Red Sox Culprits or the Usual Suspects (Fingered Again)
DATELINE: FARCE!
Word now trickles out before the torrent of dirt drowns us. If you liked certain Red Sox, you misjudged their character. We now learn how unlikeable they were as players.
For those fans looking for someone to put the fickle finger upon, there are no shortage of unpleasant, unlikeable and unwanted Red Sox players.
Let us count the problems: John Lackey, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Carl Crawford, Kevin Youkilis, Marco Scutaro, J.D. Drew, Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez, David Ortiz, Jed Lowrie and onward, chokers!
As the dirt suddenly comes flying out from the magical carpet of Fenway Park, we learn that Ortiz undercut his manager by demanding he start Alfredo Aceves or that he interrupted a manager’s press conference to demand to speak to Tito.
Kevin Youkilis became the curmudgeon of choice, berating other players, complaining enough to wish Manny Ramirez were here to give him a dope slap.
Adrian Gonzalez noted it was God’s plan that he not hit in September.
Scutaro never met a ground ball he could field in a pinch.
We were berated early in the season for questioning the playing credo of Jed Lowrie, whose injury speckled role model is J.D. Drew, the man whose hangnails ended his season.
We were berated early on for calling Carl Crawford the new Roman Mejias. Now people are calling him far worse than we ever considered.
Matsuzaka took his yen back to Japan, never to look back.
Josh Beckett seems to have found a love for nuggets of chicken to bulk up 30 pounds.
Lackey, Lester, and Varitek joined hands to create a clique worthy of high school bullies.
Good players like Jacoby Ellsbury became the resident recluse, keeping to himself and likely taking his talents elsewhere at first chance.
We don’t like this batch, this gaggle, this pride, this school of deadbeats. We tolerated their snide ego and high pay while they won, but we always felt they were a humorless and unpleasant group with whom we did not want to spend two social hours, let alone four game hours.
How many can be sent packing? Not enough. Most have already cleaned out their Fenway lockers with no thought of ever returning to Boston, a city they despise. Many happy returns to them.
The 2011 Red Sox will soon be blown to the four corners of the Earth by the winds of change. Maybe the flotsam and jetsam of spring training in 2012 will toss a few back into Red Sox on a bad red tide, but we hope not.
William Russo soon will have a new book, entitled RED SOX 2011: A WHIMSICAL AUTOPSY. In the meantime you may read his collection of sports humor in SEX, DRUGS, SPORTS & WHIMSY or in RAJON RONDO: SUPERSTAR! All Russo's work is available on Amazon.com in print and in e-book for Kindle.
