Not Rounders Theory

Is this finally The Year?

2005-04-01T11:19:00.000-08:00

As opening day approaches, Red Sox fans once again find themselves dusting off their caps, gobbling up dispatches from Fort Myers, and asking their family, friends, and neighbors the same hopeful, dreadful question: will this be the season the Boston nine brings home the World Series championship that has escaped the team for 87 years? NRT has a look at the year ahead.

On the offensive side of the diamond, Terry Francona's charges return largely unchanged. The signing of Edgar Renteria to fill the void left by the exile of fallen angel Nomar Garciaparra represents the sole significant discrepancy between the 2005 squad and last year's bunch of wild-haired brutes who dragged the rest of the league's pitching off to their cave and ran up 949 runs on it. Theo Epstein again demonstrated a deft touch for lesser deals by exchanging the largesse he accumulated for the postseason run of 2004 for more complimentary role players. Most notably, ALCS goat Dave Roberts was returned to the west coast for outfield depth (former Garciaparra roomie Jay Payton), a utility infielder (Ramon Vazquez), a respectable pitching prospect (David Pauley), and a Samsonite XXL duffel full of money ($2.65 million). Francona has indicated that he will take a dynamic approach to lineup construction this year, tailoring Boston's attack to take advantage of the platoon splits of Trot Nixon and newcomer Renteria in the second spot behind Johnny Damon. Last year's #2, Mark Bellhorn, will begin the year in the nine hole where he will try to improve on last season's total of 18 opposing pitchers lulled to sleep.

Unlike the offense, the pitching staff has undergone a relatively transformative facelift. Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe departed for the National League via free agency, leaving many to wonder just how foul a turd Lowe's 2004 must have been for the two of them to combine for just a 4.59 ERA in a shade under 400 innings. Their replacements in the rotation are NRT favorite Matt Clement and former Boston public enemy David Wells, with the talented Wade Miller recovering from injury in the wings. Returning are Curt Schilling, Bronson Arroyo, and NRT matinee idol Tim Wakefield. This group's fortunes rest perhaps a bit uncomfortably on a collection of unreliable body parts (Schilling's ankle, Wells' back, and Miller's shoulder). NRT expects solid performances from the junior members and Wakefield, but the tale of 2005 will likely be written by what the infirmary is able to produce. A similar narrative describes the bullpen, where much is invested in the old (Alik Timbree) and fragile (Matt Mantei). If the bridge to Keith Foulke holds up, the Sox will be in very good shape. If it fails, they will get wet. They may also lose a lot of games in the late innings, but mostly they'll just get wet.

Defensively, the Sox look sound though not spectacular. Leather specialists Doug Mientkiewicz and Pokey Reese are gone, dashing the respective hopes of local spelling bee prodigies and NRT’s ill advised Tickle-Me-Pokey plush toy venture alike. In the wake of their departures, Renteria is a seamless transition at shortstop, where he handles the position with graceful aplomb. Kevin Millar, on the other hand, will provide frequent reminders that first base is not a premium defensive position. David McCarty has been retained for the unique dual role of Millar’s late-inning defensive caddy and blowout emergency pitcher. It will be a grave error if he sees significant time at the plate, however, where the best that can be hoped for is that he will lose control of the bat and injure a key member of the Yankees. Pinch-hitting duties should fall principally to Kevin Youkilis, the Greek God of Overused Superlatives. In the outfield, Payton will be an eminently capable defender at all three positions as he takes over the fourth outfielder’s spot from Gabe Kapler, recently named to People Japan’s list of 100 Sexiest Gaijin.

Overall, the Sox appear well-armed for the 2005 campaign, with a potent offense, the promise of a deep pitching staff, and very credible defense. As they prepare to embark on yet another pursuit of that elusive world title, their eyes turn from the welcoming warmth of the City of Palms to the cold, dark monolith in the Bronx. Their fortitude will be tested early this year as they face down their arch-rivals in the season opener behind a fat slob who used to call the Stadium home. It is tempting to read a bit of the old saw, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” into this paradoxical situation, but for the Red Sox each season begins anew with brighter sentiments. If you can’t beat ‘em, try again next year.

