“The Ball” Goes to the Mets

Actually it looks like Minky is giving it back, but I started writing this yesterday and I HAD to keep that title. The funny thing is, over the last few weeks, I’ve softened a little on my stance.

I realized that there was a chance that no one could have had “The Ball”. Minky could have tossed it into the stands, lost it in the celebration, or any number of things could have happened to it. Instead, he held onto it, and for the longest time no one, including myself, even gave a thought to it.

Because of this, I’m thinking that maybe he does have the right to keep it. Regardless, I’m glad he’s giving it back to us, and I hope that he doesn’t end up being remembered just for this (although, unfortunately he probably will).

Anyway, thanks for the World Championship Minky, and good luck with the Mets (you’re going to need it).

I said before that I would be happy with whichever first baseman we ended up keeping, and I meant it. I think now though, I’m actually glad it’s Millar. Millar, as he has said himself, brings a lot of intangibles to this team. He’s a great clubhouse guy, and certainly a lot of fun to have around. He can hit, and he’s a decent fielder at first.

Plus, he really, really wanted to stay here. Maybe he should raise up a shot of JD to his old buddy Minky for taking the hit for him.

Last night NESN showed “Game 6” and I watched it. If you’re a Sox fan, you know what game I’m talking about, there’s only one “Game 6”. If you’re not a Sox fan, you’re not likely to be reading this so it doesn’t matter.

Like everyone else, I’ve seen the “lowlights” on replays a million times. But this is the first time I’ve actually watched the game since it was originally played. It’s been shown on ESPN Classic and other places, but I’ve never wanted to see it again. I didn’t particularly want to see it again last night either, but I figured now that we’ve won it all, it would be easier to take and I could handle it.

I was right, but not as right as I thought I would be. It was still tough to watch, and it still hurt a little. There is no doubt that for me this was the most disappointing time and the worst loss I’ve suffered as a Sox fan. The “03” ALCS was bad, and a very close second, but this was worse and here’s why.

First of all, it was the World Series, not the ALCS. Second, we were one out away. We had 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th inning with no one on and a 2 run lead.

There are valid arguments for both sides, for instance, the ALCS was a game 7, but the World Series was only a game 6 and we still had another chance (we were actually winning game 7, 3-0 after 5 ½ before the Mets went on to tie it in the 6th and take the lead for good in the 7th). But as far as I’m concerned, we had 2 outs in the 10th inning, a 2 run lead, no one on base, all we needed to do was get one more out before giving up 2 runs and we’re World Champions. Instead we give up 3 consecutive hits and a wild pitch to tie the game, and then the winning run scores from second base on a slow roller to first. It doesn’t get any worse than that for me.

I’m glad I watched it though. It was interesting to see some things I had forgotten about, some the result of time, some I had intentionally wiped from my mind.

We all remember it was Ray Knight that scored the winning run. I had forgotten that it was also Ray Knight’s throwing error a few innings earlier that lead to us scoring our 3rd run and giving us a 3-2 lead. The Mets really did do their best to hand this series over to us. One thing I haven’t forgotten was Tim Teuffel’s error in Game 1 that resulted in the only run of the game being scored and giving us the 1-0 win.

Mookie really put on a hell of an at-bat against Steamer. He fouled off a bunch of pitches before drubbing that fateful roller to first.

Although Steamer was tagged with a wild pitch during that at-bat, which ended up scoring the tying run, it wasn’t that terrible of a pitch. It was inside and Mookie had to jack-knife out of the way to avoid being hit, but all Gedman did was stab at it with his glove, he didn’t move his body at all. There’s no way Tek lets that ball get by him.

Not that it matters much, because Mitchell would have just scored ahead of Knight 2 pitches later anyway.

With 2 outs in the 10th and no one on, Marty Barrett was named player of the game with 3 hits and 2 walks. I don't remember if that got changed or not afterward. I'm guessing probably not, but it might have been different if they actually waited until the game was officially over. I also don't remember seeing the player of the game being named before the game actually ends, since that time and I'm guessing this is the reason why.

Even though I knew what was going to happen, I still couldn’t believe it was happening. The entire series of events and the way it unfolded is just so surreal. I’ve never believed in “The Curse” but watching that series of events (as well as the ones that occurred in the “03” ALCS) just has me believing that there was some sort of malevolent force working against us.

Damn those “86” Mets. I hate them.

