2011-2012 MLB Off-Season Thread

[Beef]

Ehe rally beer

[Party]

Idk, if I made millions of dollars every year and my boss gave me $300 headphones as a gift for some temporary inconvenience I'd see it as the equivalent of getting a $5 gift card to Olive Garden.
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Lol my favorite name for the rotation on SoSH is Kentucky Fried Pitchers.

[THE_REAL_MIBS]

BOSTON -- Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who played a behind-the-scenes role in the hiring of Terry Francona as Red Sox manager after starring for him in Philadelphia, came to the defense of his former manager Wednesday night, calling reports of Francona’s marital problems and use of pain medication “character assassination of the worst kind.’’

Schilling also said that the team’s dysfunction at the end of the season, the unseemly details of the team’s behavior, and the handling of Francona’s departure means that the Red Sox “have lost any goodwill they had.’’

He said, “I don’t think John Lackey can ever put that uniform on again” and predicted “there will be some guys who will walk on that field on Opening Day next year and get booed louder than any New York Yankee who ever set foot [on the field].’’

Schilling, an ESPN contributor, said Wednesday night on “Baseball Tonight” that the allegations in a Boston Globe story implying Francona may have been abusing his pain medication could “only come from a couple of people in the organization: the trainer, the team doctor or the executive team there.

“That’s the distressing part. There are a lot of things to think about now. If I’m a free agent, why would I go to that organization. At the end of the day, I think they betrayed a lot of people in Red Sox Nation.’’

Schilling charged that the unnamed team sources in the Globe article detailing the team’s issues, especially Francona’s, were the team’s owners -- John W. Henry, Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino -- though he did not single them out by name.

“It starts at the top," Schilling said. "These are some bad people. This guy (Francona) gives everything he could give. They spent nine or 10 years building this into a model franchise, so to speak, and I think they destroyed it in a matter of …"

Later, in the interview conducted by Baseball Tonight’s Steve Berthiaume, Schilling said: “Again, the information coming out in this article couldn’t have come from other people. It could have been sourced through other people, but it had to start at the top.

“You remember Tito’s press conference, when Larry Lucchino and Tom Werner were talking to Theo about the [Carl] Crawford signing and said all our free agents are a collective effort. Then the comments in this article were that Theo did his own thing here and had to convince the owners. This was them preparing the road for the exits. A very low-class, horrible thing to do.’’

Schilling did not dispute the team’s right to make a managerial change or that a change might have been in order.

“The fans were ready for a change,’’ he said. “As hard as it is to say, I’m a big Terry Francona fan, [but] he’s made mistakes. Some of the biggest fights in my career were with Terry. He’s not a perfect manager. There are better managers on the field, tacticians, in the clubhouse. The whole-packagewise, I think he was one of the best.

“But this guy gave everything. He walked away and took the high road. He had multiple opportunities on multiple outlets to throw people under the bus and never did. In my mind, it was over. He’s gone. They took this opportunity to character-assassinate this guy, and I think that’s just, I don’t think the fans in Red Sox Nation want the game played that way.’’

Regarding some of the details of player conduct in the clubhouse, Schilling said he didn’t “disbelieve” the reports. “I’ve been in a big-league clubhouse for 20 years. That’s the kind of stuff that happens,’’ he said.

When asked if the manager bears responsibility, he said: “I think he made it very clear he tried to make it right. Multiple times he tried to get to his players. You try to do that first through your players. There certainly was not a presence in that clubhouse to take control of the situation. It wasn’t David Ortiz. It wasn’t Jason Varitek. It wasn’t Tim Wakefield. It’s not Dustin Pedroia; the guy’s on the field, playing. And I don’t think that personally existed in that clubhouse.

“I think the guys were complementary guys around a Mike Lowell-type of a leader, but that leadership guy didn’t exist here. That kind of stuff, it happens all the time. I don’t want to say the beer, chicken and video games, but guys would be in the clubhouse. They’d have a bite to eat, whatever their schedule is. But for it to have become a centerpiece of attention means it was happening far more often and by far more people than anybody witnessing was used to or comfortable with.’’

