Parcells also worked at NBC and ESPN following each of his three “retirements” from coaching.

Belichick endorses nothing, and when he agreed to an authorized account of his life, it was with the noted journalist David Halberstam. Though Belichick appears each Monday during the season on WEEI, he surprised most observers when he agreed to appear on the Super Bowl XL pre-game show in February 2006.

And unlike the scathingly honest Parcells, Belichick was unlikely to provide colorful assessments of a player. He reinforces the team-first mantra by rarely singling out individuals, and even in victory, his post-game comments are as generalized as possible and tempered with the reminder the Patriots can always do better.

After a 31-21 win over the Jets Dec. 26, 2005, he did not praise one player, even when presented with a seemingly easy opportunity to do so. Asked about Hank Poteat and Monty Beisel, who replaced the injured Tedy Bruschi and Asante Samuel, Belichick said “We’ll take a look at the tape. Some things I’m sure could have been better than others, but overall it was a solid effort. A lot of players did contribute, so I’m sure it was good enough.”

Such reluctance to discuss particular players runs counter to the needs of writers, who often need a quote about a particular player for a feature. And Belichick’s singular focus doesn’t leave much room for reflection or prognostication, which are also regular topics for writers.

In many ways, Belichick is the football version of Bill Mueller. While teammates cherished Mueller for his grind-it-out nature, reporters were often frustrated by his reluctance or refusal to discuss his individual achievements in anything other than the most clichéd of terms. In fact, when he won the American League batting title on the final day of the 2003 season, Mueller ducked out of the clubhouse without speaking to reporters.

While Belichick was typically distant and perfunctory in his dealings with the media, he did show glimmers of personality in greeting reporters at the start of press conferences. Though he did not provide much headline fodder, he spoke at length on a variety of topics and complimented reporters whom he thought asked pertinent and informed questions.

Belichick also took the unusual step of occasionally hosting film sessions with reporters. While he would not break down any current film for obvious competitive reasons, this willingness to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the preparation process helped reporters better understand the game.

The film sessions also helped humanize a coach who is often perceived as robotic. A willingness to occasionally offer a glimpse at his relaxed side could only help, even subtly, how he was viewed by the reporters who cover him.

It was a side he never exposed during his first stint as a head coach with the Cleveland Browns. On Feb. 5, 1991—nine days after he designed the defensive game plan that shut down the powerful Buffalo Bills and lifted the Giants to a 20-19 victory in Super Bowl XXV; the game plan is on display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame—Belichick accepted the Browns head coaching job.

But despite his impeccable pedigree, the Browns went 37-45 with just one playoff berth under Belichick, whose struggles on the sidelines were compounded by his troubles with the local press. The Browns were known for their open ways under previous coach Marty Schottenheimer, but one of Belichick’s first acts was to drastically cut back on the amount of access print reporters received to the Browns. Reporters were no longer allowed to watch practice and Belichick put up curtains around the field to further safeguard the premises.

Belichick gave off an air of paranoid disinterest. He once accused the rival Cincinnati Bengals of spying on Browns practices from rooftops near the Browns’ facility in a residential area of Berea. And some reporters were convinced Belichick had spies within the media who reported back to Belichick with negative comments the other reporters were making when the head coach was out of the room.

Belichick once conducted a teleconference with reporters from his office instead of meeting them in the media workroom. In 2001, longtime Cleveland Post-Dispatch Browns beat writer Tony Grossi told The Standard-Times of New Bedford, MA Belichick would hold press conferences on his exercise bike or during lunch.

Grossi and Akron Beacon-Journal beat writer Ed Meyer were regular guests on local sports talk radio station WHK, where they mocked Belichick weekly during a two-hour show called “Doom and Gloom.” Grossi so infuriated the Browns that some Cleveland reporters believe Browns owner Art Modell pressured the Post-Dispatch to remove Grossi from the Browns beat during Belichick’s tenure. And the “Doom and Gloom” segment created so much controversy that all Plain Dealer writers were barred from appearing on WHK, which eventually became a religious station.

“To read some of this stuff, you would have thought that Bill was down there in the bunker at the end of World War II with Eva Braun,” Browns offensive assistant Ernie Adams told the Akron Beacon-Journal in 1994. Adams later joined the Patriots as their football research director.

Belichick’s image was further soiled in October 1993, when he cut quarterback Bernie Kosar—a native of nearby Youngstown who directed the Browns to three AFC title game appearances in the 1980s and was enormously popular with fans and media alike—in favor of recent signee Vinny Testaverde.

Belichick’s instincts were eventually proven correct: Kosar was never again a regular starter in the NFL while Testaverde directed the Browns to the playoffs in 1994 and a wild card win over Parcells’ Patriots. The Browns were expected to contend for the Super Bowl in 1995, but they fell apart after Modell announced he planned to move the franchise to Baltimore. Belichick was fired amid nearly unanimous roars of approval from fans and writers alike after a 5-11 season.

“There were people who made it personal,” said Patriots vice president-player personnel Scott Pioli, who was a member of the Browns’ personnel department during Belichick’s tenure, in an interview with the Standard-Times.

“Some people wrote some mean-spirited things about Belichick and some went out of their way to make it confrontational,” Pioli said. “That’s what happens when you hear only one side of the story. Bill wasn’t defending himself and there weren’t people running to his defense.”

Shortly after he was dismissed in Cleveland, Belichick rejoined Parcells in New England and began restoring his reputation as the game’s finest defensive coordinator. Belichick followed Parcells to New York after the 1996 season and was contractually obligated to replace Parcells upon the latter’s retirement. But Belichick, uncomfortable with the specter of Parcells remaining as general manager and the uncertainty surrounding the Jets (the franchise was in the process of being sold following the death of longtime owner Leon Hess), stepped down Jan. 4, 2000, one day after Parcells retired—and one day after the Patriots fired Pete Carroll.

Belichick was criticized for his hasty departure—moments before he stepped to the podium, he handed shocked team president Steve Gutman an abbreviated 68-word letter penned on Jets stationary in which Belichick informed Gutman and Parcells he had “…decided to resign as HC of the NY Jets”—as well as for the rambling hour-long press conference in which he tried to explain his decision. The notoriously press-shy Belichick seemed to realize he was losing the battle of public opinion as he invited reporters to call him at home to further discuss the surprising move.

Middletown (NY) Times-Herald columnist Kevin Gleason wrote Belichick exhibited “…all the grace of a bug splattering on your car windshield” while Gutman followed Belichick to the podium and said he believed the ex-coach was in “obvious turmoil.”

Few believed Belichick would suddenly resign from the Jets without another job lined up, so no one was surprised less than three weeks later when the Patriots agreed to send three draft picks to the Jets in exchange for naming Belichick head coach.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who said he was mailed copies of Belichick’s press conferences in Cleveland by someone who did not want the Patriots to hire Belichick, admitted Belichick had made media-related mistakes and was not a natural public speaker but said he was more concerned with landing a quick mind than a quick wit.

“I’m not sure it would have been my first choice for how I liked my head coach to present himself,” Kraft told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer prior to Super Bowl XXXVIII in January 2004. “We chatted about that. In the end, I’m not into lipstick and powder. I’m into substance, and substance is winning football games.”

Still, crafting a better relationship with the press was important enough to Belichick so that one of his first moves upon becoming the Patriots’ head coach was to hire his friend Berj Najarian—a Jets public relations assistant whom New York beat writers believed was tutoring Belichick on how to handle the media—as the executive administrator to the head coach.

And Belichick admitted he made mistakes with the Browns, most notably in his attempts to adoptive a Parcells-like combative tone with reporters.

“I watched what Bill did with the New York media when I was there, and maybe I tried to do some of those things,” Belichick told the Boston Herald in December 2001. “And he was in a position where honestly, he could get away with some things that other people can’t get away with. And I don’t think I really realized that.”

The man Belichick once unsuccessfully tried to imitate made it possible for him to limit the media’s access to the Patriots without incurring a firestorm. Local reporters had grown accustomed under Parcells to closed practices (under Belichick, reporters were allowed to watch the first 10 minutes of practice, which typically consisted only of light stretching), assistant coaches who were almost always off-limits to the media, vague information regarding injured players and the game plan for the upcoming week and the concept of a coach serving as the voice of the organization.

Belichick described a player’s injury in the most general of terms—for example, an ankle injury would be dubbed a “lower leg injury.” When asked about an injured player, Belichick would tell reporters he didn’t know his short- or long-term status because he wasn’t a doctor. In addition, players were not allowed to speak to the media about the condition of another player, and those who were injured tended to be absent from the locker room whenever the media was allowed access.

“The only reason for an injury report is the betting line,” said former Patriots backup quarterback and Boston College legend Doug Flutie. “Otherwise, it’s nobody’s business.”

Belichick and the Patriots were so adept at concealing injuries that it was not revealed that quarterback Tom Brady, the team’s most recognizable and valuable player, had what the Patriots dubbed “minor” shoulder surgery following the 2004 season until several weeks after the procedure. And after the Patriots were eliminated from the playoffs in 2005, it was revealed Brady played much of the season with a sports hernia even though he was never listed as suffering from any type of groin or hernia injury.

Belichick also seemed to mock the injury report by listing Brady, who, prior to suffering a season-ending knee injury in the 2008 season opener, had never missed a start since taking over for Drew Bledsoe prior to the third game of the 2001 season, as “probable” with a shoulder injury for 74 straight games—until Super Bowl XLI, when Brady was listed as “probable” with an ankle injury.

(Part three tomorrow)

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Fighting Words The Director’s Cut: The Patriots Chapter (Part One)

2009-09-08T17:42:00.011-04:00

Bill Parcells, as quick with a quote as he was on the sideline, brought relevance and respectability to the Patriots. Photo from this site.

Originally, way back in 2004, I envisioned writing about how the Patriots, Celtics and Bruins are all secondary to the Sox in Boston. Once I narrowed the focus down to the Patriots, I recall one draft heavy on Bill Parcells information and another one in which I got bogged down in the minutiae of Bill Belichick’s first two years and the Brady/Bledsoe controversy in particular.

And somewhere along the line I managed to tie together the Patriots’ second Super Bowl run with the Sox’ pursuit of Alex Rodriguez and how Nomar Garciaparra basically pre-empted “Patriots Monday” one week in 2003 by calling in to say he didn’t really want out of Boston.

Hopefully the almost-final product is more cohesive than the drafts. Part one today goes into how baseball lends itself to more thorough coverage than football as well as the Patriots’ pre-Parcells checkered history and how Parcells changed how the Patriots were perceived as well as how they were covered.

(I haven’t done too much editing here, hoping to preserve the chapter as I intended to present it in the summer of 2008.)

The New England Patriots won three Super Bowls in a span of four seasons from 2001 through 2004—no small feat at any time in National Football League history but an especially notable achievement at a time when the NFL’s salary cap threatened to make dynasties obsolete—and were the most successful team in professional sports during the first half of the decade.

Yet they were not the most chronicled franchise in their home market. This contradictory existence was noted by every observer of the Boston media scene except, perhaps, Bill Belichick—the man most responsible for the Patriots’ historic success.

Only in Boston could a record-shattering NFL team play in the shadow of a baseball team that went more than 80 seasons between world championships. On Sept. 19, 2004, the Patriots, who had just won their 17th game--two shy of the NFL record--shared the dominant front page photo in The Boston Globe with the wild card-leading Red Sox, who had just lost their second in a row to the Yankees to all but fall out of contention in the AL East.

The headline inside the box—17 IN A ROW…TWO IN A ROW—made it seem as if the Sox’ losing streak and Patriots’ winning streak were equally significant feats.

This was a remarkably bizarre situation to the rest of the country. “That’s another thing that mystifies people from outside of New England,” Boston Herald Red Sox beat writer Sean McAdam said. “If you look around and look at the numbers—and I’ve occasionally done this exercise with other people in the business—and asked how many markets in America does baseball hold sway over football still, and the general consensus is that, at tops, it’s less than a half dozen.”

If baseball was still referred to as the national pastime, football was the national obsession. A Harris Interactive survey in 2005 revealed that 33 percent of Americans who follow at least one sport considered football their favorite, far ahead of second-place baseball (14 percent).

The Super Bowl long ago emerged as the water cooler moment of the year and America’s unofficial national holiday. The paucity and timing of the NFL regular season schedule—16 games spread out over 17 weekends—lends a momentous feel to even the most mundane game, a feeling none of the other three major sport leagues can replicate.

The game itself is more visceral and telegenic and provides more instant gratification than baseball. It’s also far easier to bet on and the popularity of fantasy football—a less costly but no less addicting alternative to gambling—has surged over the past decade.

In addition, as Boston Globe writer Nick Cafardo—who has been a beat reporter covering both the Red Sox and Patriots—notes, there is a widespread perception the NFL “…is run properly. It’s run right.”

Virtually no contract in the NFL is guaranteed, meaning players are basically auditioning for their jobs on a yearly basis. Players who sign lucrative long-term contracts in the NFL do so knowing they’ll almost surely never see the money on the back end. Seattle running back Shaun Alexander signed an eight-year, $62 million contract after he won the MVP award in 2005 but was cut following the 2007 season.

The salary cap creates the perception that every team is on a level financial field, even though the NFL has had fewer teams win the Super Bowl (14) than Major League Baseball has had teams win the World Series (18) since 1980. And since the NFL’s last labor dispute in 1987—a three-week strike by the players that ended with superstars crossing the picket lines to join replacement players hired by the owners—a strike has killed the 1994 World Series, an owners lockout forced the cancellation of the 2004-05 National Hockey League season and the National Basketball Association played just 50 games in 1998-99 due to a protracted labor dispute.

But in Boston, the Patriots’ continued success—in addition to their three titles this decade, their loss in Super Bowl XXXI in 1997 marked the only championship round appearance by a Boston-based team in the 1990s—could not approach the drama engineered by the Red Sox’ epic and seemingly Quixotic pursuit of an elusive world championship.

“The Patriots definitely should get more attention,” Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein said in 2004. “But it’s not a meritocracy.”

Actually, it was for the better part of 40 years, during which the Patriots underperformed—on and off the field—and failed to overcome the generational bond created by the Red Sox.

“I’m 41 years old and I don’t have stories from my childhood of sitting on my grandfather’s lap in the summertime listening to the Patriots,” Trish Saintelus, the moderator of The Remy Report’s chat room, said during an interview in January 2005. “I have great memories of sitting with my grandfather [who was] 80 years old, listening to the Red Sox on a hot summer night. And it’s part of my childhood. It’s part of what I grew up with. I think it just has a different place in our heart than football. You live and die with these guys 160 games a year. You’re with them from early April, you hope, right up through late October. It’s part of your childhood, going to ballgames.

