Were Sunday and Monday holidays? Because Dan got paid for doing nothing.
Sunday's love letter to Wily Mo Pena included this half-hearted line: "What else can we tell you?" You could almost see The CHB sitting at his typewriter (PCs are a bit beyond him) thinking, "100 more words...I need 100 more words..."
The piece ended with this kiss of death: "He's destined to be big in Boston." Uh oh.
Then today he tells us the Yankees are coming to town and that the Red Sox are starting to hit.
Wow.
17 comments:
Its not often that I laugh this loud at 6:30am but your post did it, Chief.
"100 more words..." You know he's thinking that, man!!! Thats when he writes that Mets line that had me confused (I wrote my correction under the previous post) and the kiss of death at the end. CHB doesnt mention that when WMP becomes big in Boston, it will be he who will try to knock him down.
As for Monday, here are some highlights:
"Toss in Wednesday's starters -- Curt Schilling and Mike Mussina -- and the first two games of this series feature four pitchers who once started against the Yankees in postseason play."
"The Yankees, on the other hand, are playing good baseball. Since their 11-19 start in 2005, they are 102-59, which gives them the best record in the majors over the last 161 games."
SO FREAKIN WHAT!!!!
CHB's routine butchering of statistics has every reasonably intelligent person throwing up in his mouth. He's almost as good at twisting them around to mean nothing as ESPN.
I also liked this:
"The Sox completed their tuneup for New York with another thrashing (10-3) of the beyond-bad Orioles yesterday. That makes for 11 consecutive victories over Baltimore going back to last season. The O's once again are the wOes. They are in complete free fall and 1988 doesn't seem that long ago."
Yes, the Orioles suck. But it does not even begin to approach the 0-22 start to 1988. You want a better comparison? How about the 2nd half of last year? Some of us who were 6 months old during that horrible start remember last year a little bit better. And it's a better comparison.
Chief, you know you can probably get the IP address from the Objective Bob post and my two guesses of where it hits from are either Morrissey Blvd or some toney suburb where the CHB lays down.
'Love letter' is the perfect description! I read that thinking 'Danny Boy's got a big ol' man-crush on Wily Mo.'
On the other hand, wait 'til even WMP stops talking to him. The trash will be slung hard & fast at that point.
When do we get a Wily Mo column written by Jackie or Ryan? A better one will have to be written if he has a hot series in New York.
Minor failures on the part of Shank. He mailed in the columns. None of the CHB staples that get me up in arms.
The true villian in these columns is Joe F-ing Sullivan who lets a no talent, bitter hack have top billing while Ryan sits and rots. I hope that one of the Morrissey Boulevard IP addresses is that of the failed sports editor of the Globe. You have no balls and your failure to stand up to your writers and the frequent factual errors has made the Globe Sports section a joke.
When I sober up, which may be a while, I will respond to the stupidity that OB barfed up in "water on the Brain,"
Chief, thanks for the Sex Pistols reference. I just watched :The filth and the FUry" this weekend.
He mailed it in on Wednesday too!! If he's itching to be a beat guy writing game reports again, then why doesn't the Globe just make him one. I'm sure Chris Snow can write better columns.
Let us deal with those who need remedial reading.
Whatever the Red Sox paid in luxury tax and whatever the KC Royals received in luxury tax was offset by what the Red Sox spent on their own ballpark. Hence money that would go to the have-nots can be, and is, diverted into facilities changes that make more money for the haves.
Advertisements on the wall at Fenway Park. They weren't there for some 50 years (not 70 as I speculated), which is still more than half of the lifetime of the ballpark. To have gone to one's first game at Fenway at, say, the age of 9, and have seen ads marring the walls in the past, one would be 70 years old now. And
it looks awful.
Those who wish to defend the greed of Red Sox ownership on the absurd ground that it's just another business should keep in mind that baseball is not purely a business, and not because I say so, but because the Supreme Court of the United States said so: "[t]he exhibition, although made for money
would not be called trade or commerce in the commonly accepted use of those words" Federal Base Ball Club v. National League et. al. 259 U.S. 200 (1922). It's still good law.
Revisit baseball history? Perhaps I shall, but the blogger ought to visit it for a first time. The end of the reserve clause was not negotiated between players and owners, as he seems to suggest. The players won it by first getting an arbitration clause in the basic agreement and then arbitrating the Messersmith/McNally case.
Wily Mo was in fact originally signed by the Mets and later in his career, after he had been signed by the Yankees, he was traded for Drew Henson. There was nothing in the column that suggested he was traded BY the Mets for Drew Henson. Once again poor reading skills are evident among those who attempt to parse every sentence looking for errors.
