In which Dan tries to be tactful

After a hiatus of maybe three days, Dan returns this morning! Let's face it: the column title is appropriate. It is indeed time to mail it in and look ahead. This August has, to put it in dignified terms for our sensitive friend Bruce, sucked. It's hard to even know what to say any more. Nothing is probably best, so rest assured Dan will not do that.

Think of September at Fenway as Fort Myers with higher ticket prices.

We never miss an opportunity, do we, Dan? I could think of several differences between Fenway and Fort Myers other than the ticket prices, such as "Fort Myers has not been around since 1912 and is basically a strip mall with palm trees" or "Fenway is not like Fort Myers, because Florida is really awful to be in this time of year, unless you enjoy getting concussions from flying pieces of aluminum siding and drowning in your car." But moving on!

Sox general manager Theo Epstein was reluctant to admit the significance of yesterday's deal, which is expected to bring Triple A catcher George Kottaras into the fold. Boston's young executive with the faded halo said, ``It doesn't mean that these games aren't important. It doesn't mean that the performances of our players aren't important, but it's a balancing act and we thought this was the right thing to do.

``It's not where we expected to be," he admitted. ``It's not where we want to be. But we're not immune from that kind of month [9-21 in August] . . . This is the reality now. And we're going to work hard to make sure it's not going to happen again."

I watched this press conference. It was the funniest thing ever. Dan kept trying to get Theo to come out and say he was throwing in the towel, and Theo just wouldn't do it. Damned if you do and damned if you don't, Theo. If you say you're throwing it in, he jumps on that. If you don't, he jumps on you for being disingenuous. May I suggest a restraining order?

Now, I actually want to congratulate Dan on this next part. He handles the Lester cancer rumors very well, in a sensitive and appropriate manner. Given that his own daughter had cancer some years ago, he probably knows exactly what the Lesters are feeling right now. Kudos, Dan. Also, kudos for including this quote from Francona:

Irresponsible headline update 2: ``His family is going through a little bit of a loop when they woke up and saw what they saw [including a Herald front-page headline that read, `Sox cancer scare -- Lester's enlarged lymph nodes a big concern.'] "

Although this is perhaps somewhat ironic, I think this amounts to calling the Herald out on their incredibly insensitive headline, and I like it. Tony Massarotti, you know you've hit rock bottom when I'm calling Dan a better man than you.

Of course, he then takes most of the second page to play his favorite game: "Crap on Theo Epstein." You can just hear the glee in his voice now that the team has hit a rough patch. How happy you must be, Dan. The team sucks AND you can blame it on Theo! This must be like Christmas!