Stuff I'm Thinking About

A few things I’ve been thinking about lately, as pitchers and catchers are only a month away from reporting.

HOLY CRAP! Our very own Boston Red Sox manager will be the AL manager of the All-Star game this year!

Speaking of Mr. Francona, I don’t think he was given enough credit for handling some of the sticky situations some of his players (Pedro) put him in last season. He came into a situation where some players (Pedro) were already used to getting their way on certain things, had been for years, and were not willing to change. That has to be tough to deal with. This year, he can come into spring training without having to worry about dealing with that kind of crap, because now someone else (Willie Randolph) has to deal with it. Good for him.

I watched D-Lowe put on the Dodgers uniform this week and I realized that of all the players that didn’t come back, he’s the one I’ll probably miss the most.

He may not have been the most consistent pitcher, but he was certainly one of the most durable. I cannot recall this guy going on the DL. With the exception of those blisters that would crop up and force him out of a game occasionally, I don’t ever remember him being hurt.

His inconsistency drove me insane, but this guy was out there on the mound every fifth day as a starter and whenever we needed him as a closer. Unlike some other pitchers (Pedro), he always talked to the media, even when he was not going well or just downright sucked. He was a great clubhouse guy, and also unlike some other pitchers (Pedro), he said all the right things on his way out.

Oh yeah, and no more Trinka Lowe (his wife) either. That’s one name I’m going to miss.

With the exception of a few innings for the Mariners in “97”, he spent the rest of his 8 year ML career in Boston. It’s a little sad to me that he won’t be here anymore.

Wade Miller is going to be the difference maker for us this season. If this guy can get healthy, he easily replaces Pedro’s “04” numbers. Let’s hope that happens.

Kevin Millar is getting a bum rep for his defense at first base. He’s not a bad fielder; he’s just no Minky. He will be fine at first base and it won’t hurt our defense enough to make any kind of significant difference. Assuming he’s the one who stays, which is looking more and more likely.

Ian Brown makes an interesting suggestion on RedSox.com. If all 6 starters are healthy and ready to go, someone has to go to the pen. Bronson Arroyo could be very effective as a set up man (we really don’t need a long man now that we have Halama). He could help take the load off of Timlin and Embree, particularly if Mantei isn’t ready. I really like this idea; the only problem with it is that his new contract has a bunch of incentives in it involving innings pitched. They would obviously have to work something out there, assuming they’re even interested in trying it.

It’s kind of sad that guys like D-Lowe, Kapler, Cabrera, and Roberts won’t be on-hand at Fenway for Opening Day to get their rings, their standing O’s, and their turns to take their bows. Cabrera’s the only one that will be coming back to Fenway at all this season when his Angels come to town. Hopefully, someday before they’re done playing, the others will get back here. You just know that Dave Roberts will get a standing O for every at bat he ever has at Fenway for the rest of his career. Hopefully there’ll be at least a few.

Speaking of the Pats (well, I wasn’t, but I needed a way to bring them into this), here is my prediction for Sunday. I don’t care what the experts say, or how much more they know than me, I’m going with my gut.

I’m now convinced that Belichick is the greatest coach this game has ever seen. He, along with Crennel, Weis, and the rest, will be better prepared than Cower and his staff. They’ll have all the answers.

Brady will do what he always does, which basically is, lead the team to victory. Dillon won’t pickup the kind of yardage he did against the Colts, but he’ll be effective enough.

The defense, as always, will be all over the field, completely flustering the rookie and forcing all kinds of mistakes. Here’s a great quote from Jim McCabe in today’s Globe, which I think sums it up nicely:

“Look again, Ben, there are 14 defenders on the field for the Patriots. Make that 15. Or is it 16? They're everywhere. Nowhere is safe. You'll never understand how it happened. Pick: Patriots.”

I love that, because I think that’s exactly how it will go.

I know Pittsburgh has the best defense in the league and they will be very tough on our offense, but they will not be able to force Brady into mistakes like OUR defense will be able to do with Roethlisberger. Our defense forces at least 3 turnovers (at least one interception and 1 fumble as he gets hit by Big Ben) and scores at least one touchdown, which ends up being the difference in the game.

D-Lowe and Pokey

During all of the hoopla of the past few days a couple of more World Champions have officially left town.