“You don’t get that from football. It’s very, very different. Baseball is accessible.”

For the writers as well as the fans. Baseball writers see the players they cover for several hours per day nearly every day from February through October. And while most baseball and football teams allowed writers to travel with the club well into the 1980s (the New York Giants were an exception; Belichick, a former defensive coordinator with the Giants, recalls head coach Ray Perkins barring writers from the flights upon his arrival in 1979), the frequency of the baseball schedule and the long train trips of the pre-airplane era gave writers far more time to bond with the players and established a rapport between the two sides that would last for decades.

The NFL obviously could not match the regularity of the Major League Baseball schedule, but it encouraged open access under commissioner Pete Rozelle—a former public relations executive with the league—during his more than 20-year reign. Gerry Eskenazi, the former New York Jets beat writer for The New York Times, recalls in his book Gang Green sitting poolside with quarterback Joe Namath the week prior to the Jets’ shocking victory over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.

Former Patriots quarterback Steve Grogan remembers playing cards with writers on team flights and buses and said the writers officially had locker room access to the Patriots both before and after practice. The NFL became more corporate in the 1990s under new commissioner Paul Tagliabue, a former league lawyer, and by the turn of the century writers were limited to a press conference with the head coach four days a week and a 45-to-60 minute open locker room period three or four times a week. In addition, players and coaches are not available immediately prior to games.

So conceivably, the baseball writer—who is allowed in the clubhouse three-and-a-half hours before first pitch—could see the players he covers more in one day than a football writer does all week.

In addition, baseball generated coverage year-round. The off-season was far shorter than in football, where even the Super Bowl teams have more than five months off between the end of the season and the start of training camp.

Free agency has fueled baseball’s hot stove league—the term originated decades ago when fans would talk baseball as they huddled around a stove to keep warm—since the late ‘70s, but it was just one part of an off-season staggered so that there’s a newsworthy event almost every week during the nearly four-month period between the end of the World Series and the start of spring training. Free agency did not hit football until the 1990s, and most newspapers did not cover the off-season management meetings.

And while the Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins played their home games at legendary venues—the Celtics and Bruins played at the original Boston Garden until the end of the 1995 season—the Patriots played home games at seven different stadiums between 1960 and 1968, including Fenway Park and, remarkably, venues in San Diego and Birmingham, AL, before moving into Schafer Stadium in Foxboro, MA—45 minutes south of Boston—in 1969.

The stadium saved the Patriots but the locale doomed them to afterthought status. “We were kind of the odd man out in Foxboro,” Grogan said. “I always felt like the teams that played in Boston got more media coverage—the Red Sox in particular—than we did.”

Schafer Stadium—which was re-named Sullivan Stadium in honor of franchise founder William Sullivan in 1981 and christened Foxboro Stadium in 1990, two years after the Patriots were purchased by Victor Kiam—was sparser and decidedly less romantic than Fenway Park and Boston Garden. Most of the seats at Foxboro Stadium were metal bleachers, which gave it all the ambiance of a high school field. It had more than eight times as many portable toilets as actual restrooms. The capacity in the press box was 120.

“It’s been nothing but a horror,” former Patriots spokesman Don Lowery told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette after the final game at Foxboro Stadium in January 2002.

The same could generally be said for the Patriots, who hosted one playoff game in their first 25 years. Much of the news the Patriots made was of the embarrassing variety: Cornerback Raymond Clayborn was slugged by sportswriter Will McDonough in 1979.

The team was at the center of an ugly sexual harassment scandal in 1990, when several players made lewd comments and gestures at Boston Herald reporter Lisa Olson. Owner Victor Kiam initially shrugged off Olson’s charges, said she strolled into the shower area the previous season and reportedly called her a “classic bitch” in private.

Even the Patriots’ successes were overshadowed by ineptitude. Coach Chuck Fairbanks directed the Patriots to their first division title in 1978 but was suspended for the regular season finale after it was learned he’d already accepted the head coaching job at the University of Colorado.

In 1985, the Patriots became the first team to make the Super Bowl by winning three straight road games. “I think it was the first time I really felt like football was appreciated around here,” Grogan said. “I think for a short period of time there we caught the imagination of the sport fan around here. A lot of people jumped on the bandwagon and wanted to be associated with the Patriots.”

A win over the Chicago Bears and their legendary defense would have been the biggest upset in football history. Alas, the Bears were as good as advertised as they destroyed the Patriots, 46-10. Two days later, any remaining positive feelings the Patriots had built up over the previous month disappeared when it was revealed more than two dozen players failed drug tests during the season.

“Who knows what would have happened had we won that game?” Grogan said. “We certainly would have been in the forefront for a little longer than it was.”

The Patriots were a picture of instability and uncertainty in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. The franchise won 14 games in a four-season span from 1989-1992, had three owners between 1989 and 1993 and was moments away from moving to St. Louis when Robert Kraft, who owned Foxboro Stadium, bought the team from James Orthwein.

“The Red Sox cut across all demographics—racial lines, age, gender, it doesn’t matter,” McAdam said. “If you lived in New England, the Red Sox are part of the fabric. And if you’ve lived in New England until the last 10 years, the Patriots were mostly a bad joke. And that kind of thing doesn’t get erased overnight with people who have developed a decades-long affiliation with the Red Sox.”

Even Kraft could not deny the seemingly irresistible lure of the Red Sox: According to The Boston Globe, when a fellow NFL owner poked fun at Kraft for being pictured in a Red Sox jacket on national television, Kraft said he was a Sox fan long before he was a Patriots fan.

The Patriots surged to respectability under Kraft and coach Bill Parcells, who was hired prior to the 1993 season by Orthwein. And it was Parcells’ charisma—as well as the success the Patriots enjoyed under him; their loss in Super Bowl XXXI following the 1996 season marked the decade’s only championship round appearance by a Boston team—that finally turned the Patriots into the clear number two “beat” in Boston.

In December 1996, Channel 4 sports anchor Bob Lobel told the Boston Herald Parcells was “…by far the greatest sports personality in my 20 years here.” Parcells could be secretive, bullying and combative with the media, particularly those who second-guessed his decisions or asked what he believed were ill-informed questions, but he seemed to enjoy interacting with reporters and his sarcastic wit and biting commentary—in 1996, he called rookie wide receiver Terry Glenn “she” in an attempt to fire him up—made his press conferences can’t-miss affairs.

Few coaches were more consumed with winning or more miserable in defeat than Parcells, who once said winning the Super Bowl was better than sex. But unlike so many of his brethren whose lives seemingly did not extend beyond the gridiron, Parcells has a litany of off-field interests and hobbies.

Parcells had a particular fondness for horse racing—he owned several thoroughbreds and bet a pair of writers that a favorite horse of his would win a 1996 race; when it did, the writers could not ask Parcells a question for a week—and baseball. Parcells is a lifelong fan of the game who often said he’d love to own a minor league team upon retirement. He’d often talk about the game and swap trivia questions with reporters in off-the-record sessions following press conferences.

“He was an interesting guy in his press conferences,” said Cafardo, who was moved from the Red Sox beat to the Patriots beat when Ron Borges was promoted to NFL columnist in 1996. “He wasn’t afraid to say things about players. He would go off on the writers. He was just very entertaining and he would always fill up your notebook.”

Filling up the notebooks of reporters was the last thing on the mind of Bill Belichick, a Parcells disciple and the man who would lift the Patriots to unimaginable heights.

(Part two tomorrow)

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Fighting Words Q&A: Gabe Kapler

2009-09-04T09:01:00.004-04:00

Gabe Kapler's a pretty interesting guy, In the five years since this interview was conducted, he has won a World Series ring, played in Japan, returned to the Red Sox, suffered a torn Achilles tendon, returned to the Sox, retired to become the manager of the Sox' Single-A affiliate in Greenville, unretired, signed with the Brewers, participated in the 2008 playoffs and played with the Rays. Whew. Photo from this site.

A quick note here to offer my sincere and appreciative thanks to Bruce Allen for reviewing Fighting Words and conducting a Q&A with me yesterday at Boston Sports Media Watch. Thanks, too, to Bruce for linking the Derek Lowe Q&A, and if you arrived here via that route, welcome. I hope you like what you see, and I hope you’ll stop by beginning Tuesday, when, I’ll post in two or three parts the Patriots chapter from Fighting Words that ended up on the cutting room floor.

In the meantime, check out this Q&A with Gabe Kapler that I conducted in 2004. I’m a day late to coincide with Kapler and the Rays hosting the Sox, but Kapler’s take on the positivity of the press and the advantages of playing in a market where fans have an insatiable thirst for information about their athletes is pretty timely given the Sox’ recent dissatisfaction with what they perceive as negative coverage. Happy Labor Day weekend. Enjoy the burgers and dogs.

Did you ever participate in any media training seminars?

I remember we had a rookie development program, I think in ’98—how to deal with the media and how to handle certain situations, to avoid [certain] questions and how to not be manipulated by questions and how to manipulate the situation so you get across the points that you want to get across. What else did they teach us there? There was also [something on] how to avoid the pitfalls of being out on the town and getting photographed—not necessarily photographed, but being confronted by people—and learning how to not be reactive.

What was the media like at your previous stops: Detroit, Texas and Colorado?

It was a different world. You knew everybody by name, there was a familiarity there that you don’t have here, because, basically, there’s two competing newspapers: Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram. So if you have a conversation with a reporter, you know where it is [going to appear]. Whereas here, it can [appear] anywhere. Detroit was a little bit closer to here. Not nearly the same level. As far as Colorado, it wasn’t even close.

What had you heard about the Boston media before you played here?

In the clubhouse, I’d heard it would get crowded at times and you had to be careful, because my understanding from outside sources—which I found to be entirely untrue—was that the media’s happier when you’re losing than when you’re winning. I haven’t found that to be an accurate depiction at all.

Why do you think that is the case?

I think that comes from there being less to write about when [the Sox lose]. I think that, truly, a lot of the writers around here are Red Sox fans, whether they admit it or not.

A lot of the beat writers and columnists are from the area. Do you think they shoulder the team’s struggles and failures more than reporters in other cities?

I think that’s more the fans caring so passionately and deeply. They want to win so badly They say ‘We’re going to be very disappointed when we lose.’ They’re very open about being disappointed when you lose. But [they’re] always going to care.

Do you ever marvel at how the Patriots are in the midst of a legendary run yet the Sox get more coverage?

It’s pretty amazing. It’s pretty exciting It’s nice to be a part of. Whether I play one more year with the Red Sox, no more years with the Red Sox or 10 more years with the Red Sox, I will always cherish the experiences that I had here. Remarkably rewarding.

You’ve become pretty popular with the media. Do you see yourself as a team spokesperson-type of player?

I don’t think that’s accurate—at least I don’t see it. Maybe I’m off, but I don’t feel like I talk to the media more than anybody else. I don’t feel at all offended by that [characterization]. I’ve never—I don’t notice myself talking to the media more than anybody else I could be wrong. Other people have more [press responsibilities] than me.

What do you remember about the relationship between the press and the Sox—and in particular Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez and Nomar Garciaparra—last year?

Very little, believe it or not. There’s been so much positive that’s gone on here that it’s been difficult to think of [negatives]. Pedro’s talking to the media now and Manny [as well]. Nomar was real particular about when he talked.

Is the passion for baseball in Boston a good thing because it allows someone like you and your wife an outlet to try and help others by telling the story of how she was abused by a former boyfriend?

There’s no doubt about it. It’s unbelievable. It’s given me a forum to talk about important issues that you never would have been able to talk about. And because of it, we’re starting a really great [charity] that we wouldn’t have been able to start [otherwise]. I’m very thankful for the opportunity.

We had talked about starting a foundation and we have this fundraiser called Picnic in the Park here. Jane Doe is an organization that supports women in abusive relationships and their rehabilitation. Lisa said she had been in that type of relationship, they embraced her [and] she opened up about it. She started to speak about it, we talked about how perfect it would be if we could get something going.

And the rest has become history. She’s spoken to five or six high schools in the last two weeks. She’ll get [a company] called the National Jean Company that’s affiliated with Jane Doe and raise money for Jane Doe. Really remarkable. We really have Boston to thank for that, because they listen where nobody else really cares. It’s great to be a member of the Rockies, but you have an issue and you’re not Todd Helton, it might not get heard, where here, it’s heard.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Relationship between the Sox, media and fans tense and timeless

2009-09-03T05:14:00.005-04:00

You can say anything you want about me and my writing, but if you badmouth Extreme we'll have a lot more than words between us. Photo from this site.

The best thing about finishing Fighting Words and seeing it hit the shelves (buy it here!)—other than living a cross-continental life of fame and fortune and having Jennifer Aniston on speed dial (OK that’s a lie, but I’m apparently following Wyclef Jean on Twitter and I can tell you he never shuts up)—is the absence of dread on mornings like last Thursday, when the Boston Herald’s Michael Silverman wrote a column criticizing the Red Sox’ recent sensitivity towards the media’s coverage of the team.

Three years ago, or even a year ago, such a piece would have filled me with panic. What if someone else decides it’d be interesting to write a book about the dynamic between the Red Sox and the media? And what if that someone else is able to, you know, author the book about it in less than a year? Gulp.

Now, such stories leave me strangely aglow with comfort (not quite Monty Burns in the woods aglow, but pretty close)—not only because I was able to get the book out before someone else did, but because it’s further proof this stuff is timeless. It’s nice to know I didn’t write a book about the modern version of the Macarena and that there’s a shred of a chance someone will pick up Fighting Words in a year or two and still find it relevant.

Because, let’s face it: There IS some kind of unavoidable disconnect between the players, the media and the fans that root for the team and absorb the coverage. And it’s an impossible to bridge that gap and impossible to choose sides, because you can’t change instinctual reactions nor blame people for having them.

Players are going to get mad whenever the coverage isn’t positive, even if the non-positive coverage is mostly straight reportage. It’s kind of hard to avoid that the Sox had a miserable stretch leading up to and following the All-Star Break, or that they fell hopelessly behind the Yankees, or that David Ortiz tested positive for performance-enhancers in 2003. (Perhaps Ortiz was angry about the moralizing of columnists, but I kind of doubt it)

Such sentiments—whether born out of the expectation that the press should serve as a supportive cheerleader or the athlete’s need to turn any slight into motivational material—are universal in professional sports.

