New Year's just wouldn't be New Year's without resolutions. Despite study upon study that pretty much proves they don't work, and never last beyond the first two weeks of the January, people still make them ... and people still break them.
We're going to quit smoking. Quit drinking. Quit eating. Quit gambling ... and, most of all, quit eating.
Actually, you can't quit eating. But you can resolve to lose weight, and you do that obviously by eating less ... because despite what anyone tries to tell you, there is no other way. There is no magic formula of food that you can eat that "automatically" messes with your body chemistry so that you can shovel glutinous amounts of crap into your system and still lose weight. Don't listen to anyone who tells you anything else.
When it comes to weight loss, the math is simple: less calories and more exercise, which burns off even more calories. The two go hand in hand, with the overwhelming accent on the "eat less calories" part.
This isn't to say exercise (or, if you'd prefer, physical activity) doesn't help you lose, or maintain, your weight. Of course it does. It just doesn't guarantee weight loss without a corresponding food discipline ... whereas keeping your food to a prescribed amount of calories without exercise gives you a decent shot. It's harder ... but doable.
But none of that matters if you don't want to do it.
We all know how to eat. We all know what to eat. And we all know what and how not to eat if we want to lose, or maintain, weight. It comes down to how badly we want to go through all that. And believe me, you have to want it pretty badly to go through it.
There are a thousand reasons to eat, and I could probably recite every one of them (and bore you half to death while I do it). But here are some of the biggies: hunger, anger, boredom, sadness, happiness, celebration, depression, apprehension, defiance (one of the biggest, actually), and -- perhaps most of all -- habit.
We're just an eating culture. Actually, that's pretty much universal. Most family activity is centered around food in one way or another. When I was a kid, Sunday afternoon drives always ended up with an ice cream cone. In fact, my grandfather used to press a quarter into our hands (long after a quarter actually did the trick) and say "go have yourself a cone."
Also when I was a kid, if we were lucky enough to hit one out of the park during our Little League games (which I did five times my last year playing), the organization would give us a coupon for a free half-gallon of ice cream at Fontaine's Market.
It's considered impolite to invite people to your house ... and then not serve them anything. And if you're going to go through all that trouble, you're not going to serve your company celery sticks. You're going to buy a pie (or make one), or a cake, or cookies, or some other highly caloric treat that just screams out "special occasion."
If you walk out of the house in the morning and you have a flat tire? After you swear a few times and -- in my case -- call AAA so they can put the donut on, you're just as likely to go eat one when it's all over.
But as many reasons are there are to eat, there's only one reason not to. And it's not the same for everybody. Therein lies the rub. It's up to us to find the motivation to resist that avalanche of food that just seems to come at us all day long.
On this issue, I cannot speak for anyone else ... just myself. And after years of trying to answer this question, and being dishonest with myself about what my reasons for wanting to lose weight are, here is what I've found.
My motivation is vanity. And I'm not ashamed to admit it.
It took me a long time to admit this, because I always thought the reasons should be more noble ... or more serious. I said -- and thought -- all the right things. I wanted to grow old with my family around me ... I wanted to be healthy for them ... didn't want to spend the rest of my life injecting insulin into myself (I am diabetic) ... didn't want to limp through life on bad knees (I've had both of them partially replaced) ... didn't want to be limited by a bad back ... wanted to be able to go on a walk on a beautiful day (or even a stormy one) without physical limitations setting me back ... wanted to be able to ride a bicycle without looking like I belonged in a circus ... or feeling as if I did.
And you know? All of this is certainly in play. It's all very true. I want all of those things. But none of them are visceral reasons ... meaning none of them punch me in the stomach (or, if you'd prefer, kick me in the ass) and give me that impetus to break a lifelong habit of eating whenever I couldn't think of anything else to do.
Because that's the big issue. It's not whether you eat three meals a day of nothing but broccoli (good God, if that's what was involved, we'd all revolt and end up looking like Chris Christie's "before" pictures!) or whether you splurge a little and have gravy on your mashed potatoes. If you find that visceral reason for changing these lifelong habits, you'll have a much better chance of actually doing that.
Five years ago, I had gastric bypass surgery and for three and a half years afterward, things seemed to be steady as they went. Then, disciplines got relaxed. In 2012, I fell three times within a month, hurt ribs on both sides of my body, messed up one of my knees and wrenched my back. I was in and out of commission where exercise was concerned for long periods of time.
As anyone who has ever experienced this can tell you, when you relax one discipline you tend to get a domino effect. One by one the rest of them fall too.
Just recently, I put on a shirt that I love to wear ... and have worn often since I bought it ... and it was starting to strain at the buttons. Now you can delude yourself for a long time into to thinking that all's well when it isn't. But when you're physically uncomfortable in your clothes to the point where you can't wait to take them off in favor of those elastic waste band gym pants and the two-sizes-too-big "fat" shirts ... or you start wearing that bulky sweater even when it's not warm enough to need one ... then delusion no longer works.
And that's when it hit me. If there's anything I cannot stand it's being uncomfortable in my clothes. Perhaps it comes from a lifetime of being overweight, but I live for loose clothes. When I first bought this particular shirt (which is white and blue, and pinstriped ... very classy looking, I thought) I could swim in it. And that's just how I liked it. I don't like suffocating in my clothes.
For a long time, I would put this shirt on, and while I couldn't exactly swim in it the way I could when I bought it in 2011, I was comfortable. I didn't need to wear a sweater over it to hide the fact that the buttons were about to pop.
But the last few times I've worn it, the sweater has come on ... and, this being New England and the capital of crazy, fluctuating weather, we've hit a warm stretch in the middle of January where sweaters indoors aren't exactly necessary.
I wear them anyway ... and then open the windows at work because I'm hot ... driving my co-workers crazy.
What generally happens is that your clothing choices dwindle. Truly comfortable clothes become less and less available, and then you're resigned to wearing the same stuff all the time. It tends to be drab and, functional, and in a world where so much emphasis is put on being sartorially and tonsorially correct, you're nowhere.
You either chafe at that situation -- and eat out of frustration; or you break down, buy bigger clothes, and then stew because of your failure to be able to do something that seems to be second nature to so many other people around you ... and end up eating even more out of
anger, humiliation and frustration.
And with all of this, I think I'm hitting on something. If I don't put the brakes on here, and reverse this trend, not only am I not going to be able wear the pinstriped blue shirt without a sweater ... I won't be able to wear it at all.
I like clothes. I like looking good in clothes ... looking neat. I could have the world's worst haircut (and some would say I do ... especially now, since my hair is thinning and no matter how much I comb it, it looks like I just got out of bed), but as long as I'm neat and I look good and feel good in my clothes, I'm a happy guy.
This is probably the one area in this Virgo's life where I'm very fussy (we're known to be this way, but I'm generally the antithesis). I prefer my shirts tucked in (right after I had the bypass, I even tucked my T-shirt into my gym shorts when I'd work out), and I really don't like dealing with any article of clothing that's out of place. Not even a bathing suit!
But you can't tuck your shirt in if the buttons are practically popping off, because that just accentuates the situation. Hence, the sweaters when it's 50 ... and the open windows at work because the heat gets cranked up to Australian Open proportions and I refuse to take them off.
So that's it. That's my visceral motivation. Sweaters when it's 50 ... open windows ... the wrath of everyone around me ... and shirts that feel as if the buttons are going to pop off.
In the end, perhaps the best way to lose weight is to visualize myself wearing that blue pinstriped shirt comfortably ... wearing the black-on-white pinstriped shirt I bought two years ago ... and can't even wear anymore because of how tight the buttons feel. I bought a black necktie to go with it, and I thought it looked great. Can't wear either because of how the shirt feels on me.
Now, naturally, if you take care of one problem in this regard, you take care of them all. If your objective is to wear clothes comfortably when they no longer fit you now, you have to lose weight ... and lose a lot of it. The more weight you lose, the better your blood sugar. The more weight you lose, the less of a strain it is on your knees and your back. The more weight you lose, you increase your odds that you will grow old with your family and friends around you ... and that you'll be healthy enough to enjoy them.
It's just that you have to find that one motivating factor that convinces you that the "doing without" will be worth it.
There's a lot of talk in the weight loss community about "diet" being a dirty word. And it is. You don't look at this as a diet as much as you do a change in lifestyle that -- over time -- enables you to achieve your goals. But to change, you have to, you know, change. There's that transition period where you have to substitute new behaviors for the ones that made your shirt buttons practically pop off. That takes work ... and it takes sacrifice ... and a hell of a lot of discipline.
It goes without saying that we're all worth the effort. But the key to being successful at anything -- regardless of what it is -- is to find that extra impetus to nudge you into doing the things you need to do at the exact moment you least want to do them.
And if that impetus comes from sheer vanity and nothing any more noble than that, so be it. If it gets you where you need to be, and it doesn't hurt or kill anyone in the process, who is anyone to say you're wrong?
Friday, January 17, 2014
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Phil Everly
"Siser Suzie ... Brother John ... Martin Luther ... Phil and Don ..."
I suppose Paul McCartney could have done better if he'd wanted to give a shoutout to the Everly Brothers than to include their names in a bit of a doggerel song whose only serious lasting historical significance is the rather comic sight of ex-Moody Blues vocalist Denny Laine marching around the stage, banging away on a snare drum. But at least he felt strongly enough about Phil and Don to include them in his bicentennial musical pastiche of people and images.
Phil Everly died Friday, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that he, along with his older brother, Don, were two of the most significant and enduring pioneers in popular music.
No, they weren't Elvis, with his aggressive sexuality; or Jerry Lee Lewis, with his over-the-top, menacing countenance.They weren't even Buddy Holly, whom they most closely resembled musically, but who had a bit of swagger all of his own.
They were, as Tom Hanks might have said in "That Thing You Do," "nice boys ... with nice suits." They made rock 'n' roll a lot less threatening than it had been when, say, Chuck Berry, or Little Richard,, or the aforementioned Elvis and Jerry Lee were performing it. There was none of that pent up, unspoken (but very obvious, just the same) sexual hostility that fueled some of the early rockers.
They were middle America ... they fell asleep at the drive-in and then wondered what the 'rents would think (or, if you wish, that was the story they were dishing up for the 'rents). Either way, they were every awkward teenager in America. You want to talk about those "awkward teenage blues," as Bob Seger sang about in "Night Moves?" There was nothing, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, more awkward than explaining to your folks why you blew curfew.
There wasn't a song Phil and Don couldn't sing ... and sing well. "Wake Up Little Susie" was just one of a bunch of songs that just bore their way into our heart of hearts. In less than 24 hours from the time Phil Everly died, I've read more tributes from fans, and none of them mention the same song. "Let it Be Me," "Cathy's Clown," "Bye Bye Love," "All I Have To Do Is Dream ..." Doesn't matter.
Their biggest legacy, however, comes from the type of music that came after them. To wit: The Beatles may have loved Elvis, but they sang like Phil and Don. Which is why, so many years later, Paul McCartney acknowledged that ... even if it was in a throwaway little ditty like "let 'em in." It hurts my ears to hear that song even now. I even tried to play it before I wrote this ... and had to shut it off.
