Some reader mail for you guys, from you guys. This from joeorange31:
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Gammons.....(sigh)
Must have been drunk when he wrote this article about the Yankees: My responses are below.
But the Red Sox can also resume the role of underdog, which to an organization priding itself on the flow of self-developed talent isn't a bad thing. We have seen how well Ben Cherington, the RedSox's vice president of player personnel, and Mike Hazen, Boston's director of player development, have built a player development environment which has led to many seamless transitions from the minor leagues into the Fenway Park pressure cooker. And that will continue.RESUME THE ROLE OF UNDERDOG??? Can he be serious? They've got the number two [EDIT: #4] payroll overall...are you KIDDING ME??? The temperature of the whole article is smarmy and stewed with angst.
We have months to see how the Yankees mesh, what scabs they develop, what injuries they must overcome, whether the expectations make the game joyless despite the joy that Derek Jeter, Mo, and Sabathia bring to the ballpark every day.Oh. I know...because if you put that "B" on your cap, it just brings joyand love right? I suppose Manny Ramirez was a guy FULL of joy and pridewearing those socks. I suppose that Teixeira can look forward to a careerof misery now that he'll play in NY? I suppose that it wasn't Jeter's lifetime goal to play in the Bronx? That'd sure make ME miserable, too.
Now they're reminded that the Red Sox can not win the revenue war and winning will continue to depend on development of players like Lars Anderson, Jed Lowrie...I take Umbrage here! The Red Sox are hardly among thirty-one, also-rans along with the Rays, the Marlins, the Royals, the Pirates, the poster children for Baseballs version of Public assistance. To imply that they aren't an income generating GIANT is ridiculous. John Henry could have very easily chose to drop an additional eight million into Teixeira'scontract offer and have him signed. To say that they weren't capable of itis an insult to any fan with a quarter of a brain.
Look....Baseball is a world of "haves" and "Have nots". The Yankees have. We all know it. We don't try to hide it. To say that the Red Sox "Havenot" is a slap in the face to the remaining baseball world. It's like saying that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is just a 'good ole boy' Grease Jockey in comparison to Jeff Gordon who has better corporate sponsorship. Now we hear these "Have not" teams screaming for a salary cap. Guess what? TheYankees can't sign eight hundred players. They can sign 25. (Okay...Iguess you can say that they can keep 40 on the active roster). Even if they sign the best of the best to play each position, it guarantees them nothing. Baseball isn't football. You can't bury your opponent. The Rays are still going to have Evan Longoria, David Price, Scott Kasmir. The RedSox are still going to have Youkilis, Beckett, Ortiz....You STILL have quality opponents.
Yeah... The Yankees have permanently priced me out of seeing their games on anything other than my new 32" Sharp HDTV. Yeah, It does take the feeling of Slaying the giant/David vs Goliath out of winning the WS as the Yankees assume the role of the Giant. However, if the Yanks are the Giant, The Red Sox are not David. To portray them that way is unfair and biased. I was wondering if Gammons could tell me whether or not the Pirates would like Jason Bay to be patrolling left field in PNC rather than Fenway!
Act responsibly.
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6 comments:
If you count the $50 million signing fee for Matsuzaka, Boston has the #2 payroll.
This $50 million is often forgotten by fans and sportswriters of the small market, underdog Boston Red Sox.
Gammons...well, let's just say he lost his fastball a long time ago. I'd stopped reading his weekly page in the Sunday Globe long before he hithered off to ESPN, and since ESPN and Baseball Tonight are too stupid to endure, I haven't seen much of him since then.
Are we sure that was Gammons, and not some random posting from SOSH or the Boston Dirt Dogs?
My take on this is very simple. Teams like the Yankees and the Red Sox can hide their mistakes. That is possibly where they have the greatest advantage over small market teams. That said, a big reason why the Red Sox are where they are payroll-wise is that they got lucky with 3 players - JD Drew, Mike Lowell, and David Ortiz. Those guys were pulled off the scrapheap and turned into star players. If none of them worked out, you can bet your ass you'd see a stupid contract for, say, Troy Glaus or Scott Rolen and they probably go after Carlos Beltran a few years back.
Have they made some smart moves over the past 5 years or so? Definitely. And their core is made of homegrown players which is great. But without getting lucky a few times, they would have shelled out more money or they wouldn't have won. The Kevin Millars of the world only take you so far.
The Red Sox make an offer that winds up being a million a year shy of what the Yankees put up for Teixeira. John Henry played Chicken with Scott Boras with that comment about being "out of it" with regard to that negotiation. Boras called him on it and beat him.
My rant was more about Gammons. "The Sox as an underdog" made me puke. Phillips, Gammons, Olney and all the loyalists at ESPN have glorified Theo Epstein and the rest of the Red Sox management for the better part of a decade. Now, all of the sudden, you want to turn them back into the "Olde Towne Team"? Sorry....we don't downshift that fast without losing three-quarters of our transmissions. You're a superpower, not an underdog; even without Teixeira. Don't cry me a river. Twenty nine teams in baseball wish that they were "underdogs" that way. Hell, the Pirates wish that they could be a quarter of the "underdog" that the Red Sox are.
joeorange covered the Gammons piece very well. I myself have written about him recently as well. His recent articles have been all over the place, highly presumptuous, more than a bit whiny, and lacking pertinent counter-arguments.
Jason from The Heartland
http://heartlandpinstripes.wordpress.com/
Jason,
I like your blog. Good work.
Maybe Gammons has indeed lost his fastball. Time for long relief, soldier.
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