“Ninety-nine percent of the players think every city is negative,” former Herald columnist and current ESPN.com columnist Howard Bryant said in an interview for Fighting Words in January 2005. “If you talk to players about how they’re perceived or portrayed, I don’t think there’s any market where they could say ‘That’s a fair town.’ I think it all depends on how you’re being treated at that moment. I think that would be the case with any of us, if we were in the public eye.

Added Bryant later in the interview: “Let’s face it: When you talk to a ballplayer anywhere, you could write nine good stories about them and one bad one and they’ll say you’re being negative. They don’t remember the good.”

Fandom, meanwhile, is about rooting for and being supportive of your favorite team and players and jumping to their defense whenever someone is critical or dismissive of said team and players. Or, for those of us who don’t really root for professional teams, bands. I get worked into a frothy rage whenever anyone thinks Extreme is nothing more than “More Than Words,” but I digress.

Nobody likes being criticized, and the reporter gets it from both subject and audience. Michael Gee expounded on the latter element Wednesday in a really interesting guest column at Boston Sports Media Watch.

Perhaps—and I’m just theorizing here—the sensitivity of reporters is heightened by our (I’ve been out of work for mumblemumble months, can I say our?) own sense of impending doom and marginalization in a business largely headed down the crapper. Maybe we’re upset that people are critical of a profession in which we’ve invested so much time, effort and money. Of course, it doesn’t stop us from blasting doctors, car mechanics and lawyers, does it?

The relationship between the players, the media and the fans is a particularly unique one in Boston, one that remains fascinating even if it really hasn’t changed in decades and even though the fundamental differences between the parties aren’t going to disappear any millennium soon. To which I say: Thank goodness.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Hey kids: Carlos Pena walks, homers and strikes out…TO THE EXTREME!

2009-09-02T20:39:00.005-04:00

Carlos Pena will be cooler than Poochie if he manages to lead the AL in homers, RBI, walks and strikeouts while finishing last in the majors in batting average. Photo from this site.

Carlos Pena hit 46 homers in 2007, one season after he spent time in three organizations and hit one major league homer (a walk-off blast for the Red Sox against the White Sox Sept. 4), and helped the perpetually awful Rays to the World Series in 2008. But Pena may be pulling off his most remarkable feat yet as he puts the finishing touches on an awesomely absurd season of extreme statistical accomplishment.

Pena has gotten plenty of ink and pixels for collecting more homers (39) than singles (38), something only Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds have ever accomplished. But that’s nothing compared to his emergence as the poster boy for Three True Outcomes.

Entering play today, Pena leads the AL in homers (39), walks (84) and strikeouts (156) while ranking second in RBI…and last among all major league qualifiers in batting average (.225). That’s right: He may win two-thirds of the Triple Crown (he is three behind Mark Teixeira in RBI) while finishing dead last in the third category.

That is, if I may use the adjective for the second time in three graphs, awesome, and reminiscent of one of the defining seasons of my baseball youth. I recall watching the putrid Mets (some things never change) on WWOR-9 (OK, most things do change) in 1982 as Dave Kingman jockeyed for the NL home run lead while struggling to keep his batting average above The Mendoza Line.

A quick check of Baseball-Reference.com confirms my recollections were correct: Kingman led the NL with 37 homers and also paced the circuit with 156 strikeouts, all while batting .204—the lowest mark in the big leagues.

A further foray into B-R.com also makes it clear that Pena is on pace to produce the most productive season, by far, of anyone who has finished last in the majors in batting average since 1979. No player since Kingman has led his league in multiple offensive categories while ranking last in batting average—in fact, the only players to bring up the rear in batting average and lead the league in anything, positive or negative, are Rob Deer (led the AL in whiffs in 1991 and 1993) and Brian Hunter (led the AL in stolen bases in 1999).

Yet Pena has a chance to do it in FOUR categories—though he enters today with a healthy lead only in homers, where he is seven ahead of Teixeira—and he’ll also likely finish the season in the top 10 in slugging percentage and runs scored as well. Only two players since 1979 have even finished in the top 10 in three categories while compiling the lowest batting average in the game: Kingman, who finished ninth in the NL in RBI in 1982, and Gorman Thomas, who ranked fifth in homers, seventh in strikeouts and ninth in walks in the AL in 1985.

In addition, Pena already has more homers than anyone who finished last in batting average since 1979, and he’ll make it a clean sweep with two more RBI, 13 more walks and 20 more strikeouts.

If, of course, Pena manages to stay first in the race for last. Pena was hitting as low as .211 as recently as Aug. 18, but he’s hit .356 with over his last 13 games to allow Mike Jacobs (.228) and David Ortiz (.229) to creep closer. Pena has seven singles in that span, one more than he had in 38 games from July 1 through Aug. 18. On behalf of minutiae-loving baseball fans everywhere, Carlos, here’s hoping for more Three True Outcomes and less versatility down the stretch.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Reports of the Red Sox’ demise were greatly exaggerated

2009-09-01T07:35:00.003-04:00

Paul McCartney is alive and well, and so are the Sox. Photo from this site.

We know it’s no good for us and that equal parts regret and guilt will wash over us as indigestion sets in. We know this, yet the urge for instant gratification overwhelms common sense and we dive headlong into that bag of potato chips or that pint of ice cream…or, if you’re a sportswriter/blogger, that column/post about how the team you cover/watch from afar is either unbeatable or completely sunk following a seismic handful of games.

Sometimes, we give ourselves a little bit of wiggle room, but let’s face it, tempering those scenarios of imminent euphoria or destruction with “well, anything can still happen” is a lot like washing down that bag of chips with Diet Coke. You’re not fooling anyone and the damage is still done.

And so it is that here, on the first morning of September, those utterances of three weeks ago that the Red Sox were finished—pardon me, potentially finished, and I’ve got to give myself a little bit of credit, I washed that blog down with a bottle of water—following the Boston Massacre III look a wee bit foolish.

The sky has yet to fall upon the Sox, who begin play today a healthy four games up on the Rangers and five games up on the Rays—the latter of whom the Sox can finish off, err, put into a deeper hole during a three-game series beginning tonight in Florida—in the wild card race. The Sox have built that distance on the strength of the offense that was, somewhat understandably, declared extinct after a 31-inning scoreless stretch against the Yankees.

Remarkably, even with that epic drought, the Sox had one of the best offensive months of any AL team. The Sox led the circuit with 50 homers while hitting .275 with 165 runs scored, 152 RBI, a .356 on-base percentage and a .494 slugging percentage. They ranked second in slugging, behind the Yankees, and third in runs, RBI and on-base percentage, behind the Yankees and Angels.

In their final 20 games of the month, the Sox went 14-6 while scoring 129 runs, an average of 6.45 runs per game. They scored more than four runs 14 times. In the previous 20-game stretch—which ended with the sweep at the hands of the Yankees—the Sox went 7-13 with 91 runs scored, an average of 4.55 runs per game, and scored fewer than four runs 12 times.

Kevin Youkilis (.337-4-16), Dustin Pedroia (.305-5-13), Mike Lowell (.319-5-15), Jacoby Ellsbury (.295-0-11) and David Ortiz (seven homers for the third straight month) maintained or slightly improved their seasonal norms, but the real fuel for the August surge was provided by a pair of slumping core players and two newcomers who proved to be dramatic upgrades on their predecessors.

Jason Bay hit .289 with nine homers and 18 RBI in August after hitting .213 with five homers and 25 RBI in June and July. J.D. Drew hit .329 with six homers and 13 RBI in 73 at-bats after hitting .217 with two homers and five RBI in 83 at-bats in July.

Victor Martinez hit .306 with five homers and 19 RBI in 108 at-bats. Jason Varitek hit .135 with one homer and four RBI in August and is hitting .204 with four homers and 26 RBI in 181 at-bats since June 1. Alex Gonzalez, imported for his glove more than his bat, hit .296 with three homers and seven RBI in 54 at-bats. Nick Green has as many scoreless innings on the mound (two) as he does homers since July 1, and is hitting just .161 since then with eight RBI in 93 at-bats.

This is not quite 2004 all over again, when the Sox took a couple weeks to find a groove following the Nomar Garciaparra trade and went 20-2 and scored more than four runs 18 times from Aug. 16 through Sept. 8. And the uncertain state of the Sox’ starting staff—this is what’s known as chasing a binge of optimism with a diet soda—beyond Jon Lester means it’s a little early to project 2004-type success in October and, perhaps, November. Still, it seems pretty clear the sky is not falling, and that my waistline continues to expand.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Fighting Words Q&A: Kevin Millar (2004)

2009-08-28T16:40:00.003-04:00

Kevin Millar spent a lot more time on the other side of the microphone during his three years with the Red Sox. Photo from this site.

Below is the first of a couple Q&As I’d like to post with Kevin Millar, the loquacious former Red Sox first baseman who arrives in town tonight with the Blue Jays for a three-game series. Millar, who was kind enough to pen the foreword for Fighting Words, was incredibly cooperative and always willing to answer another question or two for this book both during and following his three seasons with the Sox.

This was conducted July 22, 2004, before a doubleheader against the Orioles, and my inability to use a lot of this in a book that wasn't finished for another four years doesn't diminish the insight Millar offered on the relationship between the media and the Red Sox and the dynamic therein.

Five years later, though, the most interesting thing to me is the pretty impressive sense of prescience Millar displayed in asking for patience with both himself and the struggling Sox. Millar, who had been coming under heavy criticism for his quiet production at the plate, was less than 12 hours removed from hitting a homer and going 3-for-3 in a performance that raised his average eight points to .277. He hit four homers in the next two games, including three against the Yankees July 23, and hit .336 with 13 homers, 49 RBI and 17 doubles in 211 at-bats beginning July 21. He hit .269 with five homers, 25 RBI and 19 doubles in his first 297 at-bats of the season.

Millar also implored fans (and media) not to worry about the Yankees and to think of October and how the Sox stacked up to the Yankees in a short series. Suffice to say he was proven correct three months later. Hope you enjoy:

What had you heard about the media in Boston before joining the Red Sox?

Just you’ve got to be careful. It’s known around baseball and around sports [as] probably the toughest media you’re going to deal with. The thing about here is you’ve got one paper or two papers that have six writers that write for the same paper, so you’re going to have six different stories every day. You’ve got three or four people writing for the Herald, three or four people that write for the Globe. Where in different cities—other than New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago—you’re going to find one page, one writer.

Was it a culture shock for you going from Florida to here?

You deal with about four or five reporters there in Florida. Here, you’re going to deal with 25 to 30. It’s just one of those things that you deal with. I think, if you’re accessible every night when you’re doing good or doing bad, I think they’re going to respect you. I’ve never had a problem with the media. Just be accountable for your actions each and every night. There’s going to be good articles, there’s going to be bad articles. But that’s their job.

Do you read the papers or pay attention to the coverage?

No. One thing I don’t do. I’ve never got caught up in that. I read the USA Today, but you don’t want to get caught up in stuff because your feelings will get hurt. First of all, because you’re a human being. And second of all, you’re never as good as the good articles are about you or as bad as they are. You’ve just got to kind of find a happy medium. I get up and read the USA Today and look through box scores from other guys. I don’t get caught up in the local press. Obviously, someone says there’s an article about you, I hear about it.

Can you describe what happened last summer when you asked everyone to “Cowboy Up?”

I was upset at the negativity that everybody wants to put around this club or the past and 1918. That’s when I originally wanted the to ‘cowboy up’ and say to enjoy these guys, enjoy the team, don’t worry about all the negative. There’s 20 bright spots and maybe five black spots. They want to dwell on the black spots. And I don’t fall for that bad press sells papers. Good press sells papers also. There’s always going to be a negative and that’s what’s wrong with society at times. But there’s also good stories that [will get] people [to] sit and watch and listen and read.

It doesn’t always have to be a negative, gloomy day. But that’s the difference between people. You have good reporters and you’re going to have [crappy] reporters. Just like players—you have good guys and some of the guys [aren’t].

Is it tough for players to forget an organization’s past?

Well, historical stuff doesn’t really faze me at all, because I wasn’t alive. The big thing is you have to have a short-term memory as a player. It’s day-to-day each day, so it’s not hard to forget about anything. I’m struggling, I’m not going to hit 12 homers in one night to turn those numbers around. It takes time to turn numbers around. As soon as you start swinging the bat well, the numbers just aren’t going to fly out there. It takes a month to get those numbers back to healthy. So as a player, no, it’s not hard.

When you catch some criticism, as you did for last year’s "Cowboy Up" statement, do you ever think it’d be easier just to give clichés to reporters?

Yeah. No reason to express your true feelings, because it always comes out wrong and then you’re the bad guy. So most of the time, yeah, they’re all clichés anyway. What goes on in here is our business and you do the best you can. But I happen to be a guy who wears my heart on my sleeve and I’ve come out looking like the bad guy. Sometimes it’s easier just to answer the right question the right way. It doesn’t benefit you either way. Let someone else be the bad guy.

Like for instance, last year when they were on Derek [Lowe]. I called them over here and went [off] on them and a couple day later I went off on the media and it was all ‘Millar can’t handle the media, Millar’s starting to tell the fans they’re too negative’ and all of a sudden I was turning into this big bad guy. [He’s] like wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. All I was basically saying was ‘Lay off Derek, we need him.’ He came up with a blister, we ended up losing [a game] and they were all over him. I was basically saying ‘We need Derek.’ Sure enough, we did get him in the fifth game of the playoffs and all of a sudden everything was all right.

But the media, it’s 162 playoff games. We lose last night, it’s the end of the world. We win tonight, we’re getting better. Baseball’s a long year, man. I can’t tell you if we’re going to go 50-10, I can’t tell you that the Yankees aren’t going to go 25-25. I don’t know, it could happen, you know? [All] anyone wants to talk about is ‘Is the season over?’ It’s [expletive] 70 games left. Baseball’s crazy [stuff]. We could go on a rampage [or] just keep plugging away. Obviously, second week of September, you’re right around the corner. Right now we’re just in July. This team just got healthy a week-and-a-half ago.

Do you sense more pressure in the short-term from media here than in Florida?

This is definitely different. The media here thinks they’re general managers. Everyone wants to be a GM instead of a fan or a writer. Everyone’s got all the answers. When I was in Florida, we were young and we were losing, we were a .500 team, but we were so young and talented pitching-wise. [The] potential [was a theme of] a lot of the articles, and obviously it worked out because they’re champions last year. But I was there when Beckett was 20 and Brad Penny’s 21 and A.J. Burnett was 20.

