And now we know why the Boston Red Sox collapsed last month, ceding a nine game lead in the American League Wild Card race and going 7-20 the final month of the season.
The “how” it happened is so much more disappointing, humiliating and numbing than just missing the playoffs in historic, failing fashion.
It wasn’t the starting pitchers inability to get through four innings. It wasn’t the bullpen blowing late leads. It wasn’t the lack of offense or some defensive error by Marco Scutaro with a broken bat flying at his head.
No, it wasn’t the resurrection of some curse.
It was 25 guys, 25 cabs. It was the downright unlikable John Lackey, the fan favorite Jon Lester and the staff ace Josh Beckett drinking beer, eating fried chicken and playing video games in the clubhouse during games.
And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. Just read this column in the Boston Globe.
Look, I get that since 2004 and especially since 2007, many fans hate the Boston Red Sox just as much as they have and do hate the New York Yankees. Winning and massive payrolls do that.
But somewhere along the line, the Red Sox became what all their fan base loathed the most: a roster of All-Stars and uninspiring players with massive paychecks who didn’t get it done when it mattered most. The clubhouse issues speak to that.
What’s most unsettling is this is not that team I began rooting for as a teenager in 1995. It’s not the team that won the two titles in 2004 and 2007. What most outsiders miss is that yes, 2004 ended the “Curse of the Bambino” and ended 86 years of frustration, sleepless nights and anxiety wondering if you would ever see your team win – but – it was the manner in which the Sox did won that mattered more.
Boston didn’t beat New York at its own game by trading for and/or signing a group of All-Stars.
Sure, they had Pedro and Manny, but that team had Mark Bellhorn, Bill Mueller, Kevin Millar, Mike Timlin and Trot Nixon. They were dirty. They chewed tobacco. They looked like they had been wearing the same hat since Opening Day, and some days, if the wind was blowing right, you could probably confirm that by smell. Pine tar covered their bats and their helmets. They worked hard, acted stupid and cared deeply about one another. From 2003-2008, you rarely heard a peep from the clubhouse about issues that didn’t involve Manny Ramirez taking a leak behind the Green Monster.
So it wasn’t so much the dramatic comeback against the Yankees in the ALCS, but who they were in terms of character versus who the Yankees were.
Nothing epitomized this more than the famous play where Alex Rodriguez slaps the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s hand, and doing so with quite a bit of femininity. As he pouts and whines on second base after they call him out, there are Orlando Cabrera, Bellhorn and Millar laughing their asses off. The image is striking still today: a $200 million dollar man throwing a fit after slapping a ball out of a pitcher’s glove, and a somewhat rag-tag group of infielders mocking him.
Needless to say, I miss that team.
I miss rooting against, well, what the Red Sox are now. But this is the crux of being a fan. We’re really rooting for laundry and the numbers on the jerseys and the faces that fill those jerseys change ever year. Eventually, you find yourself rooting for a team that wears the same uniform but doesn’t fill it the same way.
I’m often more passionate about the years my favorite teams didn’t win a title, but came damn close despite having no business being there. It was the desire and the hard work in 2003 and 2004 that made those teams special. One lost a Game 7 in the ACLS, one won. But both years were special seasons.
The emotions of being a fan change all the time as you age. At the end of the day, you don’t just want your team to win, but you want them to do it the right way because it proves something, to you, your kids, your friends who are fans of other teams. It says “We did it the right way.”
I can deal with winning by not always doing it the right way and buying a top player or getting a trade done or being lucky instead of good. Those things happen in sports; the best or most likable teams don’t always win. It’s tough to swallow, but you end up rationalizing Carl Crawford’s contract, Diasuke Matsuzaka’s entire career and many other things as long as the team does well.
What I can’t deal with is the top three starting pitchers, two of which used to be in the category of hard-working gamers (Lester and Beckett) sitting around drinking beer, getting fat eating fried chicken and playing Halo while the rest of their teammates are trying not to blow it. There seems to be something missing there, an intangible of some kind.
And it doesn’t help when you pitch so poorly when you are playing that it looks like you’ve been…well, drinking beer and eating fried chicken and playing video games.
Some guys went to the optional batting sessions. Many did not. Some worked on their conditioning, while others, um, clearly, did not.
Jacoby Elsbury, Dustin Pedrioa and Papelbon, by all accounts, continued to stay committed and work, while others detached. You’d expect this haberdashery from Lackey, whom everyone in America seems to think is a royal punk and a clubhouse cancer. But Lester? Beckett? Big Papi? David Ortiz said all the right things to the media, but privately didn’t do much to bolster the team. Once, he burst into Francona’s press conference complaining about a box score that took away a hit.
Tim Wakefield, usually Mr. Red Sox, was preoccupied with chasing his 200th win and then saying it was only right the team brought him back next year. Adrian Gonzalez, terrific on the field, complained about the schedule and playing so many weekend night games. And manager Terry Francona was dealing with his own issues, as well, from prescription drugs to a separation from his wife and his son being in Afghanistan.
So that’s how the historic collapse came to be, a utter lack of passion for the game and for each other. The Sox have parted ways with Francona, which is bittersweet, but he’d lost the team. Wonder-boy general manage Theo Epstein is probably gone to the Chicago Cubs, which, despite his two World Series titles, leaves a bitter taste because of Lackey’s contract, Diasuke’s epic failure, Crawford’s struggles and you know, the general lack of chemistry in the clubhouse.
Maybe the players will start policing themselves and the new manager can break through to motivate them. But at the end of the day, the players have to care. And no one can do that but them.
Which is what makes the “how” it happened so humiliating and numbing. It’s not very Red Sox like. When they failed before, it was because of errors or ghosts or just not being very good. But this time, they killed the team from within.
And after two days of hearing the gory details of the collapse, I still don’t know how to tell my 9-year-old son who’s a diehard fan, who plays travel baseball and says he one day wants to play in college and the pros. And who’s favorite pitcher is Jon Lester. Who has Fat Heads of Beckett, Youkillis, Ortiz and Pedroia on his wall.
My son looks up to these guys. They are the favorite players on his favorite team of his favorite sport. It’s like the Sox are a girlfriend who broke up with you, punched you, took the big screen, the dogs, your money and burned your clothes over the period of a month, then came back three weeks later and told you they thought you were stupid, they hated everything you liked and never loved you.
It’s the ultimate kick to the groin to find out they not only failed, but they did so being basically about that guy. Dysfunctional, pampered, entitled.
Guess I need to start explaining to my son what term “Bush League” means. But I’ll leave the rest of the downfall out. It’s just embarrassing.
Or at least it should be.
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