DHL Dan CXCII - Talking To The Youk

Shank catches up with the former Red Sox player:

In a difficult time, Kevin Youkilis speaks out for unity and positivity, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering if we’re going to see Tim Tebow or Michael Bishop playing quarterback for the Patriots Sunday …

▪ Kevin Youkilis gave the Red Sox 8½ quality seasons. He made three All-Star teams, won a Gold Glove and two World Series, and finished in the top six in MVP voting twice — ranking third in 2008 when he hit .312 with 29 homers and 115 RBIs. He is in the Red Sox Hall of Fame, owns a brewery in California, is married to Tom Brady’s sister, has three children, and spends summertime with Dave O’Brien in the NESN booth.

Oh, and he also is Jewish, which is unusual for a big league baseball player. Just more than 200 of the 23,115 men who have worn big league uniforms are/were Jewish. Youkilis never made much of it when he was playing here, and a lot of us thought he was Greek because “Moneyball” dubbed him “the Greek God of Walks.”

The Spin Doctors

There must have been a blue moon last night; Shank actually sat down and interviewed an athlete, in this case it's Dustin Pedroia of the Boston Red Sox. Pedroia gives his side of the story with respect to the Palace Revolt from late last month, which does not mesh with the story as it came out last week (that players, led by Pedroia, wanted manager Bobby Valentine fired).

Exactly one year ago, Dustin Pedroia was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, captured flying through the air as he turned a double play. The Red Sox were finishing up a stretch in which they went 39 games over .500, and the headline accompanying Pedroia’s image was “Heart of the Red Sox.’’

Tuesday night, Pedroia came home to Fenway Park, wearing the scars of his first public flogging by the beast of Boston baseball. He went 1 for 5 against the Angels in another demoralizing 5-3 loss as the Sox dropped five games under .500.

Unlike, say, those uplifting 11-2 losses...

Pedroia was crushed by fans and sports talk radio jockeys last week when news leaked of the Palace Revolt from late July.

Let me remind the readers who one of the sports radio talk jockeys is, just so you know who's stoking this fire.

Fenway folks got angry when it was reported that Pedroia led the “fire Bobby” storm that swept across Red Sox Nation. Boston’s former MVP was characterized as a bad guy in the clubhouse and reminded again that he’s the one who said, “That’s not the way we do things here,” when Valentine attempted to light a fire under Kevin Youkilis.

He took a couple days away from the media when the Sox lost two of three in New York. I caught up with him in the Sox dugout three hours before the series opener against the struggling Angels.

The column gets better from there, primarily due to Shank's silence until the end paragraph, where he slides in a Buffalo Springfield song reference. Time for Shank to update his iPod list, if he knows what an iPod is....

Remember Nomar? The CHB Doesn't

The CHB hates the Youkilis deal, saying he would have kept him in Boston no matter his attitude: "They got a bag of balls [for him]."

How things have changed. Was it really eight years ago where under almost identical circumstances he was insisting the Red Sox trade Nomar Garciaparra "(one of the best and most popular players in the history of the Red Sox franchise") because of  injuries and poor play? "Everybody's favorite Red Sox appears to have become a wildly unhappy ballplayer, struggling to return from an injury, resentful of the front office, and determined to walk at the end of the season."

The echoes are resounding. Heck, both players were even traded to the same city. You'd think someone who trades so much on history would, you know, remember some of it.

(At least this time, The CHB didn't falsely announce Youkilis had been traded to the Twins.)