Like I said, all these talk radio guys, they’re all GMs, they all know everything. Derek Lowe throws seven innings, now all of a sudden he’s great. Derek Lowe gets knocked out in the third, get him out of here. It’s just [Millar whistles]. Pedro last night—you’re gonna start hearing about ‘Well, what’s wrong with Pedro?’ [Expletive], the guy’s 10-4. Everybody’s a GM. Well, who are you going to bring in [that’s] better than Derek Lowe out there right now? Kip Wells? That’s my point. Hey, this guy’s won 21, this guy’s won 17. He’ll be fine. He’ll have a good second half for us.

But they want to get rid of everybody. And who are we bringing in? They want to get rid of Nomar, they want to get rid of me, they want to get rid of Derek Lowe. It’s like, OK, who do you want? Everybody’s [a] GM. And something about this you’ve got to understand: This is the same group that made a lot of people happy last year. No one’s changed. Minor disappointment, not a major catastrophe. Minor disappointment, that first half. It’s a couple months [the Sox have] been in a little bit of a minor slump. But we’re OK. That’s what you try to get over.

The sky is not falling, you know? We could be six out in the wild card. But you’re compared to the Yankees so much. It’s like ‘Oh, God, the Yankees.’ [Screw] the Yankees. They’re gonna win 100 games. You put us in a five-game series with them, I guarantee you I’m taking us. That’s my feeling. I don’t care if the Yankees won 170 games this year. Go for it. Put us in a five-game series, go get Pedro and Schilling. Good luck. Put our offense and their offense and they’ll go head-to-head. But their pitching and our pitching?

Were you surprised at all by the attention when Manny Ramirez didn’t start the final game of the first half due to tight hamstrings, started the All-Star Game and then missed a handful of starts after the All-Star Break?

I don’t know who made the nickname ‘Mannyisms.’ Maybe those are ‘Mannyisms.’ I don’t know what that means and what it is. But you deal with certain things. Everybody in this locker room’s got 25 different personalities—different people, different backgrounds. We don’t know what people go through. People want to get on Pedro for going home early for the All-Star Break. Well, you know what, I don’t think anyone else lives away from their family like he does in the Dominican Republic. I don’t think a lot of people [don’t] get to see your family for nine months. And if you get a chance to go home for a couple days, go for it. He ain’t pitching. See ya later. You’re a pain in the ass anyway [grins].

But for him, before we jump to conclusions when the radio guy’s sitting at home with his wife and kids, sometimes you’ve got to sit back and [say] ‘OK.’ But all we want to see is dollar signs and athletes and spoiled athletes. So that’s what people see is dollar signs and spoiled athletes other than you know, hey, we’re people, we’re human beings. We have moms and dads and kids.

Did you think people were less willing to give Ramirez a break because he’s got a track record of missing games right before the All-Star Break with minor injuries?

No one has any right to question any injuries from athletes. Who’s to say how bad Nomar’s Achilles [is]? Who’s to say how bad Manny Ramirez’ hamstrings are sore? Who’s to say how bad someone’s lower back is? You can’t question anything, because this is a major league level game we’re playing. One sprint down to first base and it smashes his hamstring, now he’s out six-to-eight weeks. If a guy needs two or three days off because he’s got tight [hamstrings], go for it. Now we want to talk about why he played in the All-Star Game. Who gives a [crap], you know? Maybe he did it in his third at-bat in the All-Star Game, maybe he did it the second. Who knows? The point being is Manny had a bad hamstring.

But I like I said, it’s 160 playoff games. Oh God, oh God, oh God. No, it’s not like that. Guess what? Gabe Kapler gets to get some at-bats. Guess what? Gabe Kapler goes deep two times that series. It’s OK. It’s why you have a 25-man roster. Nomar isn’t playing last night, why isn’t he playing? It’s OK. Gives him a day so he doesn’t snap his Achilles and we lose him for two more months. That’s why you put a 25-man roster together on a big league team.

Do you sense reporters carry the team’s championship burden here?

We’ve got some guys who make a lot of money on ‘The Curse,’ so they’re going to keep that going as long as it’s going to make them money, basically promoting themselves and keeping ‘The Curse’ alive and keeping the fans intrigued. Curse, there’s no such thing as a curse. We haven’t ha the better team in that time. You tip your hat to the Yankees last year. They got some big-time hits in some big-time situations. Nothing to do with the ghosts flying around, you know? Matsui hit an 0-2 fastball down the line. Derek Jeter hits. That’s just baseball, you know? Bucky Dent’s home run.

Do you have any reporters whom you trust more than others?

Yeah. You’ve got a few reporters you trust, you know. You have your few reporters you don’t, you know what I’m saying? But that’s life. Some guys you trust, some guys you don’t, [whether] it’s media or players. I like [Tony] Mazz, Bob Hohler. I don’t know, there’s probably [more], all that I deal with. Honest to God, that’s the thing: I don’t know a lot [of reporters personally]. Bob Hohler, I deal with a lot. Ian [Browne of redsox.com], we deal with. We get The Boston Globe at home. Some guys, I don’t know if they write on me or not. It’s unfair to say if I trust them or not.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Youk’s Fuel

2009-08-27T12:02:00.003-04:00

There's a pretty good chance you have fueled Kevin Youkilis' fire. Photo from this site.

If I hadn’t gone to the well so frequently in the last couple weeks with Q&As—and wasn’t planning to post a Kevin Millar Q&A tomorrow morning with the Blue Jays coming to town for a weekend series—I would have posted today the Kevin Youkilis interview I conducted for Fighting Words in September 2007.

I’ll post the Youkilis Q&A sometime in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I’ll say (or write) that I was pleasantly surprised at how well the interview went, given how Youkilis seemed as fond of the media then as he did in speaking to Dan Shaughnessy Tuesday (Youkilis clarified his comments yesterday and said he was not angry with the fans). But Youkilis was expansive two years ago in describing the negativity players perceive from the media, the awkwardness of celebrity and why he was more intense and less approachable as a regular than as a reserve.

It’s hard to believe now, but when Youkilis joined the big club in 2004, he fit in seamlessly with the goofy, endearingly idiotic likes of Millar, Johnny Damon, Bronson Arroyo, et al. In fact, Youkilis contributed background vocals to Arroyo’s CD in 2005 and joined Damon in backing up Arroyo at a concert during the All-Star Break.

Youkilis was decidedly less amiable in 2005, which I figured was a byproduct of riding the Boston-to-Pawtucket shuttle all year long, but the gruffness was a sign of things to come. The persona of the Sox, too, began to change in 2005 and particularly during Youkilis’ first season as a regular in 2006, and I have often wondered what Youkilis’ public persona would be like if the idiots still ruled the roost.

Dustin Pedroia can walk up and down the dugout talking trash, complain about the media alternately praising and burying the Sox vis a vis the Yankees and rail at skeptics seen and unseen, yet he does it all with an impish grin that implies even he doesn’t believe everything he says.

But there’s no sense of winking self-awareness coming from the perpetually scowling Youkilis, who seems to get both better and unhappier by the day. He’s a perennial MVP candidate, one of the Sox’ building blocks and rich beyond all comprehension, but you wouldn’t know it by watching him or reading his comments.

It doesn’t seem to make any sense, especially his complaining about negative Boston fans. Youkilis spent most of his minor league days in New England, which made him a cult hero to Sox devotees long before he even appeared at Fenway Park. If he’s not the favorite player among the faithful, then he’s surely in the top three with Pedroia and David Ortiz.

But maybe Youkilis’ words and actions are actually providing a glimpse into what drives a superstar, especially one who was never pegged for greatness , has always felt the need to prove himself in order to fit in and who is alternately motivated and pursued by unpleasant memories. All pro athletes use slights, real and perceived, to stoke their competitive fires, but Youkilis doesn’t have to dig too deep to find some fuel.

I don’t think there are too many superstars who were pudgy as kids—even today, one look at Youkilis indicates he probably wasn’t among the first kids picked in gym class—and who played four years at a non-descript Division I school before being drafted as an eighth-round afterthought.

“That’s probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with—sometimes, I’ve got to let that go and not think I have to prove myself all the time,” Youkilis said in September 2007. “But it’s in my nature, since day one, ever since I was young. [He has been] trying to prove myself since I was like 11, 12 years old. It’s been something that’s going on for a long time. Hopefully, at some point, it all goes away and I don’t have to worry about it.”

Youkilis also hinted at some darker childhood moments last month, when he spoke to a group of Needham teenagers about the suicide deaths of three of his closest friends. Pedroia is the one who has authored an autobiography, but the more I think about it and the more he speaks, the more I think the really interesting story would be the one penned by Youkilis.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Setting up Wagner to fail?

2009-08-26T06:21:00.002-04:00

This could be a common pose for Billy Wagner as he adapts to setting up for the first time in 13 years. Photo from this site.

Theo Epstein’s great chemistry experiment continued Tuesday, when the longest trade talks in the history of the game came to a conclusion with the Red Sox acquiring Billy Wagner from the Mets for two players to be named later.

That the Sox went ahead and completed the trade for Wagner even though Jonathan Papelbon originally thought it was a lousy idea was no surprise. Any doubt that the Sox don’t care what Papelbon says because he won’t be in Boston beyond 2011 should have disappeared yesterday, when Epstein and Terry Francona—two men who are almost always cautious with their words and complimentary of their players—basically called their closer an idiot, and not in the endearing Johnny Damon way.

Epstein said Papelbon’s comments about Wagner were misunderstood (a phrase echoed, not surprisingly, by Papelbon) and that Papelbon is “…not a Rhodes Scholar to begin with.”

Said Francona about Papelbon: “Not too much filter there.”

Must give some credit here to Bruce Allen, who wondered way back in April if Papelbon’s loose lips made him a bad fit for a team with an increasingly corporate demeanor. Daniel Bard’s struggles over the last few weeks probably assure Papelbon of remaining with the Sox next year, but I’d be surprised if the Sox don’t move him before his walk year in 2011.

One thing is certain: Barring a serious injury this season to Papelbon, his successor at closer won’t be Wagner, who is 38 and desperate to close for someone in 2010. The Sox are not expected to pick up Wagner’s $8 million option for next season, though I’d wager good money on feelings being bruised when the Sox insist on offering Wagner arbitration and therefore making teams reluctant to relinquish draft picks in signing Wagner, who will likely cost his new team two picks as a Type A free agent.

The Sox, of course, care as much about Wagner’s feelings come November as they do Papelbon’s feelings right now. This is about winning it all and adding some valuable and hard-throwing depth to an already solid bullpen. And I imagine the Sox already see this move as a success because it keeps Wagner away from potential playoff foes.

Which is good, because it’s hard to envision him contributing much more than that. Wagner is less than a year removed from Tommy John surgery, made just two appearances with the Mets before he was dealt and won’t be able to throw on consecutive days.

The biggest problem isn’t how Wagner will be accepted in the locker room but how he’ll accept his new role. Wagner, who ranks sixth all-time in saves with 385, has been a closer since 1997 and said Monday he didn’t expect to drop his no-trade protection and go to Boston because he was “…too old to set up.” Both parties, of course, are in full spin control mode now that Wagner is in Boston to not serve as a closer.

Wagner’s agent, the awesomely named Bean Stringfellow, said Wagner changed his mind about the trade because of his “competitive nature” and the chance to compete for a championship. And Terry Francona said Wagner won’t have Eric Gagne-like issues in the transition because he’s a situational lefty, not a set-up man. Well, unless that situation is getting the last out of the ninth inning, he’s still a set-up man.

In addition, Wagner doesn’t exactly possess a Papelbon-like playoff resume: He has an 8.71 ERA in 11 postseason games, including an 0-1 mark with a 16.88 ERA in the Mets’ seven-game loss to the Cardinals in the 2006 NLCS. He was so ineffective in that series—particularly in a non-save situation in Game Six, when he entered the ninth with a six-run lead a four-run lead and gave up two runs and allowed the tying run to reach the plate before he finally escaped the jam—that Willie Randolph gave the ball to Aaron Heilman, the human gas can, in a tie game in the top of the ninth of Game Seven instead of Wagner. Not quite the history you want out of a guy who will be setting…err, serving as a situational reliever in the playoffs, is it?

The Sox are banking their World Series hopes on a whole lot of people transitioning on the fly. Fitting five players into four spots (catcher, first base, third base and designated hitter) is working pretty well thus far, and Epstein’s long-term track record earns him the benefit of the doubt. But I still can’t shake the feeling that acquiring Wagner is the equivalent of hitting one too many times in a game of blackjack, and that he’ll be left to wonder this fall if Wagner would have done a lot more to help the Sox in somebody else’s uniform.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Fighting Words Q&A: Hawk Harrelson

2009-08-25T23:33:00.003-04:00

The Hawk made Ken Harrelson's time in Boston an unforgettable one. Photo from this site.

Below is one of the more fascinating and unexpected interviews I conducted in the writing of Fighting Words. I wanted to talk to Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, the famed White Sox broadcaster and former Red Sox outfielder and broadcaster, because Carl Yastrzemski credited him with lightening the mood around the 1967 Red Sox, embracing the role of team spokesman and making it easier for Yastrzemski to concentrate on baseball.

I had no idea how highly Harrelson thought of Yastrzemski, nor of how Harrelson has come to view the “Hawk” as a different personality that overtakes him during pressure situations and allows the naturally shy and reserve Harrelson to thrive in those scenarios.

With the White Sox in town this week, I figured it was a good time to post this interview, which was conducted in the visitor’s television booth at Fenway Park in August 2007. Hope you find it as fun and interesting as I did.

What did you think of the passion you saw upon arriving in Boston in 1967?

It was something. It was really fantastic to be a part of. Because the franchise had been down so for long, it was almost like it was apathy among the fans. And then to come in here and see the packed house every night and the atmosphere and the attitude and just to watch Yaz play—that was unbelievable.

Carl said your presence really helped him, particularly when it came to dealing with the media and all the attention. How do you think you helped him?

I’d been the “Hawk” since I was 17. Dick Howser gave me that when I was 17 years old. And when I got here, again, it was only a nickname. Only the “Hawk” took a life of its own and I really became—we became buddies, he and I. Because I’m like Yaz. People who know me will tell you I’m very quiet and very introverted. But the “Hawk” was not. He was just the antithesis of that. And that’s what Yaz was talking about. And he’s right. It took a lot of pressure off a lot of the guys, and just like that helped them and helped Yaz. He helped me, hitting behind him in ’67 and ’68, you know? It made me realize what you had to do. And if you look back, you’ll see in ’67 and ’68, I had my two best years. And two big parts of that was because of Yaz: Hitting behind him and learning, when you’re facing good pitching out there—I’m not talking about mediocre pitching, I’m talking about 20-game winners—you better know how to ratchet it up a little bit. And that’s what he did in ’67. To this day, that’s the greatest offensive season I’ve ever seen by anybody.

