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September 14, 2005
Pearls Of Wisdom From Brown?
No, not that Brown.
Stu Woo, from Brown U. let's loose in the Brown Herald Daily:
Here are a few more reasons why I hate the Red Sox.
1. The payroll. Last autumn, I was amazed at how much support the Sox got from baseball fans everywhere. It seems as if everybody whose own team wasn't in the playoffs was rooting for the Sox. "It's time to break the Curse," they said. "We gotta cheer for the underdogs."
Hold up there. Underdogs? The Boston Red Sox? Sure, they've blown their share of very important games over the past 87 years, but with the second highest payroll in baseball last season, I don't think they can be considered underdogs.
The core of the 2004 championship team, for example, is built of free agents: Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Johnny Damon, Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, Keith Foulke and Bill Mueller. And this off-season, the Sox went out and paid $10 million for Edgar Renteria. With the exception of Mueller and Ortiz, all of these players have big contracts that few other teams can afford. What ever happened to having homegrown players?
It still amazes me how much Red Sox Nation whines when the Yankees acquire a player like Alex Rodriguez or Randy Johnson. Sox fans always seem to paint themselves as victims of the Yankees' loose pockets, but the Red Sox spend more than the clubs with the five lowest payrolls combined. Hypocrites.
And, reasons # 2 through 9 are pretty good too.
Coo, coo, ca-choo, young but wise man Stu
Yanks fans love you more than you will know (Woo, woo, woo)
He closes with:
I'm happy that lifelong Red Sox fans finally got to see their team win a World Series after 86 years. Cheers to them. But the Red Sox have had their fun and should put it behind them. I hope they choke down the stretch. And it wouldn't hurt to see Affleck bawling like a baby.
Choke? Would it be a choke it Boston ends up failing this season? What do you think?
Posted by Steve Lombardi at September 14, 2005 12:12 PM
Comments
Unfortunately, if Boston doesn't win the WS this year, I don't think its a choke.
Winning back-to-back Series is HARD - since 1969, only the Yanks ('77-'78 and '98-'00), Blue Jays ('92-'93), Reds ('75-'76) and A's ('72-'74) have done it.
Shoot, getting to the WS in consecutive years is hard - besides the above teams, you have Atlanta ('91-'92 and '95-'96), Oakland ('88-'90), Dodgers ('77-'78), Yanks ('76 + '77-'78) and Orioles ('69-'71).
Now, if the Sox miss the playoffs entirely - THAT would be a choke.
Posted by: Shaun P. at September 14, 2005 12:33 PM
I think if they lose the AL East, it's sorta-choke. After all, they, Boston, had a 4 game lead on 9/11 with just 21 games left to play.
That's kinda like being in the driver's seat.
Posted by: Steve Lombardi at September 14, 2005 01:05 PM
One could argue that with the moves the Yanks made, they should have been in the driver's seat from the get-go
Posted by: Raf at September 15, 2005 10:44 AM