Pokey

In Spring Training Pokey was slated to become our starting second baseman, but Nomar’s injury changed that. I never had any problems with Pokey, but personally I thought he was much better suited as a backup middle infielder. I felt Bellhorn should have been the starting second baseman from day one, despite his terrible spring.

As it turns out, it ended up working out that way while Pokey filled in at short for Nomar. We won a lot of games early on with Pokey doing an unbelievable job defensively and surprising a little with the bat.

He then managed to get hurt (which has been one of the knocks on him for his entire career). First the rib cage muscle pull, then the jammed thumb, then Nomar came back, followed by Cabrera and he was never more than a defensive replacement from that point on.

Sunday night, Red Sox This Week showed a nice highlight tribute to Pokey. While watching it I was reminded of just how great of a defensive wiz he is. It was certainly a lot of fun watching him make those plays, and he certainly played his part in getting us to the playoffs.

Good luck to him in Seattle.

D-Lowe

I think it’s safe to say that we made it to the playoffs despite the terrible regular season he had, AND we would not have won the whole thing without him.

That seems to be a reflection of his entire career to this point. He came here in “97” with Tek in the Slocumb deal, which was certainly the greatest trade Duquette ever made, and quite possibly one of the greatest and most lopsided deals in baseball history. He started off as a set up guy for Tom Gordon and then took over the closer role when Gordon left.

He was awesome in that role in 2000, saving 42 games but then he slipped in “01” and they decided to work on turning him back into a starter for “02” after trading for Oogi.

He started off 2002 spectacularly with a No-No and ended it with 21 wins and a 2.58 ERA. He followed that up with 17 more wins in “03” although his ERA increased by nearly 2 runs to 4.47. He was incredible in the playoff series against the A’s, starting one game and relieving in 2 others, including getting the save in the clincher, which he will always be remembered for the “crotch grab” toward the A’s bullpen as he celebrated the victory on the mound (I still don’t get that one).

The Yankees crushed him in the next round and that seemed to carry over with him into, and for, the entire “04” regular season, where he posted a 5.42 ERA although, thanks to the offense, he still managed to win 14 games. And of course we all know what he did in the playoffs last season.

He claims Sox management made it clear to him early in the off-season that they had no intention of signing him, but I don’t agree. They made it clear to him that they had no intention of giving him the kind of money they knew he was going to ask for. I agree with them. It’s tough to give a guy that kind of money when you just have no idea what to expect from him. At any given time this guy could be anywhere from absolutely fantastic to absolutely terrible, or anywhere in between. I’ve never seen anything like it in all of my years of watching baseball.

The size and length of the contract he got from LA seems like an act of desperation to me.

I would not have had a problem with bringing back D-Lowe for a reasonable amount of money on a 1 or 2 year deal, but he knew he would find someone to give him a lot more money for a lot more time so the Sox just never bothered after he turned down their initial offer.

It’s too bad, I liked him. No matter how bad he was going I always got the impression that he was giving it everything he had. For the most part, he never had anything bad to say about anyone and never disrupted anything, and I know for a fact that he was very well liked in the clubhouse. It was mentioned all the time, plus Bill Mueller told me.

I think we got a very good replacement for him in Matt Clement.

Thanks for the World Championship and good luck in LA.

Sox/Yanks

Now that Beltran has ended up on the other side of NY and most of the major moves are done, for now, I’ll do my comparison of the 2 teams. I’ve already done an in depth analysis on our team a few entries ago under “What Have We Got”, so I won’t get into all of that again here. I’ll give my analysis of the Yankees and then compare the 2 after.

I’m not afraid. The fear left me for good on October 20th, 2004. Well, it was never really a fear, more like a feeling of uneasiness. Just that feeling that, no matter how evenly matched these teams seemed to be, no matter what was going on, it would always end up with something going horribly wrong for the Sox, and unbelievably right for the Yankees.

That feeling is gone now. In its place is a feeling of complete confidence. I’m a believer in karma, and I truly believe that the karma has begun to shift to the other side. Not just because of what happened during the 2004 ALCS, but also because of what had been happening up to that point.

Starting 2 years ago when both teams were vying heavily for the services of Jose Contreras and then last off-season when both were trying to trade for Javier Vazquez. In both instances the Yanks “won”. Not because of a lack of effort on our part. This isn’t a case of us making the right moves; it’s a case of us not being able to make the move we wanted to make and then having it work out in our favor.