Brian Wilson, who is perhaps the musical genius of my generation, paid tribute to Phil Everly and said that he and his brothers listened to their music all the time. It's not hard to imagine the Wilsons saying to each other, "hey! we can do that!"
I will always credit the Everly Brothers for influencing the Beatles into adding the one component in their music that put them over the top and made them accessible to moms and dads as well as their teenage offspring: innocence. By the time the Beatles came to America, and had been cleaned up and re-made into the embodiment of Swinging London as opposed a leather-clad hooligan bar band, what ultimately happened with them in the sixties may never have come about.
By then, Elvis was in and out of the Army and making harmless movies; Chuck Berry had a hornet's nest of legal problems; Lewis had married his 13-year-old cousin and was a virtual opprobrium; Richard Penniman was a mess; and Charles Hardin Holly was -- sadly -- dead. If the genre was going to survive, it needed a real serious shot in the arm.
Along came the Beatles, who came to America less than three months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The country needed something to smile about ... and it was them. But it wouldn't have been them had they come to the U.S. clad in leather from head to toe and doing Little Richard covers. It was them because they borrowed from everyone ... but borrowed from the Everly Brothers more than most.
Phil and Don sang about falling asleep at the drive-in (well, use your own interpretation on that), and the innocence of dreaming about unrequited love. The Beatles sang of holding their girls' hands while telling them "something ... I think you'll understand." I guess you could call it boyish, perhaps even impish, innocence. All it would take to get the real meaning would be a wink or an arch of the eyebrow. But even then, all you could really do was smile, because there was something so wholesome ... so non-threatening in it that you had to love it.
If you need anymore proof, listen to a vintage Everly Brother song ... and then listen to the close harmonies of John Lennon and Paul McCartney ... the Beach Boys ... Simon and Garfunkel ... and you'll detect a common denominator ... Phil and Don Everly.
There's no getting around the fact that the Everly Brothers belong in the pantheon of rock 'n' roll. If there's a "Top Five" of early, pioneering rock 'n' roll acts, they are in it. Maybe it's because they made rock 'n' roll more accessible to mainstream kids who might have been put off in the beginning by all that unspoken sexual aggression. Nobody ever accused anything Phil and Don ever sang of being "the devil's music." They were fun. You could dance to them. Or swoon. Or gaze into your girl (or boy) friend's eyes and dream. They were probably more representative of average kids than some of the other acts from the era were.
That might also be a reason they're continually given the short shrift when people talk about the early days. There was Elvis, Richard, Jerry Lee, Buddy ... and, oh yeah, the Everly Brothers.
But before anyone dismisses them out of hand, remember two things. First, when Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel first got together, and still had crewcuts and sang as "Tom and Jerry" they were emulating not Bob Dylan, not Elvis, and not Buddy Holly. They were going for the Phil and Don sound.
Second, when George Harrison figured it was time that he put his feelings about the messy menage a trois with his wife Patti and Eric Clapton to music, he chose the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love" as the vehicle. Those were the songs and the musicians who had meaning to these guys!
I remember in 1969 my mother being almost inconsolable when Judy Garland died. I couldn't figure out why. All I ever remembered about her -- when she was alive -- was that she was Dorothy. I never saw the old Micky Rooney films, never saw "Meet me in St. Louis," never really followed her as she battled all her various demons, and never realized how much she meant to an entire generation of people who loved music. I was still only 15. What did I know?
Obviously, I understand it now. My generation is getting old enough now so that all these fifties and sixties rockers who die are taking pieces of our childhoods with them. But every now and then, one of the greats go, and all it does is remind us of how old we're all getting too. Phil and Don were two of the greats. Now there's just Don.
You wonder, in this non-stop nostalgia loop that permeates music in the 21st century, how much different it would have been for the Everly Brothers if they hadn't spent a decade feuding with each other (they didn't talk for 10 years). They ultimately reunited, and found some success, but the sin of it all is that there were 10 golden years where we heard nothing from them as a duo.
What a shame.
But what are we gonna tell your mama ... what are we gonna tell your pa ... and what are we gonna tell our friends when they say "Oooh, la la."
I suppose Paul McCartney could have done better if he'd wanted to give a shoutout to the Everly Brothers than to include their names in a bit of a doggerel song whose only serious lasting historical significance is the rather comic sight of ex-Moody Blues vocalist Denny Laine marching around the stage, banging away on a snare drum. But at least he felt strongly enough about Phil and Don to include them in his bicentennial musical pastiche of people and images.
Phil Everly died Friday, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that he, along with his older brother, Don, were two of the most significant and enduring pioneers in popular music.
No, they weren't Elvis, with his aggressive sexuality; or Jerry Lee Lewis, with his over-the-top, menacing countenance.They weren't even Buddy Holly, whom they most closely resembled musically, but who had a bit of swagger all of his own.
They were, as Tom Hanks might have said in "That Thing You Do," "nice boys ... with nice suits." They made rock 'n' roll a lot less threatening than it had been when, say, Chuck Berry, or Little Richard,, or the aforementioned Elvis and Jerry Lee were performing it. There was none of that pent up, unspoken (but very obvious, just the same) sexual hostility that fueled some of the early rockers.
They were middle America ... they fell asleep at the drive-in and then wondered what the 'rents would think (or, if you wish, that was the story they were dishing up for the 'rents). Either way, they were every awkward teenager in America. You want to talk about those "awkward teenage blues," as Bob Seger sang about in "Night Moves?" There was nothing, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, more awkward than explaining to your folks why you blew curfew.
There wasn't a song Phil and Don couldn't sing ... and sing well. "Wake Up Little Susie" was just one of a bunch of songs that just bore their way into our heart of hearts. In less than 24 hours from the time Phil Everly died, I've read more tributes from fans, and none of them mention the same song. "Let it Be Me," "Cathy's Clown," "Bye Bye Love," "All I Have To Do Is Dream ..." Doesn't matter.
Their biggest legacy, however, comes from the type of music that came after them. To wit: The Beatles may have loved Elvis, but they sang like Phil and Don. Which is why, so many years later, Paul McCartney acknowledged that ... even if it was in a throwaway little ditty like "let 'em in." It hurts my ears to hear that song even now. I even tried to play it before I wrote this ... and had to shut it off.
Brian Wilson, who is perhaps the musical genius of my generation, paid tribute to Phil Everly and said that he and his brothers listened to their music all the time. It's not hard to imagine the Wilsons saying to each other, "hey! we can do that!"
I will always credit the Everly Brothers for influencing the Beatles into adding the one component in their music that put them over the top and made them accessible to moms and dads as well as their teenage offspring: innocence. By the time the Beatles came to America, and had been cleaned up and re-made into the embodiment of Swinging London as opposed a leather-clad hooligan bar band, what ultimately happened with them in the sixties may never have come about.
By then, Elvis was in and out of the Army and making harmless movies; Chuck Berry had a hornet's nest of legal problems; Lewis had married his 13-year-old cousin and was a virtual opprobrium; Richard Penniman was a mess; and Charles Hardin Holly was -- sadly -- dead. If the genre was going to survive, it needed a real serious shot in the arm.
Along came the Beatles, who came to America less than three months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The country needed something to smile about ... and it was them. But it wouldn't have been them had they come to the U.S. clad in leather from head to toe and doing Little Richard covers. It was them because they borrowed from everyone ... but borrowed from the Everly Brothers more than most.
Phil and Don sang about falling asleep at the drive-in (well, use your own interpretation on that), and the innocence of dreaming about unrequited love. The Beatles sang of holding their girls' hands while telling them "something ... I think you'll understand." I guess you could call it boyish, perhaps even impish, innocence. All it would take to get the real meaning would be a wink or an arch of the eyebrow. But even then, all you could really do was smile, because there was something so wholesome ... so non-threatening in it that you had to love it.
If you need anymore proof, listen to a vintage Everly Brother song ... and then listen to the close harmonies of John Lennon and Paul McCartney ... the Beach Boys ... Simon and Garfunkel ... and you'll detect a common denominator ... Phil and Don Everly.
There's no getting around the fact that the Everly Brothers belong in the pantheon of rock 'n' roll. If there's a "Top Five" of early, pioneering rock 'n' roll acts, they are in it. Maybe it's because they made rock 'n' roll more accessible to mainstream kids who might have been put off in the beginning by all that unspoken sexual aggression. Nobody ever accused anything Phil and Don ever sang of being "the devil's music." They were fun. You could dance to them. Or swoon. Or gaze into your girl (or boy) friend's eyes and dream. They were probably more representative of average kids than some of the other acts from the era were.
That might also be a reason they're continually given the short shrift when people talk about the early days. There was Elvis, Richard, Jerry Lee, Buddy ... and, oh yeah, the Everly Brothers.
But before anyone dismisses them out of hand, remember two things. First, when Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel first got together, and still had crewcuts and sang as "Tom and Jerry" they were emulating not Bob Dylan, not Elvis, and not Buddy Holly. They were going for the Phil and Don sound.
Second, when George Harrison figured it was time that he put his feelings about the messy menage a trois with his wife Patti and Eric Clapton to music, he chose the Everly Brothers' "Bye Bye Love" as the vehicle. Those were the songs and the musicians who had meaning to these guys!
I remember in 1969 my mother being almost inconsolable when Judy Garland died. I couldn't figure out why. All I ever remembered about her -- when she was alive -- was that she was Dorothy. I never saw the old Micky Rooney films, never saw "Meet me in St. Louis," never really followed her as she battled all her various demons, and never realized how much she meant to an entire generation of people who loved music. I was still only 15. What did I know?
Obviously, I understand it now. My generation is getting old enough now so that all these fifties and sixties rockers who die are taking pieces of our childhoods with them. But every now and then, one of the greats go, and all it does is remind us of how old we're all getting too. Phil and Don were two of the greats. Now there's just Don.
You wonder, in this non-stop nostalgia loop that permeates music in the 21st century, how much different it would have been for the Everly Brothers if they hadn't spent a decade feuding with each other (they didn't talk for 10 years). They ultimately reunited, and found some success, but the sin of it all is that there were 10 golden years where we heard nothing from them as a duo.
What a shame.
But what are we gonna tell your mama ... what are we gonna tell your pa ... and what are we gonna tell our friends when they say "Oooh, la la."
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Best of luck, Ells ... it's been real ... it really has
Last week, Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers admonished his teammates, telling them that professional sports represent two games in one: the game on the court and the other one far away from the arena ... in board rooms and around negotiating tables.
Now I'm no fan of Kobe's. I appreciate that he's a great player ... as clutch as they come, and a future Hall of Famer, even if he did wiggle free of a rape charge and then try to buy his wife off with a diamond the size of Texas.
He is right, however.
And it's not just players who have to understand this. It's fans. Professional sports are not Little League ... they're not high school ... and they're not even college (where sports have turned into something so odious that you need a shower after you talk to your average big-time football or basketball coach).