If he gets up, they'll all get up...

2004-10-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

It's a new dawn.
It's a new day.
It's a new life
For me,
And I'm feeeeeeeeelin' good.
-- Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, "Feeling Good," 1965.

There was a parade today, so it must be real.

The day after the Red Sox won the World Series was a lot like the one before it, except there were no more baseball games to watch. The sun rose. The sun set. John Harrington had lunch. All in all, not a bad day. And then, every so often throughout the day, it hits you. It floats up from untouched corners of the heart like the first few bubbles in a pot of water set to boil. The Red Sox are champions again. You smile.

For so many fans, this is profound because it is more than baseball. It is family. In New England, the Red Sox are heritage, practically codified by DNA. Every fan of this team knows someone for whom they are thrilled the Sox won, and we are happier for that someone than we are for ourselves. We are ecstatic that grandpa finally saw them win. We wish mom were still around to share it. We look forward to telling our kids about it some day. The pain of losing was always focused inward, albeit shared tacitly with fellow fans. The euphoria of winning has been radiated outward and shared privately. Everyone has their own story to tell about this championship, and everyone knows someone else with a better story. That's what makes the Red Sox resonate.

Ride a pained pony

2004-10-24T23:14:00.000-07:00

What goes up
Must come down.
Spinning wheel
Got to go round.
-- David Clayton-Thomas, "Spinning Wheel," 1969.

As the Boston Red Sox board a flight for St. Louis, there is some good news and some bad news to be shared, and the bad news is not that Curt Schilling (soon to assume the stately title of Prince Valiant) may have taken his ankle for its final ride on the strength of Dr. Morgan's Wicked Pissah Sutures of Mystery. Rather, the bad news is the Red Sox simply aren't as good as they've looked in the first two games of the World Series. The good news is they aren't as bad as they've looked, either. Not to get all Don "Rickles" Rumsfeld on you or anything, but that's the truth. The Sox have had a run of (gasp!) Yankee-esque luck in going up 2-0 on a very good St. Louis club. Last night, Mark Bellhorn's game-winning poke clanged off Pesky's Pole, just able to stay fair in a stiff breeze that, two pitches prior, had shoved a similar bid several rows foul. In Game 2, Mike Matheny and Reggie Sanders both hit bullets right at Bill Mueller to end two innings with Cardinals on base and a rally brewing.

In aggregate, however, this Series has proceeded suspiciously according to script. Both teams feature strong offenses: the Cardinals with four menacing gentlemen whose numbers suggest they spend their free time driving railroad ties through robust sheets of corrugated iron, and the Red Sox with Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz sandwiched between a collection of street urchins surprisingly adept at not making outs. The question coming into these two games was whose pitching would be able to navigate these treacherous waters while suffering less damage. The numbers predicted the answer would be Boston, and so it has been thusfar. The Sox have been remarkably adept at containing the Cards' big four and exploiting a very weak bottom of the St. Louis batting order. Tony La Russa's hurlers, on the other hand, have not exhibited the same facility, due in large part to the fact that there is no soft underbelly in Boston's nine. Fortunately for the Cards, Boston's nine are now Boston's eight for the next three games.

This loss of the designated hitter, coupled with The Law of Averages, augurs that the Boston bats are unlikely to continue teeing off on the opposition's starters with such casual aplomb, but the oft-overlooked Law of Pedestrian Pitching reminds us that they just might. Kevin Millar hasn't exactly set anyone's hair on fire in these first two games, and the Sox have managed a healthy tally nonetheless. And while the Boston lineup is indisputably weakened by his absence, the fact remains that the bottom three "hitters" (charitably speaking) for the Cards will still be lousy. The Sox will maintain their advantage in offensive depth. If their pitchers can continue to make hittable pitches a finite resource for the Cardinals' meat, the Sox will enjoy further success in that aspect of the game as well.