On paper these 2 teams look pretty evenly matched to me, with both having a good amount of question marks. It’s the examples above that give me the confidence that we will find more answers to our questions then they will.

Starting Pitching

It looks like they will be going into the “05” season with a rotation consisting of Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, Carl Pavano, Jarret Wright, and Kevin Brown. I realize that I may be stretching things a bit here, but I honestly believe I can legitimately throw a question mark on each one of those guys.

The Big Unit is 41 years old. He has no cartilage in one of his knees (I forget which one), despite the great career numbers, he’s coming back to the AL for the first time in 7 years, and he’s never pitched in the kind of pressure and under the kind of scrutiny that he will in NY. THAT got off to a great start, didn’t it?

More than likely none of this is going to matter and he’ll be a very effective pitcher this year and for the rest of his contract, but you just never know.

Moose only managed 169 innings last year with a 4.59 ERA in what was probably the worst year of his career. This is the first time in 10 seasons he has not managed to go over 200 innings. Combine that with the fact that he’s now 36 and maybe all those innings are beginning to catch up to him.

Carl Pavano has had ONE good season. That season happened to be last season, which is what netted him that big payoff in NY. This is, yet another pitcher that we tried to get and ended up losing out to the Yankees. I personally think this one is going to end up very similar to Contreras and Vazquez, further strengthening my belief that the karma is changing.

This guy has spent all of his 7 seasons in the NL pitching for the Expos and the Marlins. He’s never pitched under this kind of pressure. Okay, he put up some very impressive post-season numbers in helping the Marlins win the WS in “03”, but other than that and his “04” regular season, he hasn’t done very much. I COULD argue that he’s coming into his prime and what we saw last season was a preview of that, but I think that changing leagues, facing much tougher lineups, and pitching in the pressures of NY are going to turn him into a very mediocre pitcher at best.

You can see my very low opinion of what Jarret Wright will bring to this team a few entries below.

I think Kevin Brown is just about done. I do admit, I also felt that way about him last year, and he ended up posting some very good numbers before he battled a clubhouse wall and lost. But when you look at the recent injury problems this guy has had and combine it with the fact that he’ll be 40 this spring, I just don’t see him making it through the season or being very effective when he IS in there.

Overall this should be a decent starting rotation, but I think it’s already being overrated, and it definitely can be beat.

Bullpen

Although it may SEEM like Rivera had an off year, in truth, he was right around where he always is. He threw 78 2/3 innings, which is about average for him. His ERA was 1.95 and he saved 53 games, only blowing 4 of them. His walks were up a little but it didn’t really affect what he was doing. With the exception of those 2 blown saves against us, he was lights out in the playoffs as usual.

It was those 2 blown saves against us, as well as the home run by Mueller on July 24th that made it look like he wasn’t the dominant pitcher he is. And even with those 2 blown saves in the playoffs, he only gave up the tying run, one of which was unearned, and still went on to dominate us for a couple of innings after.

This guy is the best closer in the history of the game and there’s no reason to think he won’t continue to be this season.

Torre’s bullpen problems came when he was trying to get the outs before Rivera. He had to go to Rivera for 2 innings quite a few times but that was really nothing new. It was when he couldn’t use Rivera like that and had to rely on someone else that he had problems.

Tom Gordon threw more innings (almost 90) than he ever had as a reliever. Despite that, he was very effective in the regular season and seems to have completely recovered from the arm surgery he had that ended his career with us. It wasn’t until the playoffs that all the innings seemed to have caught up with him and he wasn’t very effective, particularly against us.

Paul Quantrill was very effective early on, but he had some arm problems because of the workload and had a very tough second half.

With the exception of these 2 guys, he had nothing, which is what forced him to use these 2 more than he wanted. He got a little help from Worcester native and “Kapler Choker” Tanyon Sturtze, but even he wasn’t very effective.

He’s going to need some help this year and it’s debatable whether he’s gotten it. Steve Karsay comes back from yet another arm injury. This guy was one of the most highly touted prospects in the league back in the mid 90’s before he was slowed by injuries. When he’s not hurt, he’s very good, but with the exception of a couple of innings at the end of last season, he hasn’t pitched since “02”, and with his history of arm trouble there’s no guarantee of anything here.