Maybe 40 years ago, before the 1975 decision that paved the way for modern free agency, pro sports were a little easier for the fan to stomach. Players couldn't follow the money and make the best deals for themselves. It may have been easier for fans, but the kids playing the game were exploited beyond anyone's wildest imagination.
In fact, you can put the blame for today's exploding salary structure in all sports squarely on the owners, who, for years, kept the players on a string and yanked them around any chance they got. If you're looking for any tangible proof of this, read all about how the NFL shamefully (and perhaps intentionally) remained ignorant of a concussion problem that is, just now, blowing the sport up.
Into this maelstrom we give you Jacoby Ellsbury, now formerly of the Red Sox, whose apparent signing with the New York Yankees for seven years and $153 million will without doubt set a chain reaction in motion that would rock Wall Street to its foundation if this were day trading and not baseball deal-making.
Just from a point of practicality, the Yankees have, right now, one of the premier baseball players in the entire Major League system in second baseman Robinson Cano. He's asking for the type of money the Yankees have just given Ellsbury. Even the Yankees, as rich as they may be, cannot afford two of those types of contracts, so chances are Cano is gone, and what results from all this dickering is what is known in Blackjack as a push.
Ellsbury may hit a few more homers with a shorter right field to shoot for, but whatever he hits, the Yankees will lose in Cano's production. More to the point, Cano's only true competition for "best second baseman in baseball" is Boston's Dustin Pedroia, and he's not going anywhere. Pedroia is signed, sealed and delivered (at a hometown discount) for the next 10 years.
(As an aside, this is one more in about 100 reasons to thank our lucky stars in Boston for Dustin Pedroia. He understands that a comfortable situation, along with fan adulation, is worth whatever money he passed up to remain here.)
They Yankees gain a center fielder who is two years younger than the one they've apparently deemed expendable: Curtis Granderson (and if the Red Sox somehow manage to lure Granderson into their midst, I'm willing to take that trade, even if it means giving up a top draft choice. He's only looking for three years, versus the seven Ellsbury signed for).
But they also gain a player who has a reputation -- somewhat deserved -- of being brittle. Think Danny Amendola of the Patriots. This guy can stub his toe and be out for six weeks.
It is sadly ironic that the one injury Ellsbury suffered that was completely legitimate -- the broken ribs in 2010 -- may be the one that convinced him he was better off somewhere else. The Red Sox did not cover themselves with glory on this one. They botched the diagnosis and then practically shamed him into coming back too soon. It would take a person of immense powers of forgiveness to absolve the Red Sox, and the media who cover them, of the whispers and innuendo that went along with this injury.
And it's also worth mentioning that the reason he was injured is because the genius who is now the chief steward in charge of maintaining the Chicago Cubs' long and distinguished history of wretchedness (Theo Epstein) thought it was a neat idea to acquire center fielder Mike Cameron and turn Ellsbury into a left fielder (whereupon he collided violently with Adrian "Kamikaze" Beltre and practically got himself killed).
So only the most naive person on earth thought Ellsbury would stay here ... for that as well as other reasons.
The Red Sox were burned badly by the money they threw at Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, and had to strip themselves down to Triple-A level to rid themselves of the pair, along with Josh Beckett. And while we all applauded current GM Ben Cherington for daring to make the trade, it left Bobby Valentine -- already a severely lame duck -- with no wings at all. The Red Sox couldn't get rid of Valentine fast enough once the 2012 season ended, and while they never should have hired him in the first place, that doesn't mean that every one of those 93 losses last year can be traced directly to him. He had plenty of help.
Cherington, I'm sure with the blessings of the front office, is not about to commit that kind of money to anyone while the footprints are still visible up and down the organization's back, and who can blame him? So they were not about to pay Ellsbury that kind of money ... and Ellsbury wasn't going to settle for less than that kind of money. No hometown discount for Jacoby. Not with Scott Boras as his agent. Boras doesn't do hometown discounts, and Ellsbury was surely not of a mind to grant one.
The fly in the ointment is the Yankees. But if you're Scott Boras and you're shopping someone around for $150-plus million over seven or so years, there aren't many places to go. The Dodgers have all they can handle with the wretched refuse they inherited from the Red Sox ... and really? Who's left?
Let's establish this: Ellsbury is a very, very good baseball player. He has some power (though that 30-homer season of 2011 might have been a slight aberration from what he's capable of doing over the long haul) and he's a threat to steal a base anytime, and from anywhere. He certainly added an element of speed -- which is something you can't teach -- to the Red Sox, and it certainly served them well.
But here's the question: Is Ellsbury the type of player who can carry a team for a month, the way David Ortiz can when he's going well? Or Miguel Cabrera? Or the way Derek Jeter once could? Or -- dare I even ask -- Alex Rodriguez in his prime?
I say nay. He played 134 games this season (which, for him, is outstanding), hit .298, and stole 52 bases. And with all that, he was no better than the third most important every-day player on his team (I submit that David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia were the guts of that team, and that a prolonged absence by either would have radically affected the 2013 Red Sox). For my $153 million, I want a go-to guy 24/7 ... one who will put up a fight if I suggest he take a rest ... one who will be accountable for what he does ... and one who will help his teammates accept accountability as well.
And I just don't think that guy is Jacoby Ellsbury. That guy is Dustin Pedroia.
The Yankees have been throwing good money after bad from the moment they backed up the truck and dumped millions of dollars on A-Rod's front lawn, eschewing an organizational commitment to build from within, which is how they won four world championships in five years. For all the contracts they've doled out, including the ridiculous extension Boras blackmailed them into signing for Rodriguez (remember the big announcement that he would opt out while the Red Sox were one out from winning the World Series in 2007?), they've won one world championship. In the same amount of time, the Red Sox have won three.
Ellsbury could turn into the second coming of Joe DiMaggio in New York. I sincerely hope he does well. He's a good player and seems like a decent guy. There doesn't seem to be a tremendous sense of urgency about him at times, but that could be more because almost too smooth for his own good. Maybe if he grunted a little bit ... or rolled around in the dirt ... I don't know.
But apparently the Yankees haven't learned that big, fat contracts don't equal winning. It didn't work for the Red Sox in 2011; it didn't work for the Toronto Blue Jays last year; and I'm going to go out on a limb and say it might not work for the Yankees in 2014.
You win championships with a combination of stars and role players who also have to be paid ... and paid well. You need Shane Victorinos, and Mike Napolis, and Jonny Gomes. But if you're spending all outdoors on two or three players, the role players ... the ones so vital to keeping the machinery going for 162 games ... aren't going to be there for you because you're not going to be able to pay them what they want. Unless, of course, you're willing to pony up an exorbitant luxury tax.
Good luck to Jacoby Ellsbury. I wouldn't be so hostile as to say "don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out," but at the same time, he's going to have an awful lot to live up to. Crawford couldn't handle it in 2011, and the question is whether Ellsbury can deal with it in 2014.
Stay tuned.
Now I'm no fan of Kobe's. I appreciate that he's a great player ... as clutch as they come, and a future Hall of Famer, even if he did wiggle free of a rape charge and then try to buy his wife off with a diamond the size of Texas.
He is right, however.
And it's not just players who have to understand this. It's fans. Professional sports are not Little League ... they're not high school ... and they're not even college (where sports have turned into something so odious that you need a shower after you talk to your average big-time football or basketball coach).
Maybe 40 years ago, before the 1975 decision that paved the way for modern free agency, pro sports were a little easier for the fan to stomach. Players couldn't follow the money and make the best deals for themselves. It may have been easier for fans, but the kids playing the game were exploited beyond anyone's wildest imagination.
In fact, you can put the blame for today's exploding salary structure in all sports squarely on the owners, who, for years, kept the players on a string and yanked them around any chance they got. If you're looking for any tangible proof of this, read all about how the NFL shamefully (and perhaps intentionally) remained ignorant of a concussion problem that is, just now, blowing the sport up.
Into this maelstrom we give you Jacoby Ellsbury, now formerly of the Red Sox, whose apparent signing with the New York Yankees for seven years and $153 million will without doubt set a chain reaction in motion that would rock Wall Street to its foundation if this were day trading and not baseball deal-making.
Just from a point of practicality, the Yankees have, right now, one of the premier baseball players in the entire Major League system in second baseman Robinson Cano. He's asking for the type of money the Yankees have just given Ellsbury. Even the Yankees, as rich as they may be, cannot afford two of those types of contracts, so chances are Cano is gone, and what results from all this dickering is what is known in Blackjack as a push.
Ellsbury may hit a few more homers with a shorter right field to shoot for, but whatever he hits, the Yankees will lose in Cano's production. More to the point, Cano's only true competition for "best second baseman in baseball" is Boston's Dustin Pedroia, and he's not going anywhere. Pedroia is signed, sealed and delivered (at a hometown discount) for the next 10 years.
(As an aside, this is one more in about 100 reasons to thank our lucky stars in Boston for Dustin Pedroia. He understands that a comfortable situation, along with fan adulation, is worth whatever money he passed up to remain here.)
They Yankees gain a center fielder who is two years younger than the one they've apparently deemed expendable: Curtis Granderson (and if the Red Sox somehow manage to lure Granderson into their midst, I'm willing to take that trade, even if it means giving up a top draft choice. He's only looking for three years, versus the seven Ellsbury signed for).
But they also gain a player who has a reputation -- somewhat deserved -- of being brittle. Think Danny Amendola of the Patriots. This guy can stub his toe and be out for six weeks.
It is sadly ironic that the one injury Ellsbury suffered that was completely legitimate -- the broken ribs in 2010 -- may be the one that convinced him he was better off somewhere else. The Red Sox did not cover themselves with glory on this one. They botched the diagnosis and then practically shamed him into coming back too soon. It would take a person of immense powers of forgiveness to absolve the Red Sox, and the media who cover them, of the whispers and innuendo that went along with this injury.
And it's also worth mentioning that the reason he was injured is because the genius who is now the chief steward in charge of maintaining the Chicago Cubs' long and distinguished history of wretchedness (Theo Epstein) thought it was a neat idea to acquire center fielder Mike Cameron and turn Ellsbury into a left fielder (whereupon he collided violently with Adrian "Kamikaze" Beltre and practically got himself killed).
So only the most naive person on earth thought Ellsbury would stay here ... for that as well as other reasons.
The Red Sox were burned badly by the money they threw at Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, and had to strip themselves down to Triple-A level to rid themselves of the pair, along with Josh Beckett. And while we all applauded current GM Ben Cherington for daring to make the trade, it left Bobby Valentine -- already a severely lame duck -- with no wings at all. The Red Sox couldn't get rid of Valentine fast enough once the 2012 season ended, and while they never should have hired him in the first place, that doesn't mean that every one of those 93 losses last year can be traced directly to him. He had plenty of help.
Cherington, I'm sure with the blessings of the front office, is not about to commit that kind of money to anyone while the footprints are still visible up and down the organization's back, and who can blame him? So they were not about to pay Ellsbury that kind of money ... and Ellsbury wasn't going to settle for less than that kind of money. No hometown discount for Jacoby. Not with Scott Boras as his agent. Boras doesn't do hometown discounts, and Ellsbury was surely not of a mind to grant one.
