Huh?

See below for the Home Opening Game column

Chris in the comments points to an odd editorial by the Globe staff. My understanding is that although editorials are credited to the staff, each editorial is written by an individual, most often one on the editorial staff, but occasionally by other writers. While the subject of the column, story lines to watch for this Red Sox season, suggests Dan's fingerprints, the writing style is not his.

Instead, the editorial seems to be written by someone who recently graduated with an M.A. in English, who has little historical knowledge of baseball. The writer starts off by claiming that among the things to look forward to this season is a "cornucopia of soap opera story lines." Stop right there. This writer is NOT a baseball fan. He/she is some overeducated wannabe writer who thinks that because literary types like John Updike and Roger Angell wrote about baseball, then he/she should also mine that vein. Instead of writing about the game, which they know noting about, they seek out off the field stories.

The writer goes on to cinch the case that he/she knows nothing about baseball, particularly its literary past. I like to keep posts short but this writer's ignorance has to be pointed out.

"Anyone who has taken the time to browse pitcher Curt Schilling's blog will realize that the loquacious right-hander aspires to be both Don Quixote and Cervantes at the same time, Raskolnikov and Dostoyevsky, Hamlet and Shakespeare. Flying back from Texas Sunday night after hurling seven dominant innings against the flummoxed Rangers, the erstwhile cheerleader for President Bush typed out a pitch-by-pitch analysis of his performance."

First of all, the analogies fail. Rather than explaining the situation they are the writer's attempt to display how knowledgable he/she is. Schilling is neither an author nor a fictional character. He is a highly thoughtful baseball player writing about himself. His blog is nothing more than the publication of the thoughts he goes through after every start. In fact, the subject is nothing new. Bill Lee and Jim Bouton have already offered insight into a pitcher's mind. What is new is the technology. Further, the author seems to imply that there is some inviolable line between the roles of athletes and journalists, that the former can never presume to write for the public, which is the sole province of learned journalists. BS. (Also note the irrelevant inclusion of Schilling's political leanings.)

The writer goes on to claim that if Schilling fails this season, the blog somehow will become a distraction to the team. This seems more like fancy than actual belief. In my brief reading of the blog, Schilling has never made any derogatory remarks towards teammates and reserves all criticism for himself. How this will create a distraction for a team that already seems to keep Schilling at a distance is not stated.

There are more head scratching concerns offered up that I wish I had the space to go into. They all seem to be from the head of Dan, but written by someone else. Very odd.

Fixed for the awful misspelling of "Jim Bouton."