They also brought Mike Stanton back after he spent a couple of seasons with the Mets. He’s a little older now, 38 this summer, but he was still pretty effective for the Mets so he should be able to fill that lefty role that they were missing last year well enough. I’m sure they’ll also be looking for him to take some innings from Quantrill and Gordon.

They managed to snag Felix Rodriguez from the Phillies for Kenny Lofton. This guy could really help shoulder the workload and was a great pickup by Cashman.

There are questions. Is Quantrill going to recover and become an effective pitcher again? Will Gordon show any ill effects from the amount of work he handled last season? Can Karsay come back? Is Stanton still going to be effective?

More than likely their bullpen should be pretty solid, and Torre should have many more options than he had last year.

Offense

Their offense is going to be at the top of the league, even without Beltran. There are still questions though. I’m going to go by position since there are a few question marks on who the starters will be and it’s tough to figure out what batting order he’ll use.


Let’s face it. Jorge Posada hits, hits for power, drives in runs, gets on base, and always seems to kill US. He’s one of the top 3 or 4 catchers in the game. This season probably isn’t going to be any different. Bastard.

Jason Giambi or Tino Martinez will play first base. Both of these guys are declining. It’s very tough to figure out what they’ve got with Mr. Balco. First of all, there are questions as to whether they will keep him, and if so, will he play? And if he plays, how well will he play? Since we haven’t seen him hit since he’s been off the “roids”, we don’t know. If he does play, he’ll probably see more time at DH because of Tino.

In Tino they have a fan favorite coming back. Even though his numbers have declined, they really haven’t declined that much. This guy still manages to get the job done, especially against us (or so it seems) and he’ll probably thrive on coming back to NY. I’d rather take my chances against Giambi if I had the choice.

Tony Womack is a solid hitter who can get on base and steal some bases. He should be a nice bottom of the lineup guy; although I’m not convinced he’s any better than Cairo was last year. With the exception of hits and SB their numbers were very similar last year and Cairo had 200 less AB’s, as he had to fight for playing time early against Enrique Wilson.

Despite what we want to think, Rodriguez did not have a bad year last year. All of his numbers were down from what we’re used to, but he still had a better year than 95% of the hitters in this league, and most of the bad stuff happened early in the year when the entire team was slumping and he was probably just getting himself adjusted to the culture shock. He’ll probably be back to his old self again this year, which will just give us even more reason to hate him.

Derek Jeter is another guy who gave us the illusion that he had a bad year, when in fact, he ended up having the same type of season he always has. The OBP was a little lower than normal, but most of that is the result of the horrible slump he endured at the beginning of the season. Once he finally put that behind him, he got really hot and then did what he always does, which is hit, get on base, and lead the team to victory. His power numbers were actually his highest in quite a while with 44 doubles and 23 home runs. This guy brings so much more to this team than just his numbers though. His leadership is invaluable, he almost always finds a way to win, and usually seems to find a way to beat us. I hate him.

Bernie Williams may not have the range in center that he used to have, but he can still hit. He doesn’t hit for average or get on base like he used to, but he still helps the team and always seems to manage to come up with the big hit.

When I look at Hideki Matsui’s numbers I’m a little amazed. I expect them to be much better than they are. Not that they’re bad (they’re actually very good), it just seems like he did so much more to me. After the first 3 games of the ALCS I was convinced that we were never going to get him out again. That Pedro buzz ball that knocked him on his ass early in game 4 seemed to put a stop to that though. This guy can hit and he can play this game. His home run, BA, OBP, and Slugging all improved in his second year and will probably continue to improve.

I’m not a big fan of Gary Sheffield. He’s quite an impressive hitter, but he always had a little too much to say for my tastes. I admit I was impressed by how much pain he endured in his shoulder last season and the numbers he put up despite that. It should be interesting to see how he handles the Balco problems. How much of what he was doing was a result of using steroids? Personally, I believe he probably didn’t use steroids very much, most (probably all) of what he’s done is just a result of his natural ability, and he’ll probably continue to do it.

Ruben Sierra is some kind of ageless wonder. He can still hit and will probably still help the team in a limited role as he did last season. How much time he actually gets at DH will depend on what they decide to do with Giambi, and how much Torre decides to trust Williams in center.

