Gone Baby Gone
Theo has left the Boston Red Sox. If your reaction to that is 'Theo who?' then feel free to skip the rest of this post.
Since the news broke on Monday, plenty of folks in the internetoblogisplace have put down some very pointed copy, analyzing and digging into the situation. Rather than duplicate their efforts, let me simply recommend the following pieces:
A Few Bad Men
Losers All Around
The Boston Phoenix Sox Blog
Prodigal son, departs
There's plenty more out there - you can check BSMW and Media Nation for a vast collection of links - but the above four are an excellent place to start.
My own thoughts and feelings on the L'Affaire de Theo have been all over the place, to the point where, like some others, I've had a difficult time getting anything remotely coherent into print. Trying to trace these thoughts is the mental equivalent of following a convoluted roadmap of shock, bitterness, cynicism and disappointment.
All of this - Theo's departure, the leaks and smears, the rumors of behind the scenes acrimony - is all too familiar to me. And being familiar, is also comfortable, in a sick sort of way. Like when your girlfriend breaks up with you seemingly out of the blue - you get that awful kicked-in-the-stomach-feeling but at the same time a tiny voice in your head is saying 'Well now, we've been down this road before, haven't we? Ain't no thing.'
Or maybe that's just me.
That being said, the loss of Theo is horribly, horribly dismaying to me. I had allowed myself to believe that the dysfunctional Red Sox franchise was a thing of the past, dead as the unlamented Harrington regime and as relevant as Haywood Sullivan. I allowed myself to believe that the new ownership had made a permanent change to the culture on Yawkey Way, that Tom Werner, John Henry and their compatriots had made a permanent break with the bad old days and would always steer the fortunes of the Red Sox in a rational, businesslike and efficient manner.
I was disabused of this notion yesterday morning. The first thing I heard when my alarm went off was a voice from the radio telling me Theo had declined the Red Sox offer. I pulled the sheets over my head and thought 'Wow. I haven't even gotten out of bed yet and already this day has fucked the dog.'
So I am disappointed, extremely disappointed. But I can't in all honesty see this disappointment as some sort of loss of innocence, or as some sort of betrayal of childhood memories. What the Red Sox ownership did over the past few days, well, that pretty much was the Red Sox of my childhood. From Pudge through Mo this sort of ownership gaffe was the Red Sox modus operandi. Even the sudden return to such idiocy shouldn't surprise me in hindsight, given what happened with Nomar and Pedro. It was the same old tactics - slime 'em on the way out the door.
However, where I do feel a great sense of betrayal and loss is in the role of the Boston Globe sports department in all this mess. Allow me to digress a moment...
In the late 80s and early 90s I lived in Baltimore, first attending school and then working (or looking for work as was often the case in those days.) For you youngsters out there, this was before the days of the internet, when if you lived beyond the borders of Red Sox Nation there was a palpable sense of being cut off from home and behind enemy lines. There were no message boards, blogs, streaming audio and the like to keep you in touch with the latest and greatest news on your team.
This was also a time when you could make a legitimate argument that the Boston Globe had the best spots section in the country. You had Bob Ryan, pre-Curse flogging Shaughnessy and of course, Gammons. And all that talent for baseball coverage, let alone Bruins, Celts and Patriots.
Well my dad, God bless him, took it upon himself to start sending me dispatches from home. Every Sunday he'd go through the Globe sports section, cut out anything baseball-related, and mail me a big fat envelope full of Red Sox news. And every Wednesday and Thursday I'd eagerly check the mail, anxious to get my monkey hands on all that baseball goodness. I'd rip open the envelope, sort out all the articles and then dive in, starting with Gammons' famous Diamond Notes column.
So suffice it to say I once had some very fond memories and a special affection for the Boston Globe sports section. But in the wake of this weekend's events all that is gone. Entirely.
Since the news broke on Monday, plenty of folks in the internetoblogisplace have put down some very pointed copy, analyzing and digging into the situation. Rather than duplicate their efforts, let me simply recommend the following pieces:
A Few Bad Men
Losers All Around
The Boston Phoenix Sox Blog
Prodigal son, departs
There's plenty more out there - you can check BSMW and Media Nation for a vast collection of links - but the above four are an excellent place to start.
My own thoughts and feelings on the L'Affaire de Theo have been all over the place, to the point where, like some others, I've had a difficult time getting anything remotely coherent into print. Trying to trace these thoughts is the mental equivalent of following a convoluted roadmap of shock, bitterness, cynicism and disappointment.
All of this - Theo's departure, the leaks and smears, the rumors of behind the scenes acrimony - is all too familiar to me. And being familiar, is also comfortable, in a sick sort of way. Like when your girlfriend breaks up with you seemingly out of the blue - you get that awful kicked-in-the-stomach-feeling but at the same time a tiny voice in your head is saying 'Well now, we've been down this road before, haven't we? Ain't no thing.'
Or maybe that's just me.
That being said, the loss of Theo is horribly, horribly dismaying to me. I had allowed myself to believe that the dysfunctional Red Sox franchise was a thing of the past, dead as the unlamented Harrington regime and as relevant as Haywood Sullivan. I allowed myself to believe that the new ownership had made a permanent change to the culture on Yawkey Way, that Tom Werner, John Henry and their compatriots had made a permanent break with the bad old days and would always steer the fortunes of the Red Sox in a rational, businesslike and efficient manner.
I was disabused of this notion yesterday morning. The first thing I heard when my alarm went off was a voice from the radio telling me Theo had declined the Red Sox offer. I pulled the sheets over my head and thought 'Wow. I haven't even gotten out of bed yet and already this day has fucked the dog.'
So I am disappointed, extremely disappointed. But I can't in all honesty see this disappointment as some sort of loss of innocence, or as some sort of betrayal of childhood memories. What the Red Sox ownership did over the past few days, well, that pretty much was the Red Sox of my childhood. From Pudge through Mo this sort of ownership gaffe was the Red Sox modus operandi. Even the sudden return to such idiocy shouldn't surprise me in hindsight, given what happened with Nomar and Pedro. It was the same old tactics - slime 'em on the way out the door.
However, where I do feel a great sense of betrayal and loss is in the role of the Boston Globe sports department in all this mess. Allow me to digress a moment...
In the late 80s and early 90s I lived in Baltimore, first attending school and then working (or looking for work as was often the case in those days.) For you youngsters out there, this was before the days of the internet, when if you lived beyond the borders of Red Sox Nation there was a palpable sense of being cut off from home and behind enemy lines. There were no message boards, blogs, streaming audio and the like to keep you in touch with the latest and greatest news on your team.
This was also a time when you could make a legitimate argument that the Boston Globe had the best spots section in the country. You had Bob Ryan, pre-Curse flogging Shaughnessy and of course, Gammons. And all that talent for baseball coverage, let alone Bruins, Celts and Patriots.
Well my dad, God bless him, took it upon himself to start sending me dispatches from home. Every Sunday he'd go through the Globe sports section, cut out anything baseball-related, and mail me a big fat envelope full of Red Sox news. And every Wednesday and Thursday I'd eagerly check the mail, anxious to get my monkey hands on all that baseball goodness. I'd rip open the envelope, sort out all the articles and then dive in, starting with Gammons' famous Diamond Notes column.
So suffice it to say I once had some very fond memories and a special affection for the Boston Globe sports section. But in the wake of this weekend's events all that is gone. Entirely.
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