The fly in the ointment is the Yankees. But if you're Scott Boras and you're shopping someone around for $150-plus million over seven or so years, there aren't many places to go. The Dodgers have all they can handle with the wretched refuse they inherited from the Red Sox ... and really? Who's left?
Let's establish this: Ellsbury is a very, very good baseball player. He has some power (though that 30-homer season of 2011 might have been a slight aberration from what he's capable of doing over the long haul) and he's a threat to steal a base anytime, and from anywhere. He certainly added an element of speed -- which is something you can't teach -- to the Red Sox, and it certainly served them well.
But here's the question: Is Ellsbury the type of player who can carry a team for a month, the way David Ortiz can when he's going well? Or Miguel Cabrera? Or the way Derek Jeter once could? Or -- dare I even ask -- Alex Rodriguez in his prime?
I say nay. He played 134 games this season (which, for him, is outstanding), hit .298, and stole 52 bases. And with all that, he was no better than the third most important every-day player on his team (I submit that David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia were the guts of that team, and that a prolonged absence by either would have radically affected the 2013 Red Sox). For my $153 million, I want a go-to guy 24/7 ... one who will put up a fight if I suggest he take a rest ... one who will be accountable for what he does ... and one who will help his teammates accept accountability as well.
And I just don't think that guy is Jacoby Ellsbury. That guy is Dustin Pedroia.
The Yankees have been throwing good money after bad from the moment they backed up the truck and dumped millions of dollars on A-Rod's front lawn, eschewing an organizational commitment to build from within, which is how they won four world championships in five years. For all the contracts they've doled out, including the ridiculous extension Boras blackmailed them into signing for Rodriguez (remember the big announcement that he would opt out while the Red Sox were one out from winning the World Series in 2007?), they've won one world championship. In the same amount of time, the Red Sox have won three.
Ellsbury could turn into the second coming of Joe DiMaggio in New York. I sincerely hope he does well. He's a good player and seems like a decent guy. There doesn't seem to be a tremendous sense of urgency about him at times, but that could be more because almost too smooth for his own good. Maybe if he grunted a little bit ... or rolled around in the dirt ... I don't know.
But apparently the Yankees haven't learned that big, fat contracts don't equal winning. It didn't work for the Red Sox in 2011; it didn't work for the Toronto Blue Jays last year; and I'm going to go out on a limb and say it might not work for the Yankees in 2014.
You win championships with a combination of stars and role players who also have to be paid ... and paid well. You need Shane Victorinos, and Mike Napolis, and Jonny Gomes. But if you're spending all outdoors on two or three players, the role players ... the ones so vital to keeping the machinery going for 162 games ... aren't going to be there for you because you're not going to be able to pay them what they want. Unless, of course, you're willing to pony up an exorbitant luxury tax.
Good luck to Jacoby Ellsbury. I wouldn't be so hostile as to say "don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out," but at the same time, he's going to have an awful lot to live up to. Crawford couldn't handle it in 2011, and the question is whether Ellsbury can deal with it in 2014.
Stay tuned.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Boston Strong
Now that the Red Sox have won the World Series (well, during the series, even ...) there has been a groundswell of sentiment that it is mawkish, or crass, or (pick whatever word you want) to use "Boston Strong" and "Red Sox" in the same sentence.
The feeling is that trivializing the motto in any way is also trivializing the bombing of the Boston Marathon finish line and it's painful aftermath.
I do not agree.
First, let's assume most people in this world are reasonably intelligent. The ones who aren't ... what can you do? They're the ones who think the the NFL, or the NBA, get together and dictate that "we need New York to be in the playoffs, so let's make sure the refs slant all calls their way." They're hopeless, and trying to configure your policies and opinions around these people makes you as dumb as they are.
But for the rest of us ... the ones who always understood -- even at age 5 -- that Moe wasn't really poking Larry and Curly in the eyes, or hitting them off the head with shovels or lead pipes ... we get it. We know there's no way you could ever compare winning a World Series with the slow, painful, and emotional healing process that those victims underwent (and still may be going through). That's insane. Nobody but the most unaware of the dolts on this planet would ever equate the two.
But to be as dismissive as some people seem to be about the feel-good 2013 Red Sox also shows an alarming lack of insight into the human condition. People need good news. They need happy endings. And they need to connect with something uplifting any way they can.
I remember talking with a woman who never saw a basketball game. Maybe she didn't even know what a basketball was. But her boyfriend had just informed her -- out of the clear blue -- that their relationship had ended. She was beyond devastated.
Her depression went on for months ... as these things often do. One of her friends, in an effort to cheer her up, invited her to go to a Celtics game, and on that particular night, the Knicks were the fodder (this was back in the early seventies, when the Celtics were very good). She went, and the Celtics just pulverized the Knicks. And for some reason, she found that experience cathartic. Perhaps she transferred all that hostility from her ex to the Knicks, but whatever it was, she said she said that from then on, she became a rabid Celtics fan.
These things happen. People make the connection. Whether it's to escape from the pain they're suffering in their lives ... whether it's the type of transference this woman experienced ... who knows. But it happens, and more often than any of us know.
The Red Sox didn't do anything to discourage people from making the Boston Strong connection (in fact, Will Middlebrooks might have coined the phrase in a tweet after the team found out about the bombings). They certainly took the ball and ran with it. Were they wrong? No, they weren't wrong. I saw it at the time -- and still see it -- as a genuine effort to use their power to unite people to do exactly that. Unite them.
There was a harmonic convergence of circumstances going on that played into all this. The Red Sox were on a mission last April to win their fans back after the horrendous Bobby Valentine experience. Maybe they saw this as the best opportunity they'd ever have to change the public's perception of them. But again, were they wrong? Crass? Mawkish? I don't think so. We criticize professional athletes all the time for the way they put themselves above their fans ... insulate themselves to the point where they're oblivious to the day-to-day struggles people fight to overcome.
Don't we see it every day? Don't we cringe when we hear someone who's just made $5 million to play a game complain that he should be making $10 million? Weren't we all just flabbergasted that Aaron Hernandez, who was making $12 million, is suspected of the type of grudge murder that John Singleton depicted in his saga of the hopelessness of inner-city gang violence (Boyz in the Hood)?
What on earth is hopeless about $12 million per?
It's one thing for franchises to demonstrate civic responsibility and sensitivity, because they are (allegedly) run by intelligent, business-oriented people who understand that in times like these, we all need to stand up and be counted. But today's professional athlete has no such radar.
This wasn't just an effort on the part of the Red Sox corporate and public relations staff to promote the team at the expense of a horrific tragedy. That would have been crass. These were the players pushing this along. I remember Shondra Schilling running the Marathon year after year to benefit cancer research. Other wives ran it for other reasons ... and in almost every case, they were doing it to benefit a charity. This obviously hit home to a lot of the players, and they reacted honestly.
Now ... does this mean nobody went overboard in efforts to commercialize the slogan? Of course not. This is America, and it's become the land where nothing is beyond being exploited. I assure you that if the Red Sox never adopted the cause, someone would still have found a way to make an easy buck off the tragedy.
So lay off the Red Sox. They rallied behind this cause, and in so doing perhaps learned -- better than having it drilled into their heads by some manic coach, perhaps -- that if you pull together for a noble endeavor marvelous things can happen. It came out in the way they played, and even more important, in the way they connected with their fans.
The fans knew it, and they responded. I've never heard Fenway louder than it was Wednesday night. The fans weren't just happy for the team ... they were happy for the players who exemplified professionalism, unity and hard work from Game 1 through the end of the series. Isn't it a hell of a lot better than squabbling and nitpicking? Eating chicken and drinking beer during games? Putting your petty differences ahead of the common good? All those wonderful things we see in the news every day?
What better example could they have given the region after such a tragedy other than to pull together and keep rowing? Maybe we should all do that a little bit more, no?
The feeling is that trivializing the motto in any way is also trivializing the bombing of the Boston Marathon finish line and it's painful aftermath.
I do not agree.
First, let's assume most people in this world are reasonably intelligent. The ones who aren't ... what can you do? They're the ones who think the the NFL, or the NBA, get together and dictate that "we need New York to be in the playoffs, so let's make sure the refs slant all calls their way." They're hopeless, and trying to configure your policies and opinions around these people makes you as dumb as they are.
But for the rest of us ... the ones who always understood -- even at age 5 -- that Moe wasn't really poking Larry and Curly in the eyes, or hitting them off the head with shovels or lead pipes ... we get it. We know there's no way you could ever compare winning a World Series with the slow, painful, and emotional healing process that those victims underwent (and still may be going through). That's insane. Nobody but the most unaware of the dolts on this planet would ever equate the two.
But to be as dismissive as some people seem to be about the feel-good 2013 Red Sox also shows an alarming lack of insight into the human condition. People need good news. They need happy endings. And they need to connect with something uplifting any way they can.
I remember talking with a woman who never saw a basketball game. Maybe she didn't even know what a basketball was. But her boyfriend had just informed her -- out of the clear blue -- that their relationship had ended. She was beyond devastated.
Her depression went on for months ... as these things often do. One of her friends, in an effort to cheer her up, invited her to go to a Celtics game, and on that particular night, the Knicks were the fodder (this was back in the early seventies, when the Celtics were very good). She went, and the Celtics just pulverized the Knicks. And for some reason, she found that experience cathartic. Perhaps she transferred all that hostility from her ex to the Knicks, but whatever it was, she said she said that from then on, she became a rabid Celtics fan.
These things happen. People make the connection. Whether it's to escape from the pain they're suffering in their lives ... whether it's the type of transference this woman experienced ... who knows. But it happens, and more often than any of us know.
The Red Sox didn't do anything to discourage people from making the Boston Strong connection (in fact, Will Middlebrooks might have coined the phrase in a tweet after the team found out about the bombings). They certainly took the ball and ran with it. Were they wrong? No, they weren't wrong. I saw it at the time -- and still see it -- as a genuine effort to use their power to unite people to do exactly that. Unite them.
There was a harmonic convergence of circumstances going on that played into all this. The Red Sox were on a mission last April to win their fans back after the horrendous Bobby Valentine experience. Maybe they saw this as the best opportunity they'd ever have to change the public's perception of them. But again, were they wrong? Crass? Mawkish? I don't think so. We criticize professional athletes all the time for the way they put themselves above their fans ... insulate themselves to the point where they're oblivious to the day-to-day struggles people fight to overcome.
Don't we see it every day? Don't we cringe when we hear someone who's just made $5 million to play a game complain that he should be making $10 million? Weren't we all just flabbergasted that Aaron Hernandez, who was making $12 million, is suspected of the type of grudge murder that John Singleton depicted in his saga of the hopelessness of inner-city gang violence (Boyz in the Hood)?
What on earth is hopeless about $12 million per?
