By Ryan McGowan
Quite a few topics that merit mentioning have arisen in the past week, but I don’t think any of them are worthy of an entire column, so I have decided to sell out and write a condensed "short takes" column. If I like it, maybe I’ll turn this into a weekly or semi-weekly feature here on SportsColumn, the Revolution in Sports Journalism. Hey, if it works for Bill Simmons and Bill Reynolds of the Providence Journal, then why can’t it work for me, right?Besides, I spent the weekend away from Boston, with the lovely better half, Jennifer, in Ludlow, Vermont, perhaps best known as the site of Okemo Mountain, but in my opinion more notable for featuring a pizza place called "Wicked Good Pizza." (Just when you think you’ve gotten away from Massachusetts, this idiotically stereotypical specimen of our dialect sucks you back in.) Anyway, I had no access to any Internet sites or even a respectable newspaper, having to settle for the New York Post or nothing. I’ve always thought you can get more pertinent information from reading the label on a shampoo bottle than you can soak up from that trash rag.
That being said, I wanted to comment on some issues from last week. If anyone has any suggestions on a title for this semi-regular feature, either post it as a comment or email it to [email protected].
On to the takes…
– Thank God for Kevin Millar. After a solid week of nothing but incessant Nomar-talk on WEEI sports talk radio, Millar saved us all from another workday of whining, finger-pointing, and he-said/she-said soap opera second guessing, by… you guessed it… doing some whining, finger-pointing, and second-guessing of his own! In a completely asinine set of comments made in Detroit (after he learned he would be sitting out for the FIRST time in over two weeks), Millar called the Boston media over to his locker, where he proceeded to lambaste manager Terry Francona for his inconsistent lineup. Perhaps Millar forgot that with the new acquisitions from the Garciaparra trade (namely, Gold Glove first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz and speedy outfielder Dave Roberts), he should have become an afterthought on Francona’s lineup card. Maybe he didn’t notice that no one will ever confuse "Gold Glove" and "speedy" with Kevin Millar, and if a slow, rock-gloved, right-handed first baseman wants to complain about being left out of the lineup, it is one of the most ludicrous statements in a season that has been full of absurdity.
If anyone should shut his mouth and accept one day off, it’s Millar. This guy has gotten a complete free pass from the media and fans this year, and for a guy who has basically sucked since the 2003 All-Star break, it is unbecoming. Perhaps the Nation really believes, as I recently wrote, that the 2004 season is simply a continuation of the `03 season (with a slightly longer break than Pedro and Manny are used to), and we desperately want to feel the Cowboy-Up, Rally Karaoke Guy optimism that Millar rode in on from Florida (nearly via Japan) last spring. Defensively, Millar is an average at best first baseman and an atrocious outfielder. For someone who was so instrumental in bringing the team together last season, he sure has done his part to tear them apart this year. Has everyone forgotten Millar’s comments last year in an ESPN Sunday Conversation where he essentially vowed that he would rather have Alex Rodriguez over Nomar Garciaparra every day of the week, and twice on Sundays. Was he honest? Of course… but you can’t say that to the media and not expect some backlash from your teammate.
Even though Millar’s comments last season aren’t the only reason that Nomar soured on Boston and the Red Sox (the shortstop’s wretched personality certainly contributed greatly as well), his irresponsibility in speaking through the media rather than talking personally to his teammates and manager is just plain wrong. Millar might have been a media darling and a fan favorite last year, but his haphazard use of the media has caused problems in the clubhouse and has flat-out made him look like a clown. Millar should shut his mouth and concentrate more on putting his bat on the ball than putting his foot more squarely in his mouth.
– Third-base coach Dale Sveum’s decision to send Dave Roberts home, representing the potential tying run with no outs in the ninth inning against Tampa Bay, was one of the all-time bonehead calls on the base paths. We should be used to this in Boston, with a lineup of former windmillers that includes the seemingly psychotic Wendell "Send `Em In" Kim. But there is no excuse for making the first out of the inning at home plate. If Sveum holds Roberts at third, the Sox would have had the tying run at third, the winning run at first, and Bill Mueller at the plate, who has been hotter than the egg-frying dashboard in "Airplane 2." The out didn’t even require a perfect throw and flawless tag; catcher Toby Hall bobbled the throw from center fielder Rocco Baldelli (in the interest of full disclosure, a proud alumnus of Bishop Hendricken High School in Warwick, RI, where I recently spent a year as a faculty member and coach) and STILL made the tag on Roberts.