It is still far too early to draw any broad conclusions about this matchup, but this Series has given an early indication of supporting one of the great hidden axioms of baseball: that it's better to have concentrated talent in the pitching staff and diffuse talent in the batting order. Said axiom will not be elaborated upon at this time for two reasons: (1) as previously mentioned, this Series is not over, and (2) it's bedtime.

Such great heights

2004-10-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

Well, boys, I reckon this is it - nuclear combat toe to toe with the Roosskies. Now look, boys, I ain't much of a hand at makin' speeches, but I got a pretty fair idea that something doggone important is goin' on back there. And I got a fair idea the kinda personal emotions that some of you fellas may be thinkin'. Heck, I reckon you wouldn't even be human bein's if you didn't have some pretty strong personal feelin's about nuclear combat. I want you to remember one thing, the folks back home is a-countin' on you and by golly, we ain't about to let 'em down. I tell you something else, if this thing turns out to be half as important as I figure it just might be, I'd say that you're all in line for some important promotions and personal citations when this thing's over with. That goes for ever' last one of you regardless of your race, color, or your creed. Now let's get this thing on the hump - we got some flyin' to do.
-- Major T.J. "King" Kong, "Dr. Strangelove," 1964.

Three days later, and Wednesday night remains locked away in some parallel utopia that intersects with the workaday world only on occasion. Here in California, it has been akin to being part of a secret underground resistance movement whose members are distinguished by their ballcaps and their exhausted smiles. Expatriot Red Sox fans in this part of the globe have dutifully walked that line between jubilation and dread, almost as if deriving too much merriment from the series just concluded will jinx The Series that lies ahead. The first rule of Sox Club is you don't talk about Sox Club. Not now. Not too loudly. Not until they ... you know.

Holy Flurking Schnit!

2004-10-19T23:51:00.000-07:00

I was a dead man. Now I'm back.
-- Fox Mulder, "The X-Files," 1995.

Eighteen hours until Game 7. Sometime in the interim, Terry Francona and Joe Torre will decide upon nominal starting pitchers, Keith Foulke's right arm may get up and sneak out of his hotel room in the middle of the night, and Bronson Arroyo should demand a gentleman's satisfaction from Alex Rodriguez. Radar guns at dawn, Alex, you bush league pantywaist phony. Woe be unto he who would stand between the Red Sox and another deciding game. Woe be unto cheaters! Woe be unto purple-lipsticked nancy boys!

For the second straight night, the Sox will set sail for uncharted postseason waters. The leg of this voyage completed tonight, though thrilling and memorable, will acquire the full lustrous residue of history only if they can finish the job tomorrow. In isolation, Game 6 was an undeniably brilliant spectacle. In context, it will be remembered either as another sensational win for a team on a miraculous rebound run or as one of the greatest teases in the history of the sport. The tipping point approaches.

Uno mas!

Get the hell out of my office

2004-10-18T23:10:00.000-07:00

Our house it has a crowd.
There's always something happening,
And it's usually quite loud.

Our house, in the middle of our street,
Our house, was our castle and our keep.
-- Chris Foreman & Carl Smyth, "Our House," 1982.

Reason #34 baseball is the bestest sport of all: home field advantage actually changes the rules of the game. Everyone knows it's a nice psychological boost to have a huge throng of people cheering for you to succeed rather than, say, do something inappropriate with parts of your own anatomy. But among the major American sports, baseball is unique in the way it handicaps its contests. It is deeply and profoundly unfair. It is totally wicked cool.

For consecutive stamina-draining nights, David Ortiz and the Red Sox have now made the most of the privilege of last ups. This is the principal beauty of being the home team in a close game. The team in grays can never rest, always shadowed by the dread specter of possibility lurking in the bottom half of each inning. The visitors may strike, but cannot be victorious until they have faced the opponent yet one more time. A knockout punch struck by the team in white, though, leaves the visitors no chance to get up off the mat. When it's over, it's over. Suddenly. Finally. Over.