It's one thing for franchises to demonstrate civic responsibility and sensitivity, because they are (allegedly) run by intelligent, business-oriented people who understand that in times like these, we all need to stand up and be counted. But today's professional athlete has no such radar.
This wasn't just an effort on the part of the Red Sox corporate and public relations staff to promote the team at the expense of a horrific tragedy. That would have been crass. These were the players pushing this along. I remember Shondra Schilling running the Marathon year after year to benefit cancer research. Other wives ran it for other reasons ... and in almost every case, they were doing it to benefit a charity. This obviously hit home to a lot of the players, and they reacted honestly.
Now ... does this mean nobody went overboard in efforts to commercialize the slogan? Of course not. This is America, and it's become the land where nothing is beyond being exploited. I assure you that if the Red Sox never adopted the cause, someone would still have found a way to make an easy buck off the tragedy.
So lay off the Red Sox. They rallied behind this cause, and in so doing perhaps learned -- better than having it drilled into their heads by some manic coach, perhaps -- that if you pull together for a noble endeavor marvelous things can happen. It came out in the way they played, and even more important, in the way they connected with their fans.
The fans knew it, and they responded. I've never heard Fenway louder than it was Wednesday night. The fans weren't just happy for the team ... they were happy for the players who exemplified professionalism, unity and hard work from Game 1 through the end of the series. Isn't it a hell of a lot better than squabbling and nitpicking? Eating chicken and drinking beer during games? Putting your petty differences ahead of the common good? All those wonderful things we see in the news every day?
What better example could they have given the region after such a tragedy other than to pull together and keep rowing? Maybe we should all do that a little bit more, no?
Monday, September 30, 2013
It's great to be back!
"The men from the press said we wish you success, it's good to have the both of you back."
It was probably never the intention of the Boston Red Sox to have anyone channel "the Ballad of John and Yoko" in talking about their first appearance in the playoffs since 2009. But there it is.
And as we learned from the September 2011 fade and the 2012 Bobby Valentine fiasco, "Christ, you know it ain't easy ... you know how hard it can be."
But I don't come here today to crucify the Boston Red Sox. No, sir. To twist a phrase from "Julius Caesar around, "I come not to bury the Red Sox, but to praise them."
Who know, back in March, that the Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals would end up with the best records in Major League Baseball. In spring training, the bets were more along the lines of "will they even finish .500?"
John Farrell was the popular choice to be the next manager after Terry Francona was fired in 2011, but couldn't extricate himself from his Toronto Blue Jays contract. Otherwise, we might have been spared the Bobby Valentine fiasco. It's easy to say this now, but some of us -- last year -- were telling anyone who would listen to us that Bobby V, as much of a bon vivant as he might be, was the wrong person to minister to the hangover that resulted from 2011.Yes, these guys are professional athletes, but after something like that, the Sox needed a morale builder, not someone who was so obviously all about himself.
It happened a year late, but the Red Sox got their guy. Right from the introductory press conference, it became obvious Farrell was a no-nonsense guy who understood how badly the Red Sox had squandered their standing as the most other-worldly popular franchise in Boston since the Big Bad Bruins.
And it his first mission was to win it back.
Spring training was a love-in. The "character guys" certainly added likeability to the club, but none of that would have mattered had it been simply character alone. If they couldn't play anymore, we'd be talking about next year already ... if we were talking at all.
However, the character guys ended up being among their most clutch players. Mike Napoli may have struck out a lot, and it may have infuriated me to watch him do it as often as he did. But in between, he hit some mighty clutch home runs. Jonny Gomes didn't hit for average, but every time you looked up, he was getting a bit hit in a big situation.
But Shane Victorino, to me, epitomized character in the way he gutted through a season when he wasn't always healthy, and the way he kept coming up big himself when the situation called for it, both offensively and defensively. And I have to ask the question: Would Jacoby Ellsbury have even made it back for the end of the regular season if Victorino wasn't around to, perhaps, help him realize that sometimes, you just have to close your eyes and play through it? Yeah, I know it's a contract year, but Ellsbury is going to get his money from someone. It's just a matter of who. We all know what he brings to the table.
(One wonders, however, what it took to get Clay Buchholz back on the mound, but this is a positive piece so let's let it at that).
This is a happy column and it's a happy story. One can only imagine the effect Farrell had on Jon Lester, who might have started out hot but seemed destined for another season of agonizing nibbling and mound tantrums. Whatever he said to Lester behind the scenes worked, as the big lefty got hold of himself in August and finished by throwing almost unhittable stuff up there.
John Lackey's only value coming into the season was as a whipping boy. He was to the Red Sox what Milan Lucic is to the Bruins: someone I can pound on when there's nowhere else to turn. Lucic acquitted himself somewhat in last spring's playoffs, and it goes without saying Lackey change a lot of opinions, including mine, by how he did this year ... not only his pitching, but by the classy way he handled some luckless outings where he pitched phenomenally while the team couldn't score runs for him.
And again, one wonders whether that's the influence of a guy like Ryan Dempster (I had to think a minute before writing that name, as my usual term for him is The Dumpster), another one of those character guys who seemed to keep it all in perspective. Dempster, if he pitches during the post-season, will be coming out of the bullpen. And he is publicly fine with that, even if, privately, he might not be. That's OK. At least he's pulling his oars in the same direction. Contrast that to Felix Doubrant, who, when faced with the same situation, mailed it in against Baltimore. I doubt we'll see him on the rooster (yeah, I know ... roster).
One also has to wonder how much of a factor the Marathon bombing was in all of this. There's no doubt the incident galvanized the city, and perhaps gave its athletes some impetus to re-examine some of the petty issues that might otherwise rip a team apart. My own belief is that the incident gave this team, in particular, a rallying cry. That, and, I suppose, the beards.
About the beards. One of the great things about that 2004 team was how sloppy they appeared. Their slovenliness, from Johnny Damon to Mark Bellhorn to Manny Ramirez, was almost a badge of honor ... as was the moniker "idiots."
Don't the beards remind you of that team? The Red Sox look like Civil War veterans who simply changed uniforms. But again, I'm not judging a fashion show. I just want to see them win games.
I think the guy who benefitted most from havingn like-minded players around him was Dustin Pedroia, who must have felt as if he was Tom Hanks on the raft with Wilson last year. He was surrounded by whiny, kvetchy teammates who seemed more interested in undermining Valentine than simply going out and playing (not that I didn't sympathize, but you still have to do your job).
All that negativity affected him, and during stretches last season, he seemed as mutinous as the rest of them. He fought against it, though, and ended up doing all right. But one can only imagine how refreshing it was for him to come to the park and play alongside the stalwarts on the team this season. He's still the heart of the team, and as he goes, it goes. And since he goes all out, every day, and has teammates who do as well, there's no limit to what they can accomplish.
As anyone can tell you, injuries (or lack of same) can make or break your season. Ask the Patriots. They've just been dealt a crushing blow with reports that Vince Wilfork has a torn Achilles. That's a killer. There's no telling what happens to them from here, as Wilfork was -- after Tom Brady -- their most indispensable player.
The Sox were remarkably lucky that nothing untoward happened to their everyday lineup. They had all their main components. And they're especially fortunate that David Ortiz stayed healthy and productive, because without him they'd be nowhere. I don't always like some of the things he does (like F-bombing a civic ceremony and smashing a phone because he didn't like an umpire's call), but there's no denying that his presence in the lineup makes everyone else just that much better. Hitting 30 homers and knocking in 100-plus runs, again, makes him irreplaceable, silly antics notwithstanding.
It just proves you don't have to like everyone personally to appreciate their value to the effort. I still think Bill Belichick is an excellent coach, even if he appears to be totally devoid of personality.
But the pitching staff was a mess, and Farrell gets huge props for keeping it above water. Clay Buccholz was on his way to a Max Scherzer-type season before his shoulder ailment sidelined him for three months. The Red Sox lost closer Joel Hanrahan ... and then lost the guy who was supposed to replace him (Andrew Bailey). They turned to Koji Uehara out of desperation, and look what happened? He should at least be in the conversation for the Cy Young Award, although Scherzer should win it hands down.
If the Red Sox have an Achilles heel it's the transition from their starters to Koji. It just seems that the seventh and eighth innings are a nightly chore for this team if the starter runs out of gas after six. They can only hope, with a week's worth of rest, that the starters are able to go into the seventh so that it's only the eighth inning we have to worry about. Uehara has pretty much made the ninth academic, and there's no reason to expect him not to now.
Of course, the other knock is that the Red Sox don't hit good pitching all that well, but, you know, that's why they call it good pitching. If wasn't good pitching, everyone would hit it. But if they end up facing a team like the Tigers, that could be a problem. The Tigers hit all pitching. They have, by far, the most potent offense of the teams that are left and they are probably the only team the Red Sox might have trouble outslugging if it came to that. That's why it was so important that they clinch the No. 1 seed and avoid playing the Tigers until they absolutely had to.
Yet they have their issues too, the back end of their bullpen being one of them.
Tigers or no Tigers, the team I would prefer not to see is Tampa Bay. Even when the Red Sox beat them, it's like taking a chunk of flesh out of them. It's always a struggle. I alternate between liking Joe Maddon because he's refreshing, and hating him because he tends to be way too full of himself at other times. He has this tendency, sometimes, to act as if he invented the game.
Yet the Rays have pitching to burn, and they are perhaps the only team out of the three Wild Card contenders who can burn through their two best pitchers getting to the first round and still throw quality arms out there for the duration. Lord help the Sox if they play Tampa Bay and fall behind with Price and Moore waiting in the wings. See you later. So let's hope that doesn't happen.
In other words, Gooooooooo Texas.
Obviously, the Cleveland Indians are intriguing. It's a great story ... Francona coming back to the scene of his unfortunate demise. But from a different perspective, I've a feeling the sooner they're out of his the better it'll be for everyone else. The Indians are the "which of these things is not like the other" of the post-season. If you're scratching your head wondering how the Red Sox did it, then you have to be convinced the Indians did it with mirrors. Give them any hope at all, and look out!
That's why, from a purely baseball standpoint, I'm hoping the Rangers survive. I don't want to be on the wrong end of someone's Cinderella story (ask the Cardinals and the Raiders how that feels), and absolutely want no part of Tampa Bay. The Rangers seem to be the best option. I'll take my chances with either Oakland or Detroit, but obviously, if I had a choice, I'd take the A's. Miggy and company could use the rest, couldn't they?
The Red Sox have just as much of a chance as anyone else does to bring another championship to the city. Will they? An awful lot has to go right. One possible danger sign is that the Red Sox coasted on this vibe for 162 games, but they may have to catch another wave to get through the playoffs, just as they did in 2004, when all looked lost.
The good news is that this team is full of good vibes, so it's not out of the question that they'll come up with something. If they do, we could be watching duck boats at the end of October.
It was probably never the intention of the Boston Red Sox to have anyone channel "the Ballad of John and Yoko" in talking about their first appearance in the playoffs since 2009. But there it is.
And as we learned from the September 2011 fade and the 2012 Bobby Valentine fiasco, "Christ, you know it ain't easy ... you know how hard it can be."