In the seven games since the Nomar trade, the Sox have run into thirteen outs on the bases due to foolish baserunning. While this is not entirely Sveum’s fault, and while I like the Sox being more aggressive on the basepaths, the fact remains that in the major leagues, unlike Boston Ski and Sports Club coed softball, you have to really pick and choose which situations you choose to be aggressive in. Sveum’s mistake was one of aggression, which is certainly preferable to playing too passively. Aggression is good, unless you are Dewey Oxburger from "Stripes" and swallow so much of it (along with a lot of pizzas) that you end up a 350-pound Army recruit in basic training. However, prudence and good judgment on the bases is an essential baseball skill; sometimes, it appears that the players on this edition of the Red Sox were absent on the day they taught baseball at baseball camp.
– September 9, Patriots vs. Colts in Foxboro, can’t come soon enough. Hopefully I’ll be making a report from Patriots training camp on Route 1 outside Gillette Stadium (aka The Razor) before too long. I can’t wait to see Corey Dillon wearing the blue #28 behind #12 Tom Brady, who is apparently living more of a charmed life than Jim Carrey in "Bruce Almighty" after he gets the God powers.
– Finally, Danny Ainge’s "plan" as GM of the Celtics appears to be coming to fruition. Ainge has followed up an excellent draft, where he picked up possibly the biggest steal of the draft in Delonte West of St. Joseph’s, and blue-chip high-schooler Al Jefferson, with a fantastic trade with the Lakers. Ainge sent second-year point guard Marcus Banks, Montross-esque center Chris Mihm, and rent-a-point-guard Chucky Atkins to L.A. for future Hall of Famer (and current stiff) Gary Payton, former Celtic captain and "Oz" star Rick Fox, and a first-round pick.
The Celtics brass is reportedly very high on West, having evaluated him to be talented enough as to make Banks and Atkins expendable, and the trade of Mihm will open up playing time for Jefferson and the returning Raef Lafrentz. Payton and Fox will provide the foundation for this year’s team, and when their contracts are up at the end of the season, Ainge will have successfully cleared up enough cap room to complete the "blowing up" of the franchise and continue with the rebuilding process.
Until Ainge created some cap room, the Celtics were hamstrung from making any significant free agent moves. I have to admit, I was a little skeptical of Danny Ainge after the Antoine Walker and Eric Williams-for-Ricky Davis trades, but I also agreed to be patient and take a wait-and-see approach. It looks like he is on the right track. If Ainge can reap another solid draft in `05, and possibly sign a top-tier free agent in the off season (hopefully someone who can play in the post), then Doc Rivers might have a team in 05-06 that might be able to compete for the Eastern Conference title.
If they could somehow kidnap Lebron James and bring him to the Fleet Center, that might make his job easier. Meanwhile, I am proposing starting a petition to reunite Rick Fox and estranged wife Vanessa Williams, who I am hoping will replace Nomar’s better half, Mia Hamm, as "Second Hottest Boston Sports Wife After Brady’s Fiancee Bridget Moynihan." (And yes, that will be her official title… the SHBSWABFBM. Right now, I think that title rests with Gabe Kapler’s wife, unless I am confusing her with someone else. Someone help me out here with a confirmation.)
– Manny Ramirez has NO balls. As much as I wanted to root for Ramirez this year, since he came back this season with a positive attitude after the Sox did everything short of offering him up in a yard sale in an attempt to ship him out of town this past offseason, he has given us every reason to boo him (that is, if you overlook his offensive numbers from the first half of the season, but even they have recently dropped faster than a post-scream Howard Dean).