At the very least, the seemingly ceaseless zombie jamboree celebrated at Fenway Park over the last two days and nights staved off the ignominy of the season coming to a close in the Red Sox' own yard. Champagne turns to acid under such circumstances, and the Sox have done well to avoid that bilious fate.

Another of baseball's idiosyncrasies is the structure of the best-of-seven series. Hockey and basketball now both follow a 2-2-1-1-1 format, while baseball has stuck with the 2-3-2. Having the final two games in your house is certainly preferable, but the middle three games, a time when a series may either be put away or made interesting, are no trivial matter. As this ALCS returns to the Bronx, where the Yankees will have the home field advantage once more, it should not be forgotten that the shape and trajectory of this series was altered with the indelible stamp of Fenway. But the next one is at The Stadium. They get last ups. They only need one win. Everyone's two favorite strippers will probably be in attendance. That's home field advantage in every way.

With nothing to lose besides the ALCS, the Red Sox will hand the ball back to Curt Schilling and his tricksy ankle. Having consulted every expert in the land short of Richard Dean Anderson, the Sox will have to hope Schilling, armed with a bionic shoe cobbled together from space age magnets, loose change, and Alan Embree's spent slug of chaw, can find the peace of body and mind to be something like his old self. Failing that, they will have to hope Jon Lieber can summon the decency to be something like his old self. That little Greg Maddux impression in Game 2 was a real hoot, Jon, but it'd be just swell if you could go back to getting cuffed around a bit like we know you can. Everyone's counting on you.

Another fortuitous rainout beckons as the teams head down I-95. It's hard to say whom this would benefit more, as both bullpens are utterly spent. As are, for that matter, the catchers. Would it surprise anyone if both clubs petitioned the league office to allow Varitek and Posada to catch while sitting on a small stool? If there must be a winner in this still hypothetical coin flip, it would probably be the Sox on account of the extra day of rest for Schilling and the extra day of R&D for their super double secret crack team of medical engineers. Either way, Game 6 has the makings of a dandy, and that's exactly how far in the future we all should be looking at this juncture. The thrill is on.

Uno mas!

The Ultimate Latin Lover

2004-10-18T00:21:00.000-07:00

I am a star. I'm a star, I'm a star, I'm a star. I am a big, bright, shining star.
-- Dirk Diggler, "Boogie Nights," 1997.

The human brain is an amazing organ. In the time it takes a baseball to travel the 360 or so feet from home plate to the visitors' bullpen at Fenway Park, one's mind can leap from nervous exhaustion all the way across the spectrum to ecstatic exhaustion. The mulling over of potential free agent replacements for Pedro Martinez transforms into pensive anticipation of another start for the greatest pitcher of his generation, as was (ahem) hoped for in this space not long ago. If the mind is impressionable enough, it might even be able to briefly repress the memory of Orlando Cabrera's times at bat. Honestly, at least Pokey will take a pitch on occasion.

These are dangerous times now. Hope has returned, practically beating down the door after spending a weekend sleeping in the gutter. Hope wants back in to this party, and someone is going to crack and sneak it in through the garage. The only excuse for such naivete', really, is that circumstances could scarcely have seemed more hopeless. If the mood of Red Sox fandom is a continuum, perhaps abject despair is not so far from exhilaration. Perhaps the challenge is merely to stay on the loop until the track comes around again. Back there, the Sox were down 3-0 and had just received the thrashing of a lifetime. At the next stop on the line, David Ortiz has again touched off bedlam in Boston with a meteor into the bullpen.

A few moments ago certain fan's optimistic girlfriend started a candle burning on the mantle next to a snapshot of Pedro having a catch on the rightfield lawn at Fenway in the long afternoon light of September. It would seem a shame to blow it out over a concern so trivial as the house burning down while she sleeps.