Defense

Posada is one of the best behind the plate. Martinez is a very good defensive first baseman. Womack is solid at second. Despite the fact that his range seems to be a bit limited, Jeter seems to be right around the league average in fielding percentage every year and usually makes the plays. Rodriguez is an above average 3rd baseman. Matsui seems to be very sound fundamentally and makes most of the plays. Williams’ range is declining in center and he’s not going to get to all the balls he used to. Sheffield has a strong arm in right, which comes from being a former SS and 3rd baseman. Overall, the defense shouldn’t cost them very many games.

Bench

This could be a problem. Again, what happens with Giambi will have a big affect here. If he’s the DH, they’ve got a weapon coming off the bench to hit in Sierra. After that, they don’t have much. Flaherty is fine as a backup for Posada, but he can’t be expected to do anything when he’s in there. But then again, there aren’t many teams who have a backup catcher that is a good enough hitter to actually be used in the DH role against certain pitchers and can be counted on to pinch hit if necessary. I guess we’re just lucky.

They have no one of note to backup their middle infielders, and their 4th outfielder is Bubba Crosby. This guy was a highly touted prospect at one time, but he doesn’t have much ML experience and wasn’t able to do anything with the AB’s he did manage to get. They’ll probably use him to spell Williams by playing him in left and moving Matsui to center. I’m guessing Cashman will come up with another name of two to fill in the pine.

Management

Torre’s one of the best in the game and I’d take him on my team in a second. Come to think of it, despite the fact that they’re Yankees, there are very few players over there that I wouldn’t want on my team. Mel Stottlemyre is very good at getting a lot out of a pitching staff. Donnie Baseball took a lot of heat for the early hitting slump the team was in last year, but they certainly managed to come out of it with no problems. It’s probably too early in his career as a hitting coach to blame or credit him for what happened last year. I will say this about him though; he was the only Yankee that I have ever admitted to liking, while he was actually playing for them. It’s too bad his back problems ended up cutting his career short.

Head to Head

So, how do these 2 teams stack up against each other? I think they are very evenly matched. They were separated by 3 games last year and I think they will be right within that same margin again. They both have starting pitching staffs with some question marks that could put either one of them anywhere from the best staff in the league, to somewhere in the top half of the league. The same goes for the bullpens.

Both teams have great offenses and they should both be at the top in all the categories. They’re both full of patient hitters who will take a lot of pitchers, get on base a lot, and wear down a lot of pitching staffs. They both have solid defenses that should hold their own.

The head to head battles should be nothing less than what we’ve witnessed over the last couple of years, and I will boldly predict that we’ll be right back at it in October battling each other for the AL title.

Who ends up in first is going to depend on how we each handle the other teams. For some reason last season the Orioles had our number and that was the difference between us.

Both of these teams are capable of winning 100 games and they will both be right around there. Despite what a lot of people seem to think, I don’t think the Yankees will improve much, if at all, on their record of last year. The Sox, on the other hand, could very well pick up a few more wins.

As it always does in baseball, it comes down to the pitching (and the karma, of course). Whichever teams pitching staff has the least amount of holes is the team that pulls it out. Being the optimist that I am, and believing that the karma has shifted, I will say that the Sox pitching will work out better for them and in the end we will win the division and again beat them in ALCS.

Minky has "The Ball"

Doug Mientkiewicz is treading very dangerous water and I really hope he pulls himself out before he drowns in it.

Minky has “The Ball”, the one that ended 86 years of frustration. The one that Renteria hit back to Foulke, who then trotted halfway to first and underhanded it to Minky, which clinched the World Series and touched off the biggest celebration “The Nation” has ever been involved in.

He held onto it during the hug fest on the mound and then gave it to his wife in the locker room who later had it authenticated by MLB. It now sits in a safety deposit vault of where only he knows the location.

There is a good chance that Minky will be the guy in the first base tandem who is traded away before the season starts. Whether he stays or goes, as it stands right now, he will forever be remembered in Red Sox Nation as a guy who came over here and played a key role in suring up the defense that helped carry us all the way to a World Series victory. A hard-nosed player who gave it everything he had on the field and was very good at making spectacular plays, a true “dirt dog”.

I really, really hope he keeps it that way by giving “The Ball” back to “The Nation” where it belongs. He knows the sentimental value it has in these parts. He has talked about keeping it in the family and making it a family heirloom, or worse, possibly selling it to the highest bidder to make some money from it.

There are really only 2 places “The Ball” can end up to make this situation work out in Minky’s favor and prevent him from going from hero to the scorn of “The Nation”.

