Jesus To Yanks Fallout
By Blogger
I give up.
Every time I sit down to write for Sportszilla, I tell myself it doesn't do much good to rip into something or someone. It's far easier to pick apart someone else's work than it is to create something new and constructive, which is why 90% of sports bloggers talk about how much so and so sucks. (The percentage probably isn't that high, but it sure feels that way.)
But I can't resist this time. Red Sox fans, and Bill Simmons's readers in particular, need to chill out. I'd like to use more colorful language, but this is a family web site, after all.
Follow that link, and you can read email after email from tortured Red Sox fans, upset beyond tears that Johnny Damon signed with the Yankees. There are zero comments about how the Yankees are spending that money on an aging outfielder who already can't throw (making him a knee sprain away from mostly useless) instead of A.J. Burnett, who would have addressed the Yankees' real need for pitching. There are zero comments that explicitly point out, and only one that implies, that Johnny Damon is not the face of the Red Sox, let alone the Heart and Soul(tm) of the team. I'd argue that honor belongs to Papi. Only one comment brings up the Boras Dilemma, in which a team finds itself trying to measure the value of continuity and demonstration to its fans that "the front office cares" when Scott Boras makes contract demands that far exceed the player's value both in relation to other free agents on the market and in relation to his marginal value to the team. Will the Yankees' offense significantly improve thanks to this signing? Would it have been a tragedy to have Bubba Crosby play better defense in center and bat ninth all year?
I'm sorry, Red Sox Nation, Sons of the Sports Guy, and everyone else who got choked up over this development. I weep for your pain. The Red Sox get two draft picks out of this deal, and a bunch of money to play with that they would otherwise have sunk into a player very likely to decline within the next couple of years. Kevin Millwood, Roger Clemens, where art thou? The Sox now have money to lavish upon you. Five Year Grace Period, Voice of Reason, where art thou? Red Sox fans have moved beyond amusingly annoying to unquestionably insufferable. Sense of Entitlement, have you really abandoned New York and moved north?
Don't lecture this San Francisco Giants fan about championships lost and opportunities squandered. Don't complain to me about a questionable front office. Sack up. Enjoy Manny, Papi, Beckett, and Schilling. Enjoy a pennant race. The rest of us will hope and hope and hope as Pedro Feliz, Jacque Jones, Carl Everett, and Toby Hall flail at the plate, and Casey Fossum, Mark Redman, Hector Carrasco, and Ryan Vogelsong let 'er rip with the earnest effort only the mediocre can muster.
Every time I sit down to write for Sportszilla, I tell myself it doesn't do much good to rip into something or someone. It's far easier to pick apart someone else's work than it is to create something new and constructive, which is why 90% of sports bloggers talk about how much so and so sucks. (The percentage probably isn't that high, but it sure feels that way.)
But I can't resist this time. Red Sox fans, and Bill Simmons's readers in particular, need to chill out. I'd like to use more colorful language, but this is a family web site, after all.
Follow that link, and you can read email after email from tortured Red Sox fans, upset beyond tears that Johnny Damon signed with the Yankees. There are zero comments about how the Yankees are spending that money on an aging outfielder who already can't throw (making him a knee sprain away from mostly useless) instead of A.J. Burnett, who would have addressed the Yankees' real need for pitching. There are zero comments that explicitly point out, and only one that implies, that Johnny Damon is not the face of the Red Sox, let alone the Heart and Soul(tm) of the team. I'd argue that honor belongs to Papi. Only one comment brings up the Boras Dilemma, in which a team finds itself trying to measure the value of continuity and demonstration to its fans that "the front office cares" when Scott Boras makes contract demands that far exceed the player's value both in relation to other free agents on the market and in relation to his marginal value to the team. Will the Yankees' offense significantly improve thanks to this signing? Would it have been a tragedy to have Bubba Crosby play better defense in center and bat ninth all year?
I'm sorry, Red Sox Nation, Sons of the Sports Guy, and everyone else who got choked up over this development. I weep for your pain. The Red Sox get two draft picks out of this deal, and a bunch of money to play with that they would otherwise have sunk into a player very likely to decline within the next couple of years. Kevin Millwood, Roger Clemens, where art thou? The Sox now have money to lavish upon you. Five Year Grace Period, Voice of Reason, where art thou? Red Sox fans have moved beyond amusingly annoying to unquestionably insufferable. Sense of Entitlement, have you really abandoned New York and moved north?
Don't lecture this San Francisco Giants fan about championships lost and opportunities squandered. Don't complain to me about a questionable front office. Sack up. Enjoy Manny, Papi, Beckett, and Schilling. Enjoy a pennant race. The rest of us will hope and hope and hope as Pedro Feliz, Jacque Jones, Carl Everett, and Toby Hall flail at the plate, and Casey Fossum, Mark Redman, Hector Carrasco, and Ryan Vogelsong let 'er rip with the earnest effort only the mediocre can muster.
posted by Blogger at 9:30 PM
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