No, the columnist was not suggesting bus tours of Groton to check the cows, merely suggesting that people who need to watch the weather, and people who have been along enough to know what part of New England weather watching is lore and
what part is based in reality, knew there were obvious signs that the rain was not going to subside on the night of the Great Fenway Ripoff. And Lucchino has lived longer in San Diego during his baseball life than in Pittsburgh.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go looking for a blog that takes on the sainted Sean McAdam for writing a story about the new radio deal involving one of his employers, Entercom. He and his obvious conflict of interest, seems to have
gotten a free pass from the get-a-life crowd that is so eager to harp on the Red Sox and the 17 percent limited partnership share of the Globe's parent company. McAdam's conflict of interest is far worse than any ascribed to Globe employees, for he has a personal interest in the sports talk station remaining viable -- if it does, he continues to collect a paycheck and if it doesn't, that lucrative no-heavy-lifting job goes bye-bye. (If there is a Voice of Management among today's crop is baseball scribes, it is surely McAdam more than anyone who works for the Times and its affiliated companies)
Can't wait to see what this guy who publicly announces his drunkenness has to say; too bad if his Don Birnham imitation is too real and he turns out to be too much of a lush to put a sentence together.
"Whatever the Red Sox paid in luxury tax and whatever the KC Royals received in luxury tax was offset by what the Red Sox spent on their own ballpark."
Dear Bruce,
That's not how the luxury tax works at all. You can go back to your cave drawings now.
Love,
The Chief
OB, I had already beaten you to my correction regarding WMP signing with the Mets and I agree that nothing suggested that Drew Henson was ever Mets property. I said all that already.
The 17% means nothing to me. CHB was a bad writer before the sale.
On Thursday, CHB reports that Theo's contract isnt signed. Is this something to be concerned about? The quotes in the story dont suggest so. Could CHB be trying to create a story? No, not CHB! He would never do that.
Also on Thursday, CHB writes "for the readers" a column about Alex Rodriguez' feelings. Where did he get the idea that his readers are so curious?
CHB has been awfully tame since his one-day crusade for the common man following the rainout. What happened to writing "$ox"? Does CHB still appear, for pay of course, on the NESN pre-game infomercial?
I'm going to gag.
"The quotes in the story dont suggest so."
Neither did the quotes in the paper 4 days before he quit. Color me slightly worried. Theo and Lucchino are both lawyers, and they know quite well that having no contract means you can leave any time you want to with no further obligations or compensation to the club. If they know this and don't care, they are being amazingly careless, especially with CHB's little revelation that other guys don't have contracts, either. It makes me wonder if Theo is still "testing the waters" and may just be sticking around until the end of the year when he can do something else and Jed Hoyer will have been coincidentally groomed for the job.
Holy crap. CHB's paranoia is contagious. I'm going back to bed.
Jenny, either you are too paranoid or I am too confident. If Theo leaves, I don't think its going to be because he misses touring with Pearl Jam. It will be because some team (i.e. Seattle) offered him the club presidency and I'm not sure if baseball rules would allow the Sox to prevent Theo from taking a presidency even if a contract was signed. Short of something like that, I don't think ownership is going to repeat the mistake of taking Theo for granted. If this is cool with John, Larry, and Theo, then who am I to be worried? Its not my contract. They'll do the right thing...I hope.
Oh, I am definitely paranoid. After this winter, though, can you really blame me? I was confident last time and what did that get me? A kick in the stomach. So I'm preparing myself for the worst so that doesn't happen again.
Re:re: the quotes, remember that they're from Theo, who has become more guarded and evasive than the White House press secretary, and Henry, who I often think has no clue what his employees are really doing or thinking. I don't think they indicate anything.
Even with a signed a contract, Theo can bolt to a higher position with another team. He's not going to get promoted with the Red Sox and he's not going to be in Boston forever. Why hoist a red flag if Jed Hoyer is getting a grooming from Theo? I don't think Theo is surrounded by clueless people in baseball ops. Watch Arizona's progress with Josh Byrnes and Peter Woodfork for example.
I don't think any of this means that the philosophical differences that caused Theo to leave in the first place still exist and I'm not paranoid for that reason.
"Everyone knows the first breakup never takes." -Seinfeld
It's good that you're so confident. It means you're not half as crazy as I am. And I don't think Theo will be around forever (I think it'll be a lot shorter than most people are thinking, actuall) and I think Jed Hoyer or whoever could do a great job. I'd just like it a little more if there was at least something in place to make it slightly more difficult for him to just up and leave for no reason at all. I would also love it if CHB never typed his name again, or any of the FO guys, for that matter. Why did he even write that article? It wasn't a column, it was a news story. Not his normal fare.
Theo is not going to leave for no reason. As for CHB, he was just being a petty shitstarter which is something he does well.
Sorry for not keeping up; been covering an event all week and my days have been running run from 6:30 to midnight.
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