1. The Hall of Fame (I would be happy with it being there if they wanted it)
2. Back to the team (where it will be displayed somewhere for all to see)

Minky, you’re still loved here, so please do the right thing and give us “The Ball” back.

Boggs Is In…

And I don’t give a crap. Wade Boggs was voted into the Hall of Fame with the 3rd highest vote total in history, topped only by Nolan Ryan and George Brett. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he deserves to be there, but I REALLY don’t care.

I don’t hate or even dislike Boggs, I just really couldn’t care less about him one way or the other.

This guy has all the stats necessary to get him into “the Hall”.

3,010 hits
328 career batting average
7 consecutive seasons of over 200 hits
12 time All-Star
2 gold gloves
5 batting titles

He was an on base machine; averaging 94 walks a season and compiling a lifetime 415 On Base Percentage during a time when OBP wasn’t really given the weight it is now.

He was the best 2-strike hitter in the game at the time, and possibly the best ever. I swear pitchers were afraid to get 2 strikes on him, because they knew they would have to throw another 10 pitches to him and watch him foul them off until he got one he liked. He just wore pitchers out.

He worked as hard, if not harder, than anyone else in the game on his swing. He also worked his ass off to turn himself from a decent fielder into a gold glove fielder.

He’s probably one of the top 3 all around 3rd baseman ever. Who was better? Mike Schmidt, Brooks Robinson, and that’s about it.

You would think that having a guy like that on your team and then, not just losing him, but losing him to your most despised enemy, would be heartbreaking. But for me at least, it wasn’t. I just didn’t care.

His numbers were impressive, and his work ethic was impressive, but to me it seemed like everything he did, he did for himself and no one else.

If I were starting my own baseball team, Wade Boggs would not be playing 3rd base for me. Give me Bill Mueller at 3rd over Boggs any day. Or Tim Naehring (when he wasn’t hurt), or John Valentin.

Boggs is in the Hall of Fame because of his stats and that’s it. He was not a clutch player, not much of a team player, and didn’t provide any kind of spark when he played. He never took any chances. I don’t ever remember Wade Boggs coming up with a gigantic game/momentum-changing hit. I’m sure he must have gotten some, but I don’t remember them.

Not like I remember Trot Nixon hitting that 2-run homer into the bleachers in Yankee Stadium in the 8th inning off Clemens in 2000, to break a 0-0 tie and give the Sox and Pedro the win.

Or Bill Mueller’s 2-run shot into the Sox bullpen off Riviera this past season to give the Sox the 10-9 win over the Yanks in one of the most thrilling games I’ve ever witnessed at Fenway Park.

Or even David McCarty’s game winning home run off J.J. Putz in the 14th inning at Fenway to send the Faithful home happy.

Hell, I even remember Bob Zupcic’s game winning grand slam back in “92”.

Red Sox history is laced with tons of those kinds of hits, involving all kinds of Sox names, some great, some not so great, but none of them named Boggs.

Of the 3,010 hits, I only remember one of them. That was number 3,000. And the only reason I remember it is because it was plastered all over TV when he finally got it. I remember how ironic it was that it was a home run (he only managed 118 of them, despite the fact that he would blast them out in all directions during BP), and how when he got to home plate he got down on his knees and kissed it before being mobbed by his Tampa Bay teammates. And I remember how they all LOOKED really excited for him but I wondered if they really were, and I knew that I wasn’t excited and that I really didn’t care.

He also never did any of the little things.

Runner on 2nd, less than 2 outs, he never tried to pull the ball to the right side or lift it deep enough into the air to get the runner over. Even if the runner was on 3rd and it was an RBI situation he didn’t try to do it! For him it seems like it was always about the base hit, nothing else mattered.

He just went to the plate, waited for his pitch, and then drove it the other way. Or, if he didn’t get his pitch, he took the walk and left it up to the next guy.

It was as if, early on in his career, he figured out what he had, and knew he was never going to be the kind of impact player you need to be to achieve greatness, so he was going to get there the other way. And that way was to pile up so many Goddam base hits that it would HAVE to make him great.

Well he did it; he slapped his way into the Hall of Fame. Good for him. He got what he wanted. I get the feeling he would have traded that World Championship with the Yankees for this trip to Cooperstown if he had to. It just always seemed to me that it was all about him and nothing else.

Gees, for a guy I really don’t care about I sure had a lot to say about him.