Question Immediately Answered

Shank takes hundreds of words today to answer a straightforward question:

Are the Red Sox any good this year?

... but nobody really knows anything about what’s going to happen to the Red Sox in 2015.

From there it's three paragraphs of positives for the Sox, quickly followed by the usual Shank / Red Jheri Curl nitpicking & complaining - Sox have spent a lot of money, no ace pitcher, reminders of worst to first & won-loss records, etc., and more lukewarm / cold shoulder from Dustin Pedrioa when Shank asks him a few questions.

Name That Columnist!

Boston Red Sox DH David Ortiz is not too happy with past and present efforts to label him a cheater with respect to performance enhancing drugs (PED's). This being the age of the Internet, he fires back.

Further down the column he describes an encounter with a 'reporter' two years ago. It doesn't take Albert Einstein to figure out who the 'reporter' is (with an awesome new nickname for You Know Who):

In 2013, I came off the DL and started hot. My first 20 games I was hitting like .400. And the reporter with the red jheri curl from The Boston Globe comes into the locker room says, “You’re from the Dominican. You’re older. You fit the profile of a steroid user. Don’t you think you’re a prime suspect?”

He’s saying this with a straight face. I had taken like 70 at-bats. Anybody can get hot and hit .400 with 70 at-bats. I was stunned. I’m like, I’m Dominican? I fit the profile? Are you kidding me?

I wanted to kill this guy. But you can’t react. That’s what they want. They want you to get angry so they can bury you. So I just smiled at him and asked for his address.

“Why do you want my address?” he said. (that would be 58 Elmhurst Rd. in Newton - ed.)

“Because I just got tested two days ago.” I said. “I’ll mail you the f****ing results.”

This is a reporter from my own city coming to my locker and telling me I’m too good, that I must be on some shit. I’m sitting there thinking, Man, I get tested 10 times a year and I’ve helped win this town two World Series titles in 2004 and 2007 and this guy who has never played a game of professional baseball in his life is telling me I’m a suspect.

My test was clean just like the other 8 or 9 tests that season. My batting average settled down to .300, because of course it did. I hit like 30 home runs and we won the World Series. Was that acceptable for the reporter? Were my numbers too high for a player from the Dominican? Should I have taken another blood test before popping the damn champagne?

He never apologized.

Don't hold your breath waiting for one, Big Papi. You're definitely not the first guy he's tried to bury, and you won't be the last...