But I don't come here today to crucify the Boston Red Sox. No, sir. To twist a phrase from "Julius Caesar around, "I come not to bury the Red Sox, but to praise them."
Who know, back in March, that the Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals would end up with the best records in Major League Baseball. In spring training, the bets were more along the lines of "will they even finish .500?"
John Farrell was the popular choice to be the next manager after Terry Francona was fired in 2011, but couldn't extricate himself from his Toronto Blue Jays contract. Otherwise, we might have been spared the Bobby Valentine fiasco. It's easy to say this now, but some of us -- last year -- were telling anyone who would listen to us that Bobby V, as much of a bon vivant as he might be, was the wrong person to minister to the hangover that resulted from 2011.Yes, these guys are professional athletes, but after something like that, the Sox needed a morale builder, not someone who was so obviously all about himself.
It happened a year late, but the Red Sox got their guy. Right from the introductory press conference, it became obvious Farrell was a no-nonsense guy who understood how badly the Red Sox had squandered their standing as the most other-worldly popular franchise in Boston since the Big Bad Bruins.
And it his first mission was to win it back.
Spring training was a love-in. The "character guys" certainly added likeability to the club, but none of that would have mattered had it been simply character alone. If they couldn't play anymore, we'd be talking about next year already ... if we were talking at all.
However, the character guys ended up being among their most clutch players. Mike Napoli may have struck out a lot, and it may have infuriated me to watch him do it as often as he did. But in between, he hit some mighty clutch home runs. Jonny Gomes didn't hit for average, but every time you looked up, he was getting a bit hit in a big situation.
But Shane Victorino, to me, epitomized character in the way he gutted through a season when he wasn't always healthy, and the way he kept coming up big himself when the situation called for it, both offensively and defensively. And I have to ask the question: Would Jacoby Ellsbury have even made it back for the end of the regular season if Victorino wasn't around to, perhaps, help him realize that sometimes, you just have to close your eyes and play through it? Yeah, I know it's a contract year, but Ellsbury is going to get his money from someone. It's just a matter of who. We all know what he brings to the table.
(One wonders, however, what it took to get Clay Buchholz back on the mound, but this is a positive piece so let's let it at that).
This is a happy column and it's a happy story. One can only imagine the effect Farrell had on Jon Lester, who might have started out hot but seemed destined for another season of agonizing nibbling and mound tantrums. Whatever he said to Lester behind the scenes worked, as the big lefty got hold of himself in August and finished by throwing almost unhittable stuff up there.
John Lackey's only value coming into the season was as a whipping boy. He was to the Red Sox what Milan Lucic is to the Bruins: someone I can pound on when there's nowhere else to turn. Lucic acquitted himself somewhat in last spring's playoffs, and it goes without saying Lackey change a lot of opinions, including mine, by how he did this year ... not only his pitching, but by the classy way he handled some luckless outings where he pitched phenomenally while the team couldn't score runs for him.
And again, one wonders whether that's the influence of a guy like Ryan Dempster (I had to think a minute before writing that name, as my usual term for him is The Dumpster), another one of those character guys who seemed to keep it all in perspective. Dempster, if he pitches during the post-season, will be coming out of the bullpen. And he is publicly fine with that, even if, privately, he might not be. That's OK. At least he's pulling his oars in the same direction. Contrast that to Felix Doubrant, who, when faced with the same situation, mailed it in against Baltimore. I doubt we'll see him on the rooster (yeah, I know ... roster).
One also has to wonder how much of a factor the Marathon bombing was in all of this. There's no doubt the incident galvanized the city, and perhaps gave its athletes some impetus to re-examine some of the petty issues that might otherwise rip a team apart. My own belief is that the incident gave this team, in particular, a rallying cry. That, and, I suppose, the beards.
About the beards. One of the great things about that 2004 team was how sloppy they appeared. Their slovenliness, from Johnny Damon to Mark Bellhorn to Manny Ramirez, was almost a badge of honor ... as was the moniker "idiots."
Don't the beards remind you of that team? The Red Sox look like Civil War veterans who simply changed uniforms. But again, I'm not judging a fashion show. I just want to see them win games.
I think the guy who benefitted most from havingn like-minded players around him was Dustin Pedroia, who must have felt as if he was Tom Hanks on the raft with Wilson last year. He was surrounded by whiny, kvetchy teammates who seemed more interested in undermining Valentine than simply going out and playing (not that I didn't sympathize, but you still have to do your job).
All that negativity affected him, and during stretches last season, he seemed as mutinous as the rest of them. He fought against it, though, and ended up doing all right. But one can only imagine how refreshing it was for him to come to the park and play alongside the stalwarts on the team this season. He's still the heart of the team, and as he goes, it goes. And since he goes all out, every day, and has teammates who do as well, there's no limit to what they can accomplish.
As anyone can tell you, injuries (or lack of same) can make or break your season. Ask the Patriots. They've just been dealt a crushing blow with reports that Vince Wilfork has a torn Achilles. That's a killer. There's no telling what happens to them from here, as Wilfork was -- after Tom Brady -- their most indispensable player.
The Sox were remarkably lucky that nothing untoward happened to their everyday lineup. They had all their main components. And they're especially fortunate that David Ortiz stayed healthy and productive, because without him they'd be nowhere. I don't always like some of the things he does (like F-bombing a civic ceremony and smashing a phone because he didn't like an umpire's call), but there's no denying that his presence in the lineup makes everyone else just that much better. Hitting 30 homers and knocking in 100-plus runs, again, makes him irreplaceable, silly antics notwithstanding.
It just proves you don't have to like everyone personally to appreciate their value to the effort. I still think Bill Belichick is an excellent coach, even if he appears to be totally devoid of personality.
But the pitching staff was a mess, and Farrell gets huge props for keeping it above water. Clay Buccholz was on his way to a Max Scherzer-type season before his shoulder ailment sidelined him for three months. The Red Sox lost closer Joel Hanrahan ... and then lost the guy who was supposed to replace him (Andrew Bailey). They turned to Koji Uehara out of desperation, and look what happened? He should at least be in the conversation for the Cy Young Award, although Scherzer should win it hands down.
If the Red Sox have an Achilles heel it's the transition from their starters to Koji. It just seems that the seventh and eighth innings are a nightly chore for this team if the starter runs out of gas after six. They can only hope, with a week's worth of rest, that the starters are able to go into the seventh so that it's only the eighth inning we have to worry about. Uehara has pretty much made the ninth academic, and there's no reason to expect him not to now.
Of course, the other knock is that the Red Sox don't hit good pitching all that well, but, you know, that's why they call it good pitching. If wasn't good pitching, everyone would hit it. But if they end up facing a team like the Tigers, that could be a problem. The Tigers hit all pitching. They have, by far, the most potent offense of the teams that are left and they are probably the only team the Red Sox might have trouble outslugging if it came to that. That's why it was so important that they clinch the No. 1 seed and avoid playing the Tigers until they absolutely had to.
Yet they have their issues too, the back end of their bullpen being one of them.
Tigers or no Tigers, the team I would prefer not to see is Tampa Bay. Even when the Red Sox beat them, it's like taking a chunk of flesh out of them. It's always a struggle. I alternate between liking Joe Maddon because he's refreshing, and hating him because he tends to be way too full of himself at other times. He has this tendency, sometimes, to act as if he invented the game.
Yet the Rays have pitching to burn, and they are perhaps the only team out of the three Wild Card contenders who can burn through their two best pitchers getting to the first round and still throw quality arms out there for the duration. Lord help the Sox if they play Tampa Bay and fall behind with Price and Moore waiting in the wings. See you later. So let's hope that doesn't happen.
In other words, Gooooooooo Texas.
Obviously, the Cleveland Indians are intriguing. It's a great story ... Francona coming back to the scene of his unfortunate demise. But from a different perspective, I've a feeling the sooner they're out of his the better it'll be for everyone else. The Indians are the "which of these things is not like the other" of the post-season. If you're scratching your head wondering how the Red Sox did it, then you have to be convinced the Indians did it with mirrors. Give them any hope at all, and look out!
That's why, from a purely baseball standpoint, I'm hoping the Rangers survive. I don't want to be on the wrong end of someone's Cinderella story (ask the Cardinals and the Raiders how that feels), and absolutely want no part of Tampa Bay. The Rangers seem to be the best option. I'll take my chances with either Oakland or Detroit, but obviously, if I had a choice, I'd take the A's. Miggy and company could use the rest, couldn't they?
The Red Sox have just as much of a chance as anyone else does to bring another championship to the city. Will they? An awful lot has to go right. One possible danger sign is that the Red Sox coasted on this vibe for 162 games, but they may have to catch another wave to get through the playoffs, just as they did in 2004, when all looked lost.
The good news is that this team is full of good vibes, so it's not out of the question that they'll come up with something. If they do, we could be watching duck boats at the end of October.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Lessons, lessons and more lessons
Whenever we have a tragedy such as the shooting in Washington this week, the immediate impulse is to a) blame someone, or some thing, that had nothing to do with what happened; and b) start pounding home "lessons" we're suppose to learn from it.
This reached its ridiculous extreme when Elisabeth Hasselbeck led a discussion on FOX about the evils of video games, as if they are the ones to blame for the mess in carnage Aaron Alexis left behind Monday in D.C.
The frustration, on whatever level and whatever side, is understandable. This stuff keeps happening, no matter what we do, or say, or think. People always find ways to get around the safeguards set up to keep them from wreaking havoc and tragedy on the world. They're always one step ahead of us ... and that's all it takes.
We have two choices. We either give up trying to protect innocent people from slaughter on the grounds that it won't do any good anyway; or we try harder to get to the root of why there are so many disaffected and dysfunctional people in the world.
Since neither of those choices will provide an immediate quick fix to the problem (or any fix at all, in the case of the former), we've taken to a third option: affixing blame. If we can't solve the problem, by God, we can at least blame someone for it.
In one way, Elisabeth is right (loathe though I may be to admit it). Video games are part of the problem. But to end the discussion there is not just naive. It borders on demagoguery. Then again, so does any discussion that involves banning guns. Or censoring violent TV shows or movies. Or re-examining our national obsession with contact sports whose violent hits make highlight reels and whose injury lists are way too germaine to the outcome of their events.
Because the answer is, all at one, none of the above and all of the above. And therein lies the the problem.
We are a violent society. There's no use arguing that point, and there's no getting around it. Much of what we do, and much of what we represent, centers around violence. It is portrayed, almost everywhere, as the optimum way to resolve issues.
We are desensitized. I remember shortly after the Vietnam War ended, the idea of the military going anywhere, to resolve anything, was almost unspeakable. We as a nation were too traumatized by the era, and all the unrest it spawned, to view military intervention as anything other than a last-resort solution to problems that were better handled diplomatically.
I'm sure Jimmy Carter was a disciple of that mindset by letting the slow clockwork of diplomacy free the hostages in Iran, and that undoubtedly cost him his presidency. He was seen as weak, but those hostages came back alive. I wonder, if you ask any of them, whether they'd have preferred to see five or six or them come back dead at the expense of, say, being released six months sooner than they were. I'd really be interested in what they have to say.