Has Manny produced good numbers this season? Yes. He and his partner in crime, the eminently likeable David Ortiz, carried the Red Sox offensively during a stretch of the season when their roster seemed to be more appropriate to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital than the clubhouse at Fenway Park. Should he be an MVP candidate? Absolutely not. In a vacuum, with the absence of clear real front-runner (possibly Hideki Matsui, Gary Sheffield, Vlad Guerrero, maybe Ortiz), Ramirez would be considered a possibility, and he might still be. But then, at the tail end of a two-week road trip, Manny comes down with a sore throat and "flu-like symptoms"… and tonight (Monday) will sit out his THIRD consecutive game with the aforementioned "flu-like symptoms."
What exactly are "flu-like symptoms?" Does he have the flu, or doesn’t he? Who gets the flu in August, unless you are one of those bubble boys with a weak immune system and you get thrown into the middle of a third-grade summer camp? And what professional athlete, who has a history of missing games due to these silly illnesses, takes THREE DAYS off to recover from a freaking sore throat?
Can I get inside Manny’s head? Obviously no one can, and I am not accusing Manny of faking an illness. But I have no qualms to come out and say that Manny Ramirez, in his infinitely happy-go-lucky, perma-grinning state, does not have the necessary stones to be an MVP.
I am not in any way condemning Manny as a player or even as a person. He is an unbelievable hitter, and also plays an underrated left field, especially in Fenway. And in a personal sense, he is well-liked; he has indeed been characterized by many former teammates as not having a mean bone in his body. He seems to get along with teammates, enjoys life, loves his family, and I am sure he donates blood to the Red Cross and helps old ladies cross the street at Arlington St. and Commonwealth Avenue, in front of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel where he lives.
But his complete lack of intestinal fortitude makes him hard to root for, at least for me, and I am sure many other fans who appreciate hard-nosed, intense ballplayers who relish being on the field every day. That is what made Nomar so popular in Boston, and it is why we also love Jason Varitek and Trot Nixon; neither of them are superstars, but they play the game hard and they play the game in the way that many New England fans imagine themselves playing, or the way they themselves did play in high school or college ball. I may have ripped Kevin Millar earlier in this article, but I don’t question Millar’s desire to be in the lineup, rather the manner in which he publicly voiced his concerns, going outside of the chain-in-command, reminiscent of Colonel Sanders in "Spaceballs." ("What? You went over my helmet???" -Dark Helmet) We have a hard time rooting for someone like Manny, who has all the God-given talent, but not enough of the desire, at least not from our vantage point. As great a player as Carlton Fisk was, can you imagine what he would have done had he been blessed with Ramirez’s abilities?
Many fans take a perspective that they don’t mind Manny sitting out a few games, as long as it means he will be healthy in September and October. I am all for him being healthy in October, and I have no problem with him, or any player, taking the occasional mental health day to recharge his batteries. I am not accusing him of jaking his "flu-like symptoms", but when he has a long history of these mystery illnesses which have kept him out of the lineup for an extended period of time, you have to think twice about him. A mental health day is fine, and if he needs to sit out a game when he is sick and has been on the road for a while, that is acceptable as well. What is not acceptable is a mental health four days for a sore throat. If I were Terry Francona or any of Manny’s teammates, I would be banging my head against the wall at the inexplicable, soft antics of their slugger.
He is a great hitter, but he is not a leader. He is what he is, but he is not an MVP. If I had my way, he wouldn’t even be a Red Sox. Players like Varitek, Bill Mueller, Pokey Reese, David McCarty, Johnny Damon, Kevin Youkilis, Curt Schilling, Doug Mirabelli… guys who would rather take a wrecking ball to the face than sit on the bench, they deserve better than to have this clod as a teammate. With his contract, he is probably not going anywhere anytime soon; the A-Rod non-deal assured that. Until the end of his contract, though, I think the Nation is condemned to rooting for this joker, because it doesn’t look like he will be changing his tune anytime soon.
– OK, those were a little bit longer than maybe I anticipated. Hey, Simmons and Reynolds might have their one-line ramblings, so I guess I’ll have to have mine stick to 500+ words.
Until next time…