We were talking the other day: Sometimes, you’ve got to go beyond the numbers. Now there were guys who had a lot better offensive years, numbers-wise than Yaz. But nobody ever had a better offensive year than he did, as far as when he hit it. Don’t tell me what you hit, I don’t give a [crap] what you hit. I’ve played with guys hitting 30 home runs and driving in 100 runs [and it] didn’t mean a damn thing. When he hit it, it was phenomenal. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: He was the renaissance of baseball in New England. And in fact, I used to call him Renaissance Man. He was the man. I mean, he brought all this back to one of the great franchises in the world and in sports. He was the one that revived it and literally made it what it is today.

Do you think it’s a coincidence that the best Red Sox teams have had guys who were able to absorb the media attention?

The biggest killer of performance is pressure. It’s not being overweight. It’s not getting enough sleep. It’s pressure. That’s what it is. It’s that simple. Yaz is the most fearless baseball player when it comes to pressure that I’ve ever seen.

Most of the time, guys who enjoy the limelight, pressure doesn’t get to them too much. It doesn’t bother them too much, because they have created a way to handle it. If you ever wanted to start with a guy who handled it, you start with Yastrzemski. It’s that simple. And then you would go to a guy like Michael Jordan.

When I got here and joined him, I watched him. I just watched him and you see him handle the media. To see him handle the pressure of the media, I’d never seen it before. I had never seen a player handle the pressure of the media, because it was phenomenal. Our lockers were catty cornered. I was here and he was there and in between was a beer cooler over here and the entrance to the showers right there. There was a room there and I had room to sit. And sometimes he would sit with his head in his hands like this [motions] for a long time. And I would sit there and watch him, and then he’d go into Vinny Orlando’s little room where he kept the hats and stuff. And then once the game started, he had everything under control.

Absolutely magnificent—his execution, his leadership in a time that no Red Sox player had ever faced, maybe ever. Maybe ever, including number nine [Ted Williams].

Did you think the Chicago media was as aware of and quick to reference the White Sox’ title drought as the Boston media was of the Red Sox’ drought?

I thought they presented it to the fans very well while it was happening. They had a great sense of the moment, never got ahead of themselves. It’s almost like they just went ahead and enjoyed [the White Sox' 2005 title] as much as the players and the fans did.

I understand the media’s job, and that’s the media’s job to look at things in an objective way and for the most part in a negative way. And there’s some members of the media that believe what they write can be an influence to the ballclub. And sometimes it can. The media today—I can’t imagine that same scenario with the media being like it is today, back in ’67. On a scale of 1 to 10, the media’s at a 10 today. Back in those days, compared to today, that media was like a 3. So I can’t imagine that same thing.

And then ’04 comes along. My wife and I were watching the playoffs, and when the Yankees were up 2-0, she asked me ‘Well, do the Red Sox still have a chance?’ I said ‘Hell yeah, they’ve got a chance.’ Then when they lost the next game [and] went down 3-0, she asked me again. I said ‘No, they don’t have no prayer.’ But that even made it better. If you had to write a script, that would have been exactly the script you would have written. And then when they won the World Series, I had tears in my eyes again, as I had tears in my eyes in ’86.

Can you expand a bit on how the “Hawk” emerged?

Fans made it. Fans brought him out. There’s an on-deck circle down there that we use to have. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in that thing and said ‘All right, Kenny, get out of the Hawk’s way and let him go,’ because he could do it. I couldn’t. And I’ve talked to some psychologists about it. They said it’s very common. They said ‘You were very fortunate to at least recognize that, even though you may not have understood it. You recognized it at an early age’ We all have—you have multiple personalities, everybody has them. You’re a different guy when you’re angry than when you’re happy than when you’re sad. We all have different personalities and I was able to recognize mine. I couldn’t stand the pressure. I didn’t like it one bit. Hawk loved it. Now, he didn’t come out all the time. But when he did, he did well.

But I was a product of the fans. And a lot of times, you know, you come out of the dugout and you’ve had a long night or a short night or whatever way you want to put it and you’ve got a hangover or you’re not feeling good. And all of a sudden you walk out of that dugout and there’s 35,000 fans there with their arms outstretched saying ‘Hawk, we love you.’ All of a sudden, poof, that hangover’s gone and you’re ready to play some baseball.

To a degree, he still [appears] when we get on the golf course. I remember a few years ago when I beat Rick Rhoden in the playoff of [a celebrity golf tournament]. Rhoden, I think he was leading us by seven shots at the turn. All of a sudden, my caddie and I are walking down [the fairway]. He’s like a second son to me and he knows about the 'Hawk.' He says ‘So where’s the Hawk?’ I said ‘He’s here. He just came in.’ And sure enough, we birdied five out of the last six holes, shot five under on the backside, got into a playoff and then birdied the first hole. I didn’t do it. I’m just watching him play.

Is it like an out-of-body experience when the "Hawk" arrives?

Yeah. He did it in the only senior event I played. I shot—he shot—69 and 71, so we were four under. If we shoot 64, 65, [they’ve] got a chance to win the tournament. We didn’t, because I took over rather than letting him do it. But on the 18^th hole, we had a 40-footer for eagle. And all of a sudden we get up over the putter and I’m looking at it and there’s about 15,000 people around this thing. All of a sudden, 'Hawk' just turns around, looks at them and goes ‘Are you with me?’ like that. And I’m just dying, I’m embarrassed, because I never would have done that. But all of a sudden they say ‘Yeah!’ He gets up, knocks the son of a bitch right in the hole. And that was almost like an out of body experience. I had tears in my eyes.

I also had one happen to me here April 10, when I came back for the 40^th reunion [of the 1967 team]. They introduced us and I got to first base and everything’s OK and I can feel the 'Hawk'—he’s enjoying it, he’s taking the moment in. And then all of a sudden, it was almost like I felt somebody tapping me on my shoulder and I started thinking about [the late] Joe Foy and Jerry Adair and Elston Howard. It was almost like saying ‘Hey, Hawk, don’t forget about us buddy,’ and when that happened, all of a sudden, I had tears in my eyes. Just welled up and I had tears in my eyes. Yes it was weird. It was almost like a vacuum that I hadn’t experienced.

He comes in sometimes. He comes in sometimes and I’m glad it’s only sometimes, because when he gets in, usually [there’s] a lot of stuff that’s written about it and talked about what he said. He’ll say some [stuff] that I’d never say. But, again, it’s not that unusual. We all have that. We all have that side to us. It’s an alter ego. When I had a chip shot to [force] that playoff with Rhoden, I’m talking to him. I’m saying ‘Hawk, let’s get these other guys with us. Let’s get our other friends,’ because we’ve all got parts. You’ve got Mr. Anger, Mr. Fear, you’ve got all these people and there are parts of you and they’ve been with you your whole life and they’re going to be with you until you’re dead. And if you want to recognize them, fine. If you want to have them work with you and be a part of your family, you’ll be fine. If you don’t and you exclude them, they’re gonna get pissed off, because they are parts of you and they want to be included.

So he and I got together and were talking over this chip shot. And it’s an impossible chip shot—in fact, Bobby Murcer and John Brodie were standing there and they’re just shaking their heads because it’s just an impossible chip shot. So I’m talking with 'Hawk,' I’m looking down and I’m not having the same reaction they are. And 'Hawk,' he’s [getting the] guys together. First thing, you know, we talked about it, and we say ‘Mr. Fear, we want you to be with us, but we want you to step aside right now.’ Get up and hit it and hit it absolutely perfect. This far from the hole, knocked it in. Bobby to this day says it was the greatest chip shot he’s ever seen. I said ‘You’re talking to the wrong guy I didn’t hit it.’ And it’s the truth. It was easy.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if Yaz didn’t have something going for him, the way he was in ’67. He was one of the few guys to show you how he can handle his mind He’s one of the guys, the older he got, he was a better fastball hitter at 40 than he was when he won the Triple Crown. How many guys you see like that?

Fighting Words Q&A: Dan Shaughnessy (Part Two)

2009-08-21T08:31:00.002-04:00

Of those players who had testy relationships with the press, whose was the most overblown and whose was the most accurate?

Rice. That was just unfortunate. Jim just had a chip on his shoulder and chose not to show much of himself. Everett was like that. Then you had Mo was the polar opposite. Mo was a go-to guy from day one. We loved him, he was great.

Rice has been good to me and I certainly respect what he did on the field. I think years later, they liked guys who were there when they were good. We remind them of how good it was. It may be an element of that. He has to know that I’m in his corner on this Hall of Fame thing, which took a long time getting there because he’s not a slam dunk. He has to know that I’m not hurting him. There were times when I’m sure he did hate me.

Dewey’s a perfect case. Can’t do enough for you now. He’ll drive to your house. The greatest. I enjoy talking with him now. It’s hard to think back [on] how painful he could make it. Maybe that was the way he [had to] make it. I think that with Dewey…[he might have been] so absorbed at the time, so pressured, and [he didn’t] do well handling both things.

Gordon Edes said that while he’s had tense relationships with players, he’s never felt physically threatened. Is that the case with you as well?

I was there when Rice took the shirt off Fainaru. There have been times I thought it might be coming. Boggs got in my face in Yankee Stadium when he was with the Yankees. Danny Tartabull pulled him away. The Everett thing in Chicago was bad. Steve Crawford was ready to tear my head off. Mo had a bat in the clubhouse that day, he was pounding it against the side of a locker. It was weird. There’s four. Rice threatened me, that was in ’82 or ’83. I was doing sidebars, made fun of his fielding He came up to me at BP. Clemens, he got mad a few times. But there was never anything like you felt physically threatened. I’d say those five.

Is the tension between athletes and the media the same here as elsewhere? If so, is it inflamed in Boston because of the coverage the media receives?

There’s been more here. I don’t think there’s as much now, I really don’t, but I think people are a little bit unique to here. So many of us, the closeness of the quarters moves hands together. Episodes in Detroit—such a small locker room, more stuff happens there. Fainaru had one with Al Nipper in the beginning of ’86 in Detroit. It was not good because Fainaru was a very combative, take no [stuff] kind of guy. And obviously, you don’t want anybody to hit you or ranting. But at the same time, guys getting upset—I’m too old. My daughter had leukemia. I can’t get that absorbed in baseball players or baseball fans getting angry because things aren’t going their way. But at the same time, nobody likes to be criticized and you understand how that draws that out.

What was your take on the controversy about you and “The Curse of the Bambino?”

It kind of just went on too long, because the first book came out in 1990. It was only like the last three or four years when people started to blame me, like I invented Red Sox history. And this whole idea that he’s just perpetuating this to sell books. Anybody who knows anything about books [knows] I wasn’t making any money off the books the last 10 years to speak of. It was dribs and drabs, but nothing where [he’d say] ‘Let’s put it in the paper to sell another million books.’ Please. The money was made for the advance [and] then the first five years of royalties—and not that much compared to guys who write real books. It was such an easy theme for other columnists and for TV commentators and the Fox network. And then the Yankees people locked up on it and they carry around signage, Babe Ruth signage. And I became the point person to blame, which is pretty irrational.

After they won, they went back and did that HBO video [also titled The Curse of the Bambino]. Grand premiere of it is at a Boston sports bar. I took one of my daughters there. They’re booing every time my face appears on the screen. [shakes his head] Seems so immature. Don’t sit there and boo me from the next booth. Come over and talk to me. You’re grownups. It’s just so immature.

I’m glad they won on several levels. That’s one thing that needed to be put to bed.

Were you surprised “The Curse” became such a popular and oft-referenced phrase?

It was a great idea, none of which I mind. The editor, Meg Blackstone, it’s her title and a very handy, easy theme for TV and columnists. It became part of the language and I’m kind of happy with that. It’ll be the first graph of my obituary. [He’s] OK with that.

Did you ever think Curt Schilling’s criticism of you was a way to curry favor with fans?

Curt, he clearly rode into town and just tagged me as the guy targeted, as the one he would use to fortify his agenda. It’s tantamount to standing up at the Democratic National Convention and saying ‘George Bush sucks.’ He knows he has got an audience that’s going to go ‘Yeah, he does,’ because of the people he’s dealing with and what’s out there. So it’s a little bit pathetic and easy for him to do, and I understand he’s very manipulative and so it works.

No provocation. His first chance to go at me was regarding Pedro leaving the park [before the end of the 2004 season opener against the Orioles] and he tried to galvanize this alliance of being a Pedro guy. Little did he know Pedro was not his friend, so Curt didn’t choose too well there. It was odd. I kind of figured it out—the guy he hated in Arizona was Pedro Gomez, [for] who[m] I have the ultimate respect. He chose the best guy in town to be his nemesis.

It’s almost comical. I went up to him Sunday to talk about Papelbon. He’s always been professional, and that’s all you can ask. Sometimes we’ve got to go over some old territory. When I have a baseball question, he’ll generally give a very thoughtful answer. That’s good enough for me. [When] things pop up unprovoked, of course I’m so immature I fire back in my own way. There was a classic [when] the Theo column came out and [Schilling] goes on and says it was all wrong, not specifying one thing that’s wrong. That pissed me off. But I had a chance to straighten that out on the radio.

What are your thoughts on the media watchdog sites and message boards?

It’s nice people take interest in our work. We’re certainly not above being criticized. I find it to be quite cowardly in my case and quite unfair, because nobody ever talks to me.

[Ron] Borges and I are 1 and 1-A, whatever you want to call it. I take some pride in that, because I think Ron does a good job and does tough reporting. I’d be a little worried if they never said anything bad, because I would think I wasn’t doing the job. Used to be the idea was people read you and you were somewhat interesting and not boring and hopefully that qualifies as that, but I need to make the people at the Globe happy. I think most of the readers are happy, but there’s certainly a faction of this new world that is wildly unhappy because they want the columnist to be a Red Sox chapter and website and emotional tool and it’s never going to be there.

I remember Jeff Horrigan saying that you catch a lot of verbal abuse from fans as you’re standing outside the locker room. Do you ever view your career in bittersweet fashion, as in you’ve enjoyed great success but it has come with a price?

When alcohol kicks in, [there’s] always a lot of bravery. I don’t see it going in a good direction, and I think that I can certainly hang in there until it’s time to no longer do it.

[There’s a] tendency to exaggerate what is out there. It’s not as if The New York Times or The Washington Post is kicking the crap out of me every day. It’s a fairly small yet vocal group that is criticizing me. So I think it stings, but it’s a mistake to think that everybody’s walking around [criticizing him]. If I get a [positive] letter from David Halberstam or [Washington Post CEO] Donald Graham, those things tend to reinforce that you’re doing OK, doing a good job. I respect their opinions and [try] not to get caught up in too many opinions of guys in the basement.