Can you honestly say, today, that our leaders view our military the same way? They do not. At the moment, though, we are war-weary after fighting two of them simultaneously for the past decade, and the idea of doing it all over again in Syria seems to be asking too much. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe, on that front at least, we are learning.
The military is just the most obvious example of how we've gone from being sensitized to war and violence to our current condition of being almost impervious to it. Now, if something horrible happens, we may be affected by it for a day or two (in the case of Sandy Hook, it took a little longer for the shock to wear off), but soon enough we rotate back to our normal programming and the urgency of the tragedy recedes. Until the anniversary comes up, that is. Then, we observe it as if it just happened, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we still, after all this time, haven't made one iota of progress in getting to the root of it.
The bigger part of this issue -- and most other issues in the year 2013 -- is that we're just not equipped to do the necessary digging to get to the root of them. To establish a national dialogue that would get to the root of gun violence in this country would be way too painful. It would expose too many harsh and unpleasant truths ... not just about the perpetrators, but about us. What is it about us that allows this cesspool of violent messages we see every day to become part of our lives? Why do we accept it? Why do we allow it?
We'd have examine our priorities, and ask ourselves why we seem to place so much importance on the trivial and so little on the real necessities of life ... such as how to effectively manage the enormous numbers of people who are falling through the cracks or society and are living in the shadows. What do you do? How do you treat them? How do you keep them out of harm's way ... and how do we keep ourselves from being harmed by them?
There's a tough one. How do you identify sociopaths before they snap one day and do what Aaron Alexis did? Or the Newtown, Conn., shooter? Or Timothy McVeigh? What influences them? What tiggers them to snap? Who are they listening to? What are they listening to? No one lives in a vacuum. They have to be listening to something.
And how do guns come into play? They are not the sole reason these things happen (though if the NRA could at least admit that guns in the wrong hands become exponentially more dangerous, that would be a terrific starting point, because right now they don't even seem to be able to do that). But they're certainly a component. I mean, you can't have gun violence without a gun, right? This alone should be enough to convince anyone that checking applicants to make sure that at the very least there's no mental illness in their histories, or felony convictions, should be de rigeur. Anything beyond those two elements is just a crap shoot anyway. But we can't even agree on that.
I don't know what the answers are, but I can tell you this: Until we work on finding them, then we're going to continue to have these periodic episodes. Once we admit that, as a culture, we are way more violent than we're willing to admit, then maybe we can fix it. We may not be violent in the sense that we blow ourselves up in the middle of a crowded mall in the middle of the day. But we're much too accepting of it; and we're far too intentionally oblivious to the other aspects of society's underbelly that, when you marry them to our insensitivity to violence, can very easily produce these types of disasters.
This reached its ridiculous extreme when Elisabeth Hasselbeck led a discussion on FOX about the evils of video games, as if they are the ones to blame for the mess in carnage Aaron Alexis left behind Monday in D.C.
The frustration, on whatever level and whatever side, is understandable. This stuff keeps happening, no matter what we do, or say, or think. People always find ways to get around the safeguards set up to keep them from wreaking havoc and tragedy on the world. They're always one step ahead of us ... and that's all it takes.
We have two choices. We either give up trying to protect innocent people from slaughter on the grounds that it won't do any good anyway; or we try harder to get to the root of why there are so many disaffected and dysfunctional people in the world.
Since neither of those choices will provide an immediate quick fix to the problem (or any fix at all, in the case of the former), we've taken to a third option: affixing blame. If we can't solve the problem, by God, we can at least blame someone for it.
In one way, Elisabeth is right (loathe though I may be to admit it). Video games are part of the problem. But to end the discussion there is not just naive. It borders on demagoguery. Then again, so does any discussion that involves banning guns. Or censoring violent TV shows or movies. Or re-examining our national obsession with contact sports whose violent hits make highlight reels and whose injury lists are way too germaine to the outcome of their events.
Because the answer is, all at one, none of the above and all of the above. And therein lies the the problem.
We are a violent society. There's no use arguing that point, and there's no getting around it. Much of what we do, and much of what we represent, centers around violence. It is portrayed, almost everywhere, as the optimum way to resolve issues.
We are desensitized. I remember shortly after the Vietnam War ended, the idea of the military going anywhere, to resolve anything, was almost unspeakable. We as a nation were too traumatized by the era, and all the unrest it spawned, to view military intervention as anything other than a last-resort solution to problems that were better handled diplomatically.
I'm sure Jimmy Carter was a disciple of that mindset by letting the slow clockwork of diplomacy free the hostages in Iran, and that undoubtedly cost him his presidency. He was seen as weak, but those hostages came back alive. I wonder, if you ask any of them, whether they'd have preferred to see five or six or them come back dead at the expense of, say, being released six months sooner than they were. I'd really be interested in what they have to say.
Can you honestly say, today, that our leaders view our military the same way? They do not. At the moment, though, we are war-weary after fighting two of them simultaneously for the past decade, and the idea of doing it all over again in Syria seems to be asking too much. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe, on that front at least, we are learning.
The military is just the most obvious example of how we've gone from being sensitized to war and violence to our current condition of being almost impervious to it. Now, if something horrible happens, we may be affected by it for a day or two (in the case of Sandy Hook, it took a little longer for the shock to wear off), but soon enough we rotate back to our normal programming and the urgency of the tragedy recedes. Until the anniversary comes up, that is. Then, we observe it as if it just happened, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we still, after all this time, haven't made one iota of progress in getting to the root of it.
The bigger part of this issue -- and most other issues in the year 2013 -- is that we're just not equipped to do the necessary digging to get to the root of them. To establish a national dialogue that would get to the root of gun violence in this country would be way too painful. It would expose too many harsh and unpleasant truths ... not just about the perpetrators, but about us. What is it about us that allows this cesspool of violent messages we see every day to become part of our lives? Why do we accept it? Why do we allow it?
We'd have examine our priorities, and ask ourselves why we seem to place so much importance on the trivial and so little on the real necessities of life ... such as how to effectively manage the enormous numbers of people who are falling through the cracks or society and are living in the shadows. What do you do? How do you treat them? How do you keep them out of harm's way ... and how do we keep ourselves from being harmed by them?
There's a tough one. How do you identify sociopaths before they snap one day and do what Aaron Alexis did? Or the Newtown, Conn., shooter? Or Timothy McVeigh? What influences them? What tiggers them to snap? Who are they listening to? What are they listening to? No one lives in a vacuum. They have to be listening to something.
And how do guns come into play? They are not the sole reason these things happen (though if the NRA could at least admit that guns in the wrong hands become exponentially more dangerous, that would be a terrific starting point, because right now they don't even seem to be able to do that). But they're certainly a component. I mean, you can't have gun violence without a gun, right? This alone should be enough to convince anyone that checking applicants to make sure that at the very least there's no mental illness in their histories, or felony convictions, should be de rigeur. Anything beyond those two elements is just a crap shoot anyway. But we can't even agree on that.
I don't know what the answers are, but I can tell you this: Until we work on finding them, then we're going to continue to have these periodic episodes. Once we admit that, as a culture, we are way more violent than we're willing to admit, then maybe we can fix it. We may not be violent in the sense that we blow ourselves up in the middle of a crowded mall in the middle of the day. But we're much too accepting of it; and we're far too intentionally oblivious to the other aspects of society's underbelly that, when you marry them to our insensitivity to violence, can very easily produce these types of disasters.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Sportsaidekaphobia
Happy Friday the 13th everyone. Here's a little Sportsaidekaphobia to mark the occasion ...
Let's start with some givens. Letting Wes Welker go was a risk for the New England Patriots. The move could end up hitting them in the face like a wave of effluvia. Then again, after one out of 16 games, that's all conjecture. But at the moment, it seems like the dumbest thing the Bill Belichick and the Patriots have ever done.
Of course, to be fair, when they let Welker go, who knew Aaron Hernandez would get into his predicament? That was certainly an X-factor no one could have predicted.
It would appear that the relationship between Belichick and Welker soured beyond repair, and it would also seem, to me at least, that both had a hand in it. Belichick is Dean Wormer, and apparently Welker is Otter. Or Boone. Or Flounder. Or maybe a combination of them all. Perhaps he was on double secret probation all these years and it caught up to him.
Whatever the reason, he's gone and our continuous pining for him isn't going to bring him back. There was obviously an effort on the part of the Patriots to bring in a group of receivers and let them mature together, and we're seeing the growing pains now. I'm not sure even Welker could make much of a difference, because he cannot get downfield, and he can't run six routes at once.
This has been an ongoing concern ... one that was masked pretty thoroughly by the existance of Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski. The Patriots haven't had a consistent outside receiver since the jettisoned Randy Moss off to Minnesota. They've made do with the two tight ends, Welker, and a group of backs who could catch the ball ... call it the Kevin Faulk factory. There was Faulk, Danny Woodhead and now Shane Vereen (when he comes back from his broken wrist).
When you think about it, how much of a factor was Brandon Lloyd last year? In New England, your effectiveness as a receiver hinges on how much Tom Brady trusts you, and he didn't trust Lloyd. Nor did he trust Chad Ochocinco.
I have to admit, watching Brady pout last night was disconcerting, and if anyone down there were to ask me, I'd have to say that TB12 is a bigger problem, at this point, than the receivers are. He's going to have to calm down and let these guys develop without hovering over them like some kind of demented drill sergeant. He even said as much himself after the game. I can't speak for any of these rookies, but there was once a time when I was new, and remember well the ones who patiently explained my raw mistakes and I remember the ones with the oppressive, unfriendly criticisms. I always thought that tactic held back development.
I'll save my anger for people who should know better. All I know is that when you have Jabba the Hutt squatting on you while you're feeling your way around it tends to slow your development down.
Look, Brady has had a fantastic career. He's going to be in the NFL Hall of Fame. But I remember a game, in his first season as a starter, when he threw four interceptions against the Denver Broncos. He had to settle in, grow and make his mistakes ... and obviously Belichick saw something in him that made him stick with the kid. Maybe Brady could show the same patience now?
We all want to win. The Patriots do not hold a patent on winning and neither does Brady. And I think winning is one of those things where you sometimes have to extend a hand to your struggling teammates and shepherd them rather than browbeat them on national television.
Something tells me the Patriots -- at least this edition -- have jumped the shark anyway. If that's the case, all you can do is say it's been a hell of a run ... almost unprecedented in this modern NFL. Skills fade. People move on. The chemistry gets diluted and sometimes polluted. And when that happens, you just have to decide to cut your losses and move on.
What's happened with the Patriots concerning Hernandez has to affect them more than just losing Brady for the season to injury. I don't are how professional you profess to be. You're still a human being. And knowing there was a murderer in your midst would have to be more than a little disconcerting.
This already promised to be a difficult season even before Hernandez got arrested. Not having him, and not having Gronkowski yet ... that is huge, and I don't care what kind of a genius everyone thinks you are. That's just too much firepower to replace at once. You can't do it.