Schilling said he believes the collapse contributed to Epstein’s reported decision to leave for the Chicago Cubs.

“Why would he want to go back there?’’ he said. “I think we all know now what Terry was saying when he said I don’t feel like I had the front office’s backing. I think it was very clear why. And for the ownership to follow up that interview by saying I was kind of caught off-guard by the fact that he said that was disingenuous at best.’’

Schilling said he was disappointed that none of the players singled out in the reports -- Josh Beckett, Lackey, Jon Lester -- have responded publicly to any of the allegations.

“I think Josh, if he doesn’t find a way to make things right, I think fans are going to be pretty upset with everything that’s come out in this article. And that’s the biggest thing for me.

"If my name is in that article, my press conference starts five seconds after that’s over. That’s a lie, and I’m calling everybody out that said something.

“I’ve heard nothing from the players. Nobody saying that never happened, I never did that. That to me is horrifying, because I saw Jon Lester go through a lot as a young player and battle his butt off to get to where he is and I want to attribute that September to he struggled. He just struggled. I hope that is the reason. But this article leads you to believe very differently.’’

Schilling accuses Sox owners of 'character assassination'

[Ramp]

I do not care for Curt Schilling

[Branch]

Keith Olbermann agrees with Curt Schilling, sort of.

The Curse Of The Lucchino

On Friday afternoon, September 30th, less than an hour after Terry Francona – the only man to manage the Boston Red Sox to a World’s Championship in the last 93 years – announced more in sorrow than in anger that he would not be returning to the job next season, a trusted baseball friend told me “now a lot of crap about Tito is going to come out.”

This morning - just as the architect of the Red Sox dynasty of the last decade, General Manager Theo Epstein, was finalizing his own departure to take over the Chicago Cubs – my baseball friend’s prediction came true. The Boston Globe has printed a remarkable hatchet job on Francona, and to a lesser degree Epstein, cobbled together from a series of anonymous sources that appear to mainline directly back to Red Sox ownership.

Francona and Epstein were not merely scapegoated in the story. The newspaper essentially printed an ownership implication that Francona had a prescription drug problem, that he was distracted by worry over the safety of his son and son-in-law, serving overseas, and that he lost focus because of marital problems. With the caveat that I consider both Francona and Epstein friends – and my assurance that neither has been a source for what I write here – the story is one of the more remarkable smear campaigns in baseball (or business) history. And it merits explanation and exposure.

There is blame for everybody in that article except the stadium P-A announcer, two or three hot dog vendors – and the Red Sox owners, John Henry, Larry Lucchino, and Tom Werner. Incredibly, the Globe writes, as if this is the way brands with hundreds of millions of dollars operate:

“The owners also indicated in postseason remarks they were generally unaware of how deeply damaged the Sox had become until after the season. They denied being distracted by their expanding sports conglomerate…”

In a 2500-word article implying incompetence by the General Manager, inattention – possibly caused by inappropriate drug use – by the Manager, that’s all the criticism owners Henry, Lucchino, and Werner, get; even when they admit, in the article that “they were generally unaware of how deeply damaged the Sox had become until after the season” — even when other baseball people were talking about that damage in early September. If you ever need to de-construct a newspaper story based on anonymous sources – especially one printed in one of the so-called “more respectable” papers – all you need to know is who the writer savages and who he lets get away with it. Follow the blame. Whoever doesn’t get it, is probably the source.

“In the ugly aftermath the Sox owners privately vowed to correct any lingering problems.”

The Sox owners are the sources. And if their childishly simple promise is to be fulfilled, the first thing Henry, Lucchino, and Werner need to do is find out which of them, or which of their minions, was so ethically bankrupt as to trash the men who made the team’s success possible, as they went out the door. They need to know which of them decided to scapegoat a universally-respected baseball man like Francona by dragging in his marriage, his health, and the fact that he himself volunteered to double-check his own use of pain