What were your thoughts when The New York Times Company bought a stake in the Red Sox? Are you surprised at some of the theories regarding the relationship between the team and the newspaper that float around?

It’s bad. It’s bad. We can’t win. What’s really unfortunate is the way it impugns the work of Gordon Edes and Chris Snow. Gordon’s a lifer, a veteran, Chris [is] the Theo of writers. Young, great talent, working their asses off, and no matter what they do, ‘EEI is going to say they’re being spoon-fed—the fans and the bloggers and all that. It’s really unfortunate. It’s put us in a no-win position.

I have relationships with Larry and Charles that go back to the ‘70s. Baltimore. I got that being out there and somehow it’s bad to have relationships now. Back in the day, Will McDonough was a God for that. Now something’s wrong with it.

But the ownership part is not good for us because of the appearance. But no one’s told me what to write. I think it’s pretty clear. No one mentions I was the one who first wrote about the TV taking the free games away—not exactly a puff piece. And [the Globe] got angry emails from Werner and Henry on that. But I’m still a bad guy in the eyes of those people. Not going to change those fixed minds.

From your vantage point, what was the off-season like? What were your thoughts about the criticism fielded by the likes of you and Larry Lucchino?

[Crap]storm after the column. There were very few new things in there. Seventy percent of the column was all documented in the book. I’ve known Larry Lucchino since 1979. I met Theo for the first time as a sophomore at Yale. And the background of those two men, I thought it was time, [that] this was a good day to get it out there.

And the big betray, apparently the hand grenade in the thing—I had three different people had told me, not necessarily right then [but] I thought it had been out there already, I was just, for the record, [writing that] management, i.e. Lucchino, took the bullet on [unsuccessful trade talks with the Rockies] for Theo, which is the truth. And apparently he felt betrayed and went thinking he was getting sandbagged by Dr. Charles and Larry and others. But they weren’t the source on that. It had been out there. I just found it odd that nobody minded Lucchino getting the [crap] kicked out of him for interfering with the deal the way Gammons and [Rocky Mountain News baseball columnist] Tracy [Ringolsby] wrote it. And then Theo feels betrayed. It just showed me they can work together, the front office is working as a team. And he didn’t take it that way.

In my case it was the hat trick of hatred. It played to ‘EEI, they hate the Globe, they hate me. That’s good. And then the Herald was on it right away, blaming me. That’s good for them, they want us to die. And then the bloggers. So hence the hat trick. Three corners.

When did you sense Epstein starting to become less revealing with the press?

It’s pretty gradual. And then last year, not gradual. Now it’s dramatically different. It’s unfortunate. I think this is more who he is. It’s too bad, because he’s extremely smart and anecdotal and funny and we’re not getting that. I understand why he feels the need to do that.

Assuming his new philosophy on media relations holds, where will he rank in comparison to Dan Duquette in terms of releasing information?

It’s still better, but it’s not what it was. It could be so much more.

Why do you think Epstein has, thus far, fielded less criticism for his media relations philosophies than Duquette did?

Because he’s a sacred cow, like Belichick. Get those who want to read to good things. Theo was GM when they won the World Series, therefore, anything he does is correct. This is more how he naturally is and he’s able to flex his muscles now.

How do you think the Sox will deal with the media going forward? Do you think they will try to manage the news more than in the past?

That’s the way it’s going everywhere. These guys are obviously much more media-friendly. They appreciate the tension. They are also kind of even more sensitive [and] worry about everything, what’s written, what’s said. I’m surprised a little. John’s just not very savvy in that area. I think John is so in love with Theo that he’ll do anything to keep him happy.

Is there a lesson to be taught here that no matter how cooperative a team or an executives wants to be, it or he eventually has to pull the reins in because of the attention and scrutiny of Boston?

They’re always going to be appreciative of how good they have it here—and careful as time goes on. They’re just a little less anxious to help and more careful about how things are parsed out. The announcement that Theo was coming back was because I was writing a column the next day, just to defuse whatever I was going [to write]. And it was made at like 8 o’clock at night. The weirdest thing [was] it said ‘details to follow,’ because they hadn’t done it yet. They were afraid that what I was going to write was going to change [Epstein’s] mind. Again, I think it was weird. I was stunned at that. And anyone who doesn’t think that is lying, because that’s how it played out. John has admitted it to me.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Fighting Words Q&A: Dan Shaughnessy (Part One)

2009-08-21T08:19:00.003-04:00

My chronic tardiness is something of a legend among my friends, but this is bad even by my standards. My humble apologies for posting this Dan Shaughnessy Q&A four days later than I planned, but within a 48-hour span between Sunday and Tuesday, my car broke down in Connecticut and my computer went to the great recycling plant in the sky. So I’ve spent the last few days scrambling to catch up.

Having already taken too long to get this to you, I’ll keep the intro here to a minimum. This interview with Shaughnessy was conducted at The Boston Globe cafeteria in April 2006, and he candidly touched on a number of interesting issues, including the arc of his career, his relationships with players (including, as promised last week, Pedro Martinez) and executives as well as fans, his take on his role in the drama surrounding Theo Epstein’s departure at Halloween 2005 and his perception of the Sox under the rule of a more reserved Epstein.

This is pretty long so I broke it up into two parts. Hope you enjoy it.

When did you realize you wanted to get into sportswriting and where did you work prior to Boston?

I grew up in central Massachusetts, Groton—Gammons’ hometown, oddly enough—and played everything. Youngest of five kids. I wrote for the town paper in high school. At Holy Cross, I was sports editor for three years. I was very immersed in it. I stopped playing when I was in college—I wasn’t good enough—but I knew a lot about sports. I was eight years old [and] I knew every team’s roster. Very immersed in it. I couldn’t do that now. I’d go to the library and get the new baseball book—fiction, whatever was out there, everything. Sports Illustrated. The trouble now is there’s so much available. Back then, I could absorb everything that was available.

And then Holy Cross, when I was 19, I made a goal to try [and become a sportswriter]. I guess the ultimate goal would be to be Gammons, the beat guy for the Red Sox, and after my junior year I got to come in here and cover the Boston Neighborhood Basketball League and I made that my own beat and met all the writers and let them know what I wanted to do. And then I graduated in ’75 and I was a stringer here for two years doing high schools. I wrote about 400 stories for the Globe, all small. I couldn’t get hired. And then in ’77, when I was 23, I took my first full-time job at the Baltimore Evening Sun. They put me on the Orioles beat. It was great. Two years there and then into the Washington Star. Three years there and then the paper folded during the baseball strike of ’81. I had many job offers and I elected to come back here. This was home.

Went to the Celtics in ’82, did four seasons with them, then went on to the Red Sox in ’86 and four seasons with them. Gammons replaced [Bob] Ryan on the Celtics [and Shaughnessy] replaced Gammons on the Sox. Then in ’89 I replaced Montville with the column. All that foot soldering and beat work, traveling and just living that lifestyle, really prepared me in a good way to do the column, I think. I’ve done the daily, I know how hard it is and I was fortunate to be on beats that were really high profile. The Celtics were really bigger than the Red Sox and Patriots because Larry was the MVP all three years and [the Celtics] won two titles. I started doing books in ’86, wrote One Strike Away. Been 10 of those. And I got the column in ’89. There was a big domino—Frank Deford left Sports Illustrated, became editor of The National. Montville left here to replace Deford. I had an offer from The National from Deford and the Globe gave me the column. I stayed.

The Sox, it was an unusually tepid time for them. They had boring teams. Glenn Hoffman, Dave Stapelton—it just wasn’t that they were boring. They were .500, they were around there, they didn’t hit many home runs, Yaz retired in ’83, Boggs started hitting. He was the only draw. ’86 happened and I walked into that. Coming off the seventh game of the World Series was very memorable in every way. Rice, Baylor.

The Celtics were still bigger, but when [the Red Sox] got to the playoffs, they were the story. First World Series since ’75 and the Celtics in October [were] training. So they certainly got the market back, in a good way, at that time. The Celtics started to falter, then [the Sox] just gained steam. Made the playoffs in ’88 [and the attention has] been pretty much non-stop since then.

The Sox have remained the top attraction in Boston even as the Patriots put together a dynasty in the NFL. Why do you think that has been the case?

A lot of factors involved. I’m not that surprised the Sox are New England’s team. They’re never out of season, never out of style. They don’t have waves of trendiness that the others do. I’m old enough [to remember when] the Bruins had it in the early ‘70s, the Celtics in the ‘80s and the Patriots have it now. The real trendy thing owns a lot to winning and just having celebrity players, and Bobby Orr, Larry Bird, Tom Brady are those kind of guys. Whereas the Red Sox, they have flattened out on a few occasions, but they don’t even have to be that good anymore to be the top dog anymore. They are it.

What kind of effect did the 1967 season have on those who would grow up to cover the team?

Astronomical. Cannot be understated. It helps to be old, because I came of age as a fan in ’61 or ’62. Eight years old and they were terrible—lose 100 games, [finish in] eighth, ninth place. And then all of a sudden—we’d have liked a .500 team, I never knew what that was like. ’67, not only are they .500, they’re in the race, a 10-team league that’s as good as you’re going to get. Four teams in it, a dream finish. Yawkey was fed up with the ballpark and the team was dreadful. I think they drew 8,000 for Opening Day in ’67. So it’s just light years from where they are now.

When they won it in 2004, it was emotional for a lot of people because they grew up in this area—Gammons, guys like that, guys like Steve Krasner and Sean McAdam, Steve Buckley, Tony Massarotti, some younger than others, all with that ingrained. Jeff Horrigan. Guys grow up with it. Chris Snow, we have now. Bob Hohler was from here. For a while, we had quote unquote outsiders: Steve Fainaru, Larry Whiteside, Ryan from Jersey. But it does make a difference.

Does any other city in America have as many beat writers and columnists who are as well-versed in the history of the local team as Boston?

Lot of New York guys, I think. It’s because we don’t have much else. New York, there’s so many other things. Not everybody’s a Yankees fan. Everybody’s a Red Sox fan. So many books and so much product out there—record albums and CDs and movies and books—[it’s] just a very comprehensive saturation of the market.

Leigh Montville said the explosion of talk radio has dulled the impact of the columnist. How do you see the columnist’s role evolving in American sports journalism?

He certainly has seen it from both sides. I don’t know. I have no idea. Everybody’s a columnist now. Every guy talking—talk radio whiner line, blogger—they’re all coming at you. You don’t need to cover high school football or interview someone or confront anyone or [have] faced anyone the next day. You can just sit in your basement and you’re a columnist. It’s like Wayne’s World. That’s what we are and I find it’s not for the better. But I’ll be curious, in 10 or 15 years, when I’m done with this, how it’s going to play out. It’s fascinating to me.

Apparently everyone being a columnist is happening everywhere. Everything is being exaggerated here, because of the power of talk radio, the fervor of the fans [and] the interest level. I think that goes to how small we are. So many things are bigger. I can’t explain that. There’s good things that come with being a high-profile sportswriter, and I’ve certainly benefited from those, and some of the things that aren’t so good. But you’ve still got to take the good with the bad.

Among the Sox managers you’ve covered, who dealt with the press in the most positive way and the most negative way?

Francona was probably as prepared as any because of Philly. And Joe Morgan, because he lived it. Those guys were ready. It’s pretty overwhelming for most—notably Grady, he couldn’t possibly have known what that was going to be like. We’re a pain in the ass and we take up a lot of time.

[Kevin] Kennedy was good, he liked it. Butch [Hobson] was very polite, he’s a real gentleman. Grady was a polite gentleman. To tell you the truth, the last jackass we had was McNamara. He was just a mean, bitter guy. I don’t know what it was about. He hated me and I didn’t like him. He was just miserable. Two Irish guys couldn’t get along. Boy, he had a chip on his shoulder. ’88, he said to me in spring training—I picked them to win it—‘Some people pick you first to see you get [bleeping] fired.’ He [saw] being picked to win as another negative.

When was the relationship between the Sox and the media at its best and at its worst?

’86 was bad. As good as that team was, geez, I was miserable. They just had a lot of guys that really didn’t like us. It ran the gamut. Mac hated us. Rice had no use for us. Evans had no use for us. Buckner had no use for us. Schiraldi had no use for us. We had the whole Oil Can thing with Chelsea [Shaughnessy rubs his face]. Steve Crawford, Tim Lollar—man, they had some beauties. It was awful. And they were really good. They almost won the World Series.

I think that was the low. The final days of the Carl Everett thing were pretty bad. He and Darren Lewis rolled around the carpet. And [the Sox’] horrible behavior in the days after 2001. There was more of us and it was more ratcheted up. I think ’86 was the pits.

I think I’ll go out on a limb and say now is the best. More adults in there now. Grownups. And I don’t think a lot of nonsense will be tolerated. It’s not their job there to help us, I understand that. As long as they don’t try and abuse us. Nomar hated us with the power of one thousand suns. He was irrational. It was never going to change.

You were one of the few writers to get close to Garciaparra. Why do you think he had such a strained relationship with the press?

I think he needed it to make himself great, to drive himself. He just set that up as a demon. Part of it was the interruption of routine. You never knew [what you were] interrupting, when he was supposed to be eating a cheese sandwich. I picked my spots very carefully. But he would always look at you like you were standing in shit. And God forbid, I can’t even imagine what he would say when you weren’t around. It was unfortunate, because Jesus, he was Joe DiMaggio for a while there. And we certainly wrote it up that way. That’s what was so weird, [that] he would feel that way.

How about your relationship with Pedro Martinez? How did that evolve?

How could you not like Pedro? He was so smart. Even the last year, we were always saying hello and stuff. He was always into this [belief] that I didn’t respect him. He never made any public demonstrations towards me and I don’t remember him ever refusing to talk to me. He probably didn’t like the ‘diva’ thing, but it was true. I can’t help it.

But boy, ’99 and 2000, what a privilege it was to watch him. I enjoyed him. [The Sox] got that big Cuban pitcher [Rolando] Arrojo [and Martinez] translated for him. Had this guy making $10 million a year translating for a new player. I loved his brilliance. And he was a gentleman. He never made a big show of his dissatisfaction. Even his last year, he said something nice about me. Saw me on TV saying nice things and he pointed that out. ‘Even Shaughnessy said nice things’ and kind of smiled.

When Mo Vaughn tore into me that day, Pedro started to join in, thinking Mo was kidding. He really felt badly [when he realized Vaughn wasn’t kidding]. I liked him.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Shaughnessy interview still to come...