But now? With Hernandez in jail, Danny Amendola hurt (and can we please give the guy a break? The guy got hurt. It's a violent game. People get hurt), Vereen out until midseason with a broken wrist, no effective tight ends ... this is going to be a brutal stretch. Until some of these guys get healthy, the team is going to scuffle, and bitching about it isn't going to make anyone happier.
So with all that, is it to much to ask TB12 to just chill with the histrionics, be a mensch, and help these guys instead of showing them up?
And can we stop acting so entitled about the Patriots? Every NFL dynasty has had to regroup. Maybe it's our turn. If it is, so be it. It was bound to happen sooner or later.
And to think ... I'm writing this about a 2-0 team in the National Football League. Teams with far more talent at their disposal would kill to be 2-0.
--------------------
Onto other things: I'd love to hear Bug Selig's explanation for how a guy who's been effectively banished for the rest of his career for being a world-class cheat (not to mention rat) is still playing, and that his team is poised to crash the post-season party. This ought to be good.
How embarrassing will it be if a team like Cleveland, Baltimore or Tampa Bay is denied a spot in the post-season because the Yankees crashed their way in while a pariah such as Alex Rodriguez not only played, but contributed mightily? I could actually see a situation where one of these organized sued MLB on the grounds that their suspended player ended up in the lineup for two months.
Two questions. First, would it have been better had Selig merely suspended A-Rod for the same number of games as it did everyone else in the recent PHD scandal, so he could have sat them out and not put us through this absolute farce? And aren't the Yankees talking out of both sides of their mouths here? They've been pretty obvious about their desire to rid themselves of Rodriguez and his contract, yet there he is. Sitting in the middle of the lineup like an elephant in the living room. I won't object if you call them hypocrites.
All I know is that we have a player who's been suspended ... bur who's playing ... and whose presence in the lineup has a good chance of influencing the post-season. There's something REALLY wrong with this picture.
Saddest of all is while the A-Rod side show is going on, we have Derek Jeter fighting for his career. Even if you hate the Yankees, you have to admire Jeter, who has done nothing but act with class, dignity and professionalism for his entire career. Just another indication that life is exceedingly unfair.
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Some quick hits: Patrice Bergeron of the Bruins might be the most underrated, unappreciated athlete in Boston in this or any other era ...Boston College is 2-0, and nobody thought that was going to happen. Maybe 1-1. But not 2-0. Not sure what this means in the long run, but it's certainly not terrible ... How badly is Alabama going to crush Texas A&M and Johnny Football tomorrow? ... Is there any doubt that John Farrell is the American League manager of the year? The only one I see giving him any competition is Terry Francona, who has turned the Cleveland Indians into a ballclub ... Which, by the way, is a pleasure to see. Tito was always a class act here, a clear illustration of how you could be a good guy and still win in professional sports ... I don't know what's worse: Steve Spurrier undermining the sports reporter who criticized him, or the newspaper publisher who caved and took the writer off the South Carolina beat ... And isn't it time we just blew up the entire big-time college athletics model and rebuilt it so that ethics played a part? ... I don't care how lousy his team is, and I don't care how many press conference meltdowns he has, I'd love to cover Rex Ryan. At least he gives you something to write about ... It's fun watching the New York Giant lose. Tom Coughlin is about the most entertaining coach there is after a loss. He has nothing to prove to anyone anymore. He might go down as the best post-season coach in the NFL's modern era. But damn! When the Giants stink, he's the man! ... I hope the Philadelphia Eagles are terrible this year. I don't trust college coaches anyway, and certainly don't trust Chip Kelly to be anymore than a huckster. I'm already mad at Mike Shanahan because the Redskins lost to them last week ... If those Red Sox beards get any longer, they're going to start tripping over themselves running to first base. I hear ZZ Top is looking for replacements.
Happy Friday the 13th everyone.
Let's start with some givens. Letting Wes Welker go was a risk for the New England Patriots. The move could end up hitting them in the face like a wave of effluvia. Then again, after one out of 16 games, that's all conjecture. But at the moment, it seems like the dumbest thing the Bill Belichick and the Patriots have ever done.
Of course, to be fair, when they let Welker go, who knew Aaron Hernandez would get into his predicament? That was certainly an X-factor no one could have predicted.
It would appear that the relationship between Belichick and Welker soured beyond repair, and it would also seem, to me at least, that both had a hand in it. Belichick is Dean Wormer, and apparently Welker is Otter. Or Boone. Or Flounder. Or maybe a combination of them all. Perhaps he was on double secret probation all these years and it caught up to him.
Whatever the reason, he's gone and our continuous pining for him isn't going to bring him back. There was obviously an effort on the part of the Patriots to bring in a group of receivers and let them mature together, and we're seeing the growing pains now. I'm not sure even Welker could make much of a difference, because he cannot get downfield, and he can't run six routes at once.
This has been an ongoing concern ... one that was masked pretty thoroughly by the existance of Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski. The Patriots haven't had a consistent outside receiver since the jettisoned Randy Moss off to Minnesota. They've made do with the two tight ends, Welker, and a group of backs who could catch the ball ... call it the Kevin Faulk factory. There was Faulk, Danny Woodhead and now Shane Vereen (when he comes back from his broken wrist).
When you think about it, how much of a factor was Brandon Lloyd last year? In New England, your effectiveness as a receiver hinges on how much Tom Brady trusts you, and he didn't trust Lloyd. Nor did he trust Chad Ochocinco.
I have to admit, watching Brady pout last night was disconcerting, and if anyone down there were to ask me, I'd have to say that TB12 is a bigger problem, at this point, than the receivers are. He's going to have to calm down and let these guys develop without hovering over them like some kind of demented drill sergeant. He even said as much himself after the game. I can't speak for any of these rookies, but there was once a time when I was new, and remember well the ones who patiently explained my raw mistakes and I remember the ones with the oppressive, unfriendly criticisms. I always thought that tactic held back development.
I'll save my anger for people who should know better. All I know is that when you have Jabba the Hutt squatting on you while you're feeling your way around it tends to slow your development down.
Look, Brady has had a fantastic career. He's going to be in the NFL Hall of Fame. But I remember a game, in his first season as a starter, when he threw four interceptions against the Denver Broncos. He had to settle in, grow and make his mistakes ... and obviously Belichick saw something in him that made him stick with the kid. Maybe Brady could show the same patience now?
We all want to win. The Patriots do not hold a patent on winning and neither does Brady. And I think winning is one of those things where you sometimes have to extend a hand to your struggling teammates and shepherd them rather than browbeat them on national television.
Something tells me the Patriots -- at least this edition -- have jumped the shark anyway. If that's the case, all you can do is say it's been a hell of a run ... almost unprecedented in this modern NFL. Skills fade. People move on. The chemistry gets diluted and sometimes polluted. And when that happens, you just have to decide to cut your losses and move on.
What's happened with the Patriots concerning Hernandez has to affect them more than just losing Brady for the season to injury. I don't are how professional you profess to be. You're still a human being. And knowing there was a murderer in your midst would have to be more than a little disconcerting.
This already promised to be a difficult season even before Hernandez got arrested. Not having him, and not having Gronkowski yet ... that is huge, and I don't care what kind of a genius everyone thinks you are. That's just too much firepower to replace at once. You can't do it.
But now? With Hernandez in jail, Danny Amendola hurt (and can we please give the guy a break? The guy got hurt. It's a violent game. People get hurt), Vereen out until midseason with a broken wrist, no effective tight ends ... this is going to be a brutal stretch. Until some of these guys get healthy, the team is going to scuffle, and bitching about it isn't going to make anyone happier.
So with all that, is it to much to ask TB12 to just chill with the histrionics, be a mensch, and help these guys instead of showing them up?
And can we stop acting so entitled about the Patriots? Every NFL dynasty has had to regroup. Maybe it's our turn. If it is, so be it. It was bound to happen sooner or later.
And to think ... I'm writing this about a 2-0 team in the National Football League. Teams with far more talent at their disposal would kill to be 2-0.
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Onto other things: I'd love to hear Bug Selig's explanation for how a guy who's been effectively banished for the rest of his career for being a world-class cheat (not to mention rat) is still playing, and that his team is poised to crash the post-season party. This ought to be good.
How embarrassing will it be if a team like Cleveland, Baltimore or Tampa Bay is denied a spot in the post-season because the Yankees crashed their way in while a pariah such as Alex Rodriguez not only played, but contributed mightily? I could actually see a situation where one of these organized sued MLB on the grounds that their suspended player ended up in the lineup for two months.
Two questions. First, would it have been better had Selig merely suspended A-Rod for the same number of games as it did everyone else in the recent PHD scandal, so he could have sat them out and not put us through this absolute farce? And aren't the Yankees talking out of both sides of their mouths here? They've been pretty obvious about their desire to rid themselves of Rodriguez and his contract, yet there he is. Sitting in the middle of the lineup like an elephant in the living room. I won't object if you call them hypocrites.
All I know is that we have a player who's been suspended ... bur who's playing ... and whose presence in the lineup has a good chance of influencing the post-season. There's something REALLY wrong with this picture.
Saddest of all is while the A-Rod side show is going on, we have Derek Jeter fighting for his career. Even if you hate the Yankees, you have to admire Jeter, who has done nothing but act with class, dignity and professionalism for his entire career. Just another indication that life is exceedingly unfair.
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Some quick hits: Patrice Bergeron of the Bruins might be the most underrated, unappreciated athlete in Boston in this or any other era ...Boston College is 2-0, and nobody thought that was going to happen. Maybe 1-1. But not 2-0. Not sure what this means in the long run, but it's certainly not terrible ... How badly is Alabama going to crush Texas A&M and Johnny Football tomorrow? ... Is there any doubt that John Farrell is the American League manager of the year? The only one I see giving him any competition is Terry Francona, who has turned the Cleveland Indians into a ballclub ... Which, by the way, is a pleasure to see. Tito was always a class act here, a clear illustration of how you could be a good guy and still win in professional sports ... I don't know what's worse: Steve Spurrier undermining the sports reporter who criticized him, or the newspaper publisher who caved and took the writer off the South Carolina beat ... And isn't it time we just blew up the entire big-time college athletics model and rebuilt it so that ethics played a part? ... I don't care how lousy his team is, and I don't care how many press conference meltdowns he has, I'd love to cover Rex Ryan. At least he gives you something to write about ... It's fun watching the New York Giant lose. Tom Coughlin is about the most entertaining coach there is after a loss. He has nothing to prove to anyone anymore. He might go down as the best post-season coach in the NFL's modern era. But damn! When the Giants stink, he's the man! ... I hope the Philadelphia Eagles are terrible this year. I don't trust college coaches anyway, and certainly don't trust Chip Kelly to be anymore than a huckster. I'm already mad at Mike Shanahan because the Redskins lost to them last week ... If those Red Sox beards get any longer, they're going to start tripping over themselves running to first base. I hear ZZ Top is looking for replacements.
Happy Friday the 13th everyone.
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