Uno mas!

I'll remember Pedro

2004-10-13T23:12:00.000-07:00

I'll be content you loved me once in April.
Your lips were warm and love and spring were new.
I'm not afraid of autumn and her sorrow,
for I'll remember April and you.
-- Don Raye, Gene DePaul, & Pat Johnson, "I'll Remember April," 1956.

It should have been enough. Pedro Martinez stepped in and out of the Wayback Machine on Wednesday night, able to summon convincing replicas of the tools of years past for the second straight start. Perhaps still unfamiliar with having such power at his disposal, he was unable to maintain the consistency of command formerly the hallmark of his dominance. Pedro scattered postcards from his former self across six strong innings that were everything his team could reasonably have asked of him but, in the end, less than it truly needed from him. It should have been enough.

Overlooked in all the hubub was the possibility that this could have been Pedro's last start in a Boston uniform. With his free agency now approaching more rapidly than all save those wearing pinstripes would prefer, it comes as something of a shock to consider that this may have been it. If advancing to the World Series for the first time in 18 years were somehow lacking as a motivational goal, among the more compelling rooting interests for what remains of this ALCS should be one more shot for Pedro.

The chances that these tattered Sox may yet repel the Yankee tide appear remote, but as the series turns to Fenway, to hold fast there and return the ball once more to Pedro's squiddy mitts would be a noble achievement. For every time he toes the rubber, there is the possibility that he will recall something more of how to focus the dazzling stuff he has siphoned from the reserve tank. It gives us hope to think that he may once more scale the hill in enemy territory and not flinch as the taunts roll off his back and his wicked barbs dart towards the plate.

Uno mas for Pedro! Uno mas for us!

October is the cruellest month

2004-10-12T23:42:00.000-07:00

And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
-- T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, 1922.

As Curt Schilling tentatively labored through three dreadful innings in Game 1 of this ALCS, the epitaph for the 2004 Red Sox may very well have been written. An in-game autopsy of Schilling's outing revealed that he brought to the mound with him little else than a handful of dust; splitters with no bite and a fastball that limped plateward as slowly as 87 mph at times. The Yankees were suitably underwhelmed and methodically went about the business of piling six earned runs atop the fallen figure of one of the most successful postseason pitchers of the modern era.

Expectations may cloud an honest assessment of the wreckage, but it certainly appeared clear that Schilling was more than simply off his game. He did not pitch like a man without his best stuff. He pitched, and sat despondant in the dugout, like a man who could not unlock his best stuff. He reacted not angrily, but helplessly. His face showed the frustration of seeing himself going full bore on the other side of the looking glass and being unable to reach through and retrieve that mantel of his own command. It hurts to lose a baseball game. It hurts far more to lose the cooperation of one's own anatomy.

The offense mounted a stirring charge as, once more, the curtain came up early for Mike Mussina. Perfection melted away from the Yankees' starter, and the Sox, on the strength of another jumpstart home run from Jason Varitek, mustered five runs to make a game of it. Were it not for Terry Francona's curious preoccupation with employing the services of nearly every available pitcher in his arsenal, including giving the Yankees a look at likely Game 4 starter Tim Wakefield free of charge, Varitek's momentous shot would have pulled the visitors within a single run.

Though early reports have been diplomatic about the impact of Schilling's balky ankle, Sox fans may be permitted more than a bit of trepidation concerning the health of the first half of their pair of aces. Pedro Martinez, he of the uncertain padre, will hit the hill for Game 2 seeking to answer questions regarding his parentage and allay a jittery Boston fan base. Will his be the roots that clutch, the branches that grow from the stony rubbish of Game 1? The challenge lying at Pedro's feet is to provide a reason to forget about mourning the shadow of Curt Schilling and to glare unfazed as the lights come up in the Bronx and another October evening rises to meet him.