2009-08-17T12:09:00.002-04:00

Just a quick note here to apologize for not having the Dan Shaughnessy interview up yet. We had a weekend full of travel snafus and didn't arrive back at the home base until after midnight, so some recharging of the batteries was essential. We'll be back with the interview sometime today or, more likely, first thing in the morning. Thanks for your patience.

Bits and Bytes: My junior high orientation was never quite like this...

2009-08-14T19:50:00.004-04:00

This is related to baseball in only the thinnest of ways, but here goes: The Red Sox just sent along what may be the most entertaining press release in the history of the written word. It touts the Red Sox Foundation hosting a city-wide middle school orientation Fenway Park Sunday, and if that’s not enough to make you wish you were 11 or 12 again, well, then you have no soul.

Not saying I’m jealous or anything, but I’m pretty sure my junior high orientation in 1985 occurred not at Fenway Park (of course, given I grew up two hours away from Boston, hosting orientation there would have been rather expensive and senseless) but during the spring of my sixth-grade year. That’s right, I’m so old that back in my day, junior high began in seventh grade. And we liked it!

A guidance counselor from the junior high came in to tell us how it was time to grow up because we’d have a lot more homework, would have to read stuff more challenging than Judy Blume and would no longer have recess. I can still remember the sinking feeling I got upon realizing I would no longer be among the last kids picked for kickball, softball and any other sort of athletic activity that required, you know, athleticism. (Of course we never picked teams for running laps around the playground. That, as the son of a marathon runner, was one thing I could do reasonably well) Childhood came to a screeching halt that day. Thanks a lot, random guidance counselor!

That these kids get to hang out with Wally at the lyrical bandbox isn’t what jumped out at me, though. I hate online acronyms, but this part of the release had me ROTFLMAO:

“The middle school years can be challenging for children and their parents, given the many changes that take place for children, both in terms of new schools and increased academic demands, as well as the social, emotional and physical changes that occur at this age.”

That’s a pretty long way of saying when it’s time to CHANGE, you’ve got to reARRANGE!

Here’s a couple other news items completely unrelated to puberty:

—While reading about middle school orientation at Fenway Park made me feel old, I’m not nearly old enough so that my declarations that Player X is the best I’ve ever seen at something should carry a whole lot of weight. So take this for what it’s worth: Alex Gonzalez, whom the Sox re-acquired today from the Reds, played the best shortstop I have ever seen during his previous stint with the Sox in 2006. The Sox posted the best fielding percentage in major league history that season, anchored in no small part by Gonzalez, whose .985 fielding percentage led AL shortstops and was the best in Sox history by a shortstop.

I covered the Mets during the Rey Ordonez years, including 1999, when he was part of what Sports Illustrated called the greatest infield defense ever. And while Ordonez was magnificent, he also had a knack for turning the routine into an adventure. Gonzalez made every play and never went into mail-it-in mode.

“[Mike] Lowell told me in spring training: ‘You’re going to see this guy do something about once a week that you’ve never seen before,’” Terry Francona said at the end of the 2006 season. “And that was not an exaggeration…he did some things that were unbelievable. He did some things that didn’t even look that acrobatic. Because he’s so good, after the play, [you say] ‘how the hell did he do that?’”

Unfortunately for Gonzalez, his defensive brilliance kind of got lost in the debris of a wrecked season. The Sox finished third, rendering their historic performance on defense somewhat meaningless. Gonzalez didn’t hit a whole lot, as is his career norm, and finished the year by hitting .182 in his final 82 at-bats and missing a considerable amount of time due to an oblique injury and a family emergency.

A spate of injuries—Gonzalez missed all of last season with a fractured left knee and has battled hamstring, oblique and elbow ailments this year—has reduced his effectiveness in the field to the point where it’s uncertain if the Gonzalez of ’09 is even an upgrade over utilityman Nick Green. Gonzalez will need to rediscover his defensive form of three years ago in order to really improve the Sox, since his offense has declined to rock bottom levels: He’s hitting .210 with a .258 on-base percentage and 15 extra-base hits in 243 at-bats.

Still, with the Reds actually paying some of Gonzalez’ remaining salary and the Sox only having to give up minor league infielder Kris Negron—who has yet to advance beyond Single-A after almost four years in the chain—it was well worth it for the Sox to take the gamble that Gonzalez has some magic left in his glove. I’d tune in this weekend, just in case.

—From the “egads, man, what are they thinking” department comes this: The Orioles expect to go to a six-man rotation in September in order to limit the innings of their young starters. Don’t they know the bad juju generated by such plans? I do wonder, though, if there’s some Orioles blogger salivating at the possibility of the six-man rotation and firing off thousands of words on the possibilities.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

When it comes to Lowell, the leader is still good

2009-08-13T05:15:00.005-04:00

Mike Lowell cemented his reputation as the Sox' leader with this takedown of Robinson Cano in 2007. Photo from this site.

From November through March, it’s easy to view the baseball season as a six-month marathon, one in which all clichés about a steady hand, calm approach and the eventual evening out of all statistical quirks apply. But it’s funny how easily those philosophies can be forgotten from April through October, when one-sixtieth or so of the season can feel like such a defining stretch.

And so it is that the Red Sox, perceived to be in full-blown sky-is-falling mode after a four-game sweep at the hands of the Yankees, are no longer in critical condition after three straight wins against the Tigers—each one easier than the last—and three straight losses by the Rays. Now it’s the Rays who appear unlikely to get off the canvas and the Sox who will be atop the wild card standings heading into this weekend’s series with the Rangers, who appear to be the second of the AL’s two serious wild card contenders.

That said, if the Sox do end up making the playoffs, they’ll likely look back on this single series as a defining moment, and only tangentially because Kevin Youkilis channeled his inner Twisted Sister by charging the mound against the Tigers’ Rick Porcello Tuesday (Joe Girardi expected something to happen and it did). Youkilis’ ejection and subsequent five-game suspension forced Mike Lowell into the lineup. Lowell is 5-for-7 with three homers and five RBI since he had to replace Youkilis in the second inning Tuesday.

Lowell is far from the only player contributing to this mini-resurgence. Jason Bay is back from a three-month sabbatical and Josh Beckett is pitching like a Cy Young Award winner and leading a pitching staff that has regained its effectiveness at just the right time.

But neither Bay nor Beckett is in the process of being marginalized by the Sox. Maybe I’m missing something 240 miles to the southwest (wouldn’t be the first time), but I don’t understand why the Sox seem so eager to reduce Lowell’s role.

I get that the Sox couldn’t pass up acquiring Victor Martinez for Justin Masterson and prospects and that Lowell’s hip problems make him the most obvious candidate to sit even on nights when Martinez catches. But still: There’s a special intangible quality to Lowell, an uncanny knack he has for being in the center of it all whenever good things happen to the Sox.

He won the 2007 World Series MVP, but I think Lowell’s defining moment occurred several months earlier in the aftermath of another Youkilis plunking. Less than 24 hours after Scott Proctor tried taking off Youkilis’ head in the ninth inning of a blowout Yankees win, Lowell had three hits and four RBI and broke up a potential double play by leveling Robinson Cano in between first and second base to lead the Sox to a come-from-behind 11-6 win.

The takeout of Cano was perfect: Laced with an undercurrent of anger and retribution, yet perfectly defensible given the situation. Without saying a word, Lowell stood up to the Yankees and declared the Sox would not be bullied. It’s impossible to measure how that sentiment helped the Sox over the rest of the season, but given the Sox held off the scorching Yankees for the AL East crown and came back from a three games to one deficit to beat the Indians in the ALCS, I’m willing to say he set a pretty definitive tone that afternoon.

There’s no teaching that and no developing that kind of leadership quality, but when a team has a player like that in its midst, it should do whatever it can to feature him, It’d be an entirely different story if Lowell was the veteran leader hitting .185, but he’s hitting .393 since coming back from the disabled list and he has 38 extra-base hits in 327 at-bats overall.

Sure, he’s far better at home (.324 with 26 extra-base hits and 39 RBI in 145 at-bats) than on the road (.286 with 12 extra-base hits and 20 RBI in 182 at-bats), and sure, it’s smart not to throw him out there seven days a week considering how he broke down in hitting .207 in June. But the Sox will have a lot better chance of going deep into October—and it’s sure fair to wonder how far they would have gotten last year if Lowell hadn’t been sidelined after the ALDS due to his bad hip—if Lowell is more than a role player. Maybe Lowell ripping it up over one-sixtieth of the season this week will convince the Sox of that, too.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jerrybeach.

Fighting Words Q&A: Pedro Martinez

2009-08-12T11:40:00.005-04:00

Pedro Martinez is pretty interesting off the mound, too. Photo from this site.

As spring turned into summer and Pedro Martinez remained unsigned, I began to think there wouldn’t be a natural opportunity to post the Martinez interview I conducted for Fighting Words. Fortunately, Martinez signed with the Phillies during the All-Star Break and makes his debut tonight against the Cubs, so I am quite pleased this morning to unveil what ranks as perhaps the most memorable interview in which I've ever participated.

I could have written a book off of and about this interview alone. The Cliffs Notes version goes something like this: I traveled to Port St. Lucie at the beginning of spring training in 2005, months after Martinez left the Red Sox for a four-year deal with the Mets, with no idea if Martinez would be willing to talk about his fascinating relationship with the media in Boston but knowing it was essential to make the attempt.

Fortunately, on my first day in Port St. Lucie, I was among a group of reporters with whom Martinez was casually chatting. He started talking about how he’ll sometimes exhibit less control during his first run through a batting order so that he can set the opponent up for the middle and later innings. I said that sounded like something he’d done in a start against the Mariners in 2004 and he smiled and remembered the game to which I was referring. As the group dispersed, I hung back, introduced myself to Martinez and told him what I was doing and that I’d love to talk to him for the project. He said he’d talk to me late the next day.

Martinez kept his word, despite a distraction-filled day highlighted by a Mets employee who tried numerous times to sabotage the interview, and provided 25 incredible minutes in which he was equal parts brilliant, prideful and insightful about his career and his relationship with and observations of the press. I only used a fraction of what he said, but every word was interesting.

Enough out of me. Hope you enjoy this—I really think this will be worth your time. Sometime soon—I’m thinking Monday since I’ll be away for the weekend—I’ll have the Dan Shaughnessy interview in which I ask him about his relationship with Martinez.

What was it like going from Montreal to Boston?

Different. It was different. Montreal was very easygoing, very quiet. Very friendly. You will hear very little knowledge. And then, if you flip-flop that, you can hear everything else in Boston. I’m not saying anything bad, but it was so fast compared to Montreal.

How did you help out Orlando Cabrera when he was acquired from the Expos by the Red Sox last year?

He was lucky. He had people like me and Manny to protect him and keep some of the media members away from him. Because if you make a habit of giving them time whenever they ask, you will never work. And the same thing happens here in New York, as far as I can see so far. You just have to choose the time and the right time for you and for them [to] actually give them time, because the attention is always going to be there.

You weren’t seen a lot in the locker room last year…

I have a long regiment of work and it takes a lot of time. But my locker was also in the back. I had another locker in the back. I was always in the back room and that’s why you guys didn’t see me.

Do you think it’s part of your job to talk to the media?

Yes. It is part of my job. But I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. But I understand it’s part of my job.

You went several months without speaking to the press in 2003. What happened?

Yeah, there were a few things, some lies that flew, some things that were said out of, I guess, jealousy from some of the media members. Speculation and stuff like that. I don’t know really the reason, but they were very unfair and I didn’t feel like I needed to be treated that way after I had helped so many members of the media and been so helpful to them. Because I understand, as much as it is a part of my job to speak to the media, I understand that that’s their job, to make me talk and get some quotes. And I was always there to do that. And I can tell you some names that I believe were really, really good persons and gentlemen and good reporters as well. I cannot tell you everyone was the same though. But I must tell you, there were a lot of things that happened.

There are some good reporters in Boston, very good gentlemen. As much as I had bad people sometimes chase me around, the same way those people stood up for me. I remember Sean McAdam, Tony Massarotti, Michael Silverman, Bob Hohler. I remember Joe Castiglione. People like that, those were excellent people and those are the people that made my life easier in those seven years in Boston, because those people know me. They were good reporters and wrote what they saw, good or bad, but also were people that respect the game and the players and their personal lives and everything.

And that’s one thing I must tell you about the Boston media: They did respect our private life, especially mine. They were very, very professional about that.

What happened in Toronto in April 2003 when you talked about the Red Sox exercising your contract option?

I said I’m really happy and thankful that the Red Sox chose to pick up my option and kept the doors open for further negotiations. And somebody took it out of context and wrote it the way they wanted and said ‘Well, Pedro’s not happy with the fact that they picked up his option and he expects them to sign him to another extension.’ I never said that. I never mentioned that. I never mentioned that I wasn’t happy. I always said I was happy and I was very thankful. I don’t know what I said wrong there. Those were my exact words. And I remember Sean McAdam standing up and saying ‘This is exactly what he said and everybody has written it.’ But they called me greedy. I didn’t like that because it was never in my mind, it was never in my heart. We kept the doors open to further negotiations and we did negotiate in spring training [2004]. We negotiated all the way.

Why do you think Boston athletes often leave the city on bad terms?

I know Ted Williams was one person that hated to go to Boston because of the way he was treated by the media. Mo Vaughn left mostly because of that. Nomar wasn’t really happy when he left because of the treatment that they were giving him. And people like Shaughnessy, they keep on giving him the power of the pen without holding accountable for anything that he writes. I thought he was totally personal against Nomar. What he wrote after the trade, I didn’t think he was professional, what he did. And I don’t agree with it. And the same way I’m being treated right now by him.

It’s not all of them. I gave you some good names, good people, and there’s a lot more people that deserve respect over there. But there are some others that really don’t have my respect whatsoever.

What did you think about the coverage of your arrivals to spring training as well as your departures for and return from the All-Star Break?

The thing is I’ve always been very private with the way I do things. Things that are important to the media, I don’t need to relay to them. And sometimes they felt like I probably didn’t tell them enough and I guess they wanted to know every time I went out to eat or had a beer or something. I don’t think that has anything to do with baseball.

I was so upset [at the beginning of] last year [2004]. I was in a hospital in a room watching through the TV on the monitors and people [are] speculating about me being in a party. I was in the toughest situation I’ve probably ever been in. I’m not gonna go into details why, but that was probably the worst moment in my life. It wasn’t because I wanted to be there or because I wanted one more day away from spring training. It was because I couldn’t [leave]. And I would never do it, and I would have never gone to spring training until that problem was taken care of. I didn’t like it and I’m not going to like it. I will never hold a grudge, but I just think it was so unfair. A lot of those comments that came before were out of ignorance because people didn’t know. They didn’t know. They just wrote it in the papers and they knew they could sell papers.

Another thing—and I know it belongs to the Boston Red Sox—that WEEI radio station, it’s a station that’s there to just rip apart players. Those guys are, pardon me the word, [jerks], those two guys on WEEI. That station is 24 hours. And I know Curt Schilling has gotten on them a few times, called them up and stuff like that. That is something I never did, but I can really relate to some of the things and some of the frustrations that some of the players [had]. I ended up not reading the papers and not ever listening to them, but when my family has to call from the Dominican and say ‘This is what’s happening and this is on the Internet, people are saying this and I thought you were in Boston in the hospital and they’re saying that you’re here in the party.’ When my mom calls from the farm and says that, it really pisses me off. That’s different.

How did you end up as the spokesperson for Manny Ramirez for a few years?

I was the one that would get a quote from Manny to try to help them out. I did it more for the guys that really deserved it, like those guys I mentioned, guys that were gentlemen, because there were some bad ones that were out there. Manny would not speak to any of them, so I had to go and get quotes. Sometimes I bring [quotes from] Urbina, Urbina never talks either. So I go and get quotes and help them out. But those are things they would never write about or specify—‘Pedro was the one trying to help us out.’

Did you have anything to do with Manny’s more talkative demeanor last year? And why did he change?

A lot, a lot. Manny, at first when he saw what it was like in Boston, he sometimes felt uncomfortable. But I told him ‘You still have five more years to go, you might as well just settle down and understand this is going to be the way it’s going to be.’

Why did you decide to speak after games last year?

Because of those good people [in the press]. Once they opened the media room, where they could all go there and ask their questions one by one, I didn’t see why not. I could really be responsible for what I had to say. I talked Manny into being a little bit more helpful and I have to lead by example, so I was trying to do as much as I could. I decided to speak [after] every game, but not do it in between my workouts, the days I was working out. So I tried not to miss any interview [room sessions], and if I did, I would leave a quote.

Did you ever feel as if people were trying to get you to say something inflammatory whenever the Red Sox played the Yankees?

Yeah, because I made news. When you have a star player like me or Jeter or somebody like that, they want to make everything more interesting than it is. And Jeter goes about his business, Bernie and those guys are very professional, and I am the same way. But they wanted to set something up before we got there, they wanted to touch a trigger where somebody could get pissed off and say something. And I can understand that. If you didn’t get personal, it didn’t matter.

You made a lot of back pages in New York…

They wrote about the man. [The New York Post] wrote ‘The man New York loves to hate.’ Nobody knows the man. People know the player. It didn’t offend me, I just wanted [reporters] to understand that the man is a different thing that the player New York loves to hate the most. That would be a totally different phrase than the man New York loves to hate. The man—nobody knows, very few people know him. I’m a totally different human being once I take my uniform off. Even if I’m in uniform and I’m not competing, I’m totally different.

Did you sense the relationship between the Sox and the media was more tense when the Yankees were a topic?

Boston is so small—so many members of the media, so much competitiveness between the reporters that they sometimes have to speculate or say something negative or something to be in the spotlight. I don’t blame them, because there’s so much competition between them. It has to come out somehow. Most of the time, the good guys are ignored in Boston. Sometimes their quotes, when they write it the way that we say it, they don’t run it. They run the quotes where we snap and say whatever.

Along those lines, were you upset with the attention you received for the “daddy” quote?

See, that’s what I’m talking about. If anybody thought that my mind or my approach to the game changed because of that, it’s totally wrong. The thing is, it was a good quote, so people loved it. Now, what I said when I was in New York one time and I pitched a great game and everybody was yelling and screaming, I said I feel so lucky, but nobody plays that one. I feel so lucky because they took me out of a mango tree and made me a center of attention. They gave me so much respect by just putting all of their attention to me, to one single man. I used to be under a mango tree and they didn’t pay attention to that one. But “The Yankees are my daddy”—that was a great one. Pretty big. That was a pretty big one.

Do you think people misunderstood what you meant with that quote?

I was just frustrated and I said that out of anger, for doing my job and still not winning. And you know what, the Yankees can’t say they’re my daddy either, because if you take the box scores—like they say, it’s pretty even. No one remembers anything positive. It seems like the good things will never get the chance. That can tell you who’s evil and who’s not. Whoever writes the right things, whoever writes it the way it is, is the one that’s thinking more like a person, like a person that understands good and bad. But the ones that only write ‘Oh, Pedro hasn’t beaten the Yankees in, what, five outings’—only ones whose negativity comes out. I might not beat the Yankees, but the Yankees haven’t beaten me either.

(Note: Martinez went 10-10 with a 3.20 ERA and a 1.08 WHIP in 28 regular season starts for the Sox against the Yankees)

Now that the Red Sox have won the World Series, how do you think the relationship between the Sox and the media will change?

What I wondered is what is the media going to write about? Because all they wrote was negative—not all of them, like I said before. But the people that really wanted to write negative now they don’t have anything to complain about. I’m wondering what are they going to complain about now? Now they’ve got a championship from the Red Sox, another one from the Patriots. Now we need the Celtics to win. That might be the next complaint.

Did you ever talk to Ted Williams about his relationship with the press?

No, I did not. I never spoke to him about anything else other than baseball and pitching. He asked me a couple of questions, I answered. He gave me a great compliment by saying that I was one of the best pitchers he had ever seen and signing a program for me. That I will never forget and [will] keep forever.

Did the Sox want to win in spite of the media, to prove it wrong?

That was our mentality. We knew from spring training. We were always holding a meeting. We will always tell the rookies: ‘If you don’t know what you’re going to say, you better not say it, because they make everything big out of everything we say.’ So you were better off not saying anything if you were a rookie. And we knew that we were fighting an uphill battle with the media, regardless of how good we did. If we were in first place in June, they were going to say ‘Oh, in July, they’re gonna die.’ If we made it to the playoffs, ‘they’re gonna go [out] in the first round.’ And that’s how they always felt.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com.

It ends in dust and disarray

2009-08-11T23:46:00.004-04:00

There’s something universal about being told your services are no longer needed, even when the discarded employee is a Hall of Fame-bound pitcher with a nine-figure bank account. And so it was John Smoltz who last week provided the latest reminder that professional athletes are never as compelling as when they are in the twilight of their careers, when they come to realize a burning passion for the craft is no longer enough when they are at the mercy of factors beyond their control.

Smoltz’ resume and legendary competitiveness convinced the Red Sox he was going to come back from major shoulder surgery and contribute as a 42-year-old, but he was designated for assignment last Friday, less than 24 hours after he gave up eight runs in 3 1/3 innings against the Yankees. At least Smoltz was let down somewhat gently by Sox management, which gave Smoltz the conflicted “it’s not you, it’s us” treatment.

The coldly corporate bloodletting Friday was left to the Athletics, who released Jason Giambi hours before the Sox cut Smoltz. In the press release announcing the transaction, the Athletics made sure to point out that Giambi had the lowest batting average in the bigs and the American League’s fourth-lowest slugging percentage when he went on the disabled list in July. Presumably, the only reason the A’s didn’t mention Giambi’s bad breath is because there’s no statistical measure of halitosis. Stay classy, Billy Beane.

Smoltz’ dismissal was also far smoother than the one executed by the Braves June 3, when they released 300-game winner Tom Glavine—Smoltz’ longtime teammate and friend—just as he was ready to return to the Braves after rehabbing elbow and shoulder injuries.

But no matter the delivery, the message and the lesson is always the same. Regardless of how good a player is or was, he almost certainly will not have the chance to dictate how he exits the stage. For every player who walks off in triumphant fashion—John Elway, Barry Sanders, Mike Mussina—there are thousands, from mere mortals to iconic superstars, who have the decision made for them.

The player almost always disagrees with the decision, as he should. The self-confidence that makes these athletes the best in the world disappears long after their bat speed, fastball, arm strength or foot speed. There’s always something else to try or an adjustment to make that will allow a player to leave on his terms, even if he admits he can’t quite identify what those terms would be.

Presuming Curt Schilling does not re-scratch that itch, he’ll always be able to say he won a World Series game in his final big league appearance. Pretty awesome, yet not at all how he would have scripted it. Schilling signed a one-year deal with the Sox shortly after the 2007 World Series and spent several months in 2008 trying to rehabilitate his wrecked shoulder before he finally underwent another surgery, after which he worked out for a few more months in hopes of returning in 2009 before he finally retired in March, his ending penned for and not by him.

“We’re always wired to think that we can find a way—I can still do this somehow, someway,” David Cone said in April 2003. “Part of that wiring is what drives great athletes, keeps them going. We’re supposed to think that way, almost unrealistically, at some juncture.”

Cone, who isn’t going to the Hall of Fame but had one of the most memorable careers ever in winning five World Series rings and throwing a perfect game, spoke days after he was placed on the disabled list due to an arthritic right hip. He came back in late May, made one relief appearance for a Mets team headed for 95 losses and realized he was done the next morning when he had a hard time walking to the bathroom because of the hip pain.

At 40, there was no way to top what he’d already accomplished, but Cone still wanted to pen his own ending, as unattainable as it seemed and until it was physically impossible to do so. “The bottom line with me is I’m no different than any other athlete at the end of his career, searching for a perfect ending that may not come,” Cone said a month earlier.

The final imperfect ending is rarely the first for a player. Many members of the 2004 Red Sox lamented management’s refusal to keep the team completely intact. Along those lines, the release of Smoltz is just the first of many awkward exits on the horizon for these Sox. The acquisition of Victor Martinez means the beginning of the end for Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek, two irreplaceable parts of the 2007 title team but a pair of players who no longer fit into the Sox’ long- or short-term plans.

Tim Wakefield is beloved inside and outside the clubhouse, but after four straight injury-plagued seasons, the Sox are, at some point soon, going to decide that they can no longer go forward with him, even at $4 million per season. David Ortiz built up a lifetime of good will from 2003 through 2006, but that credit only goes so far when the batting average is hovering just above the Mendoza Line and the reputation is in tatters.

Most of the time, the decision made by management is the right one. To try and recapture the 2004 championship magic with a team that had eight everyday players, four starting pitchers, a closer and two top set-up men all on the wrong side of 30 wasn’t the smart thing to do from a baseball perspective and would have delayed the retooling that resulted in the 2007 championship.

It’s also hard to argue with the recent moves made by the Sox, Athletics and Braves. Maybe Smoltz and Giambi can still contribute in smaller roles, but it didn’t do the contending Sox nor the rebuilding Athletics any good to continue sending them out there as regulars. And Tommy Hanson, the 22-year-old who took the spot in the rotation once reserved for Glavine, is 7-2 with a 3.05 ERA in 12 starts.

Still, that aging players usually lose their jobs because of the ultimate bottom line, not some random figure devised by a bean counter 3,000 miles away, makes their fates no less poignant. We don’t know what it’s like to stand on a mound or in the batter’s box, never mind throw a fastball 95 miles an hour, hit a baseball 400 feet or celebrate a world championship. But to have someone attempting to extinguish the fire that still rages inside? That—that we all know about.

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com.

Bits and Bytes: 8/10/09

2009-08-10T07:15:00.004-04:00

Kevin Youkilis is grimacing about plenty these days. Photo from this site.

Sincere thanks to Jon Couture, who produces the so-good-it-makes-me-jealous Better Red Than Dead blog at SouthCoastToday.com, for penning a very complementary review of Fighting Words in his Sunday column in the New Bedford Standard-Times. As nice as it is to receive verbal boutiques from family and friends, it’s particularly humbling and invigorating to get such positive feedback from a journalist unrelated to me. Cooch, you’re on the Christmas card list!

Some other bits and bytes from my mini-vacation:

—When it comes to absorbing the media attention during times of crisis and generating a rallying cry for his teammates, Kevin Youkilis isn’t exactly evoking memories of Kevin Millar, as your good friend and mine Joe Haggerty details in this blog post from yesterday. It would be folly to read too much into Youkilis’ feistiness, as the 2007 Sox proved a team could not exactly welcome the attention bestowed upon it yet still block out all distractions—real and perceived—and win a championship, but it will be interesting to see (or hear) how the Sox and the press get along if the Sox continue to stumble.

—I don’t know about you, but I was stunned Tuesday night, when the Dodgers’ Guillermo Mota plunked the Brewers’ Prince Fielder with two outs in the ninth and the Dodgers clinging to a 17-4 lead. I mean, who has ever heard of a Joe Torre-led team sending a noted headhunter to the mound in the ninth inning of a blowout win to exact revenge for an earlier plunking (Manny Ramirez had been hit by a pitch by ex-Sox farmhand Chris Smith)? That’s crazy talk.

Afterward, Fielder channeled Mike Piazza by trying to barge into the Dodgers’ locker room and assault Mota. Ramirez was shockingly out of the lineup the next day, leading to this classic reaction from Brewers manager Ken Macha.

Torre, of course, expressed surprise and disgust at still being asked about the incident less than 24 hours later. Let’s give him credit though: He doesn’t seem to have blamed ESPN for it.

—Phillies GM Ruben Amaro is talking about going to a six-man rotation once Pedro Martinez is ready for big league action. And somewhere in Fenway Park, Theo Epstein laughs, because the only other alternative is to cry.

—Looks like our instincts were, for once, right. Indians president Paul Dolan met with the Cleveland media last week and wailed about how the Indians had to trade Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez because they’re hemorrhaging money—$16 million, to be exact, which just happens to be how much the Indians would have paid Lee and Martinez had the club exercised their options for next season. Funny how that works.

He also mentioned how difficult it is for the Indians to compete under baseball’s current financial system and how the club is unable to retain its own players once they get beyond their arbitration years. Of course, he wasn’t squawking two years ago, when the Indians were a win away from the World Series, nor over a nine-month span in 2007 and 2008 when he managed to find enough change in the cushions to lock up Travis Hafner, Jake Westbrook and Fausto Carmona to long-term deals. Those three will make more than $24 million this season, a pretty gaudy sum for a 32-year-old injury-prone DH, a pitcher unlikely to appear in the bigs as he recovers from Tommy John surgery and a hurler who was sent to rookie ball following an awful start.

Dolan also complained the small-market teams are unable to even compete for amateur players anymore. Mark our words: This is just the beginning of Dolan and other hawkish “small-market” owners doing the dirty work for Bud Selig as he aims to implement a salary cap and overhaul of the draft in the next labor agreement

Email Jerry at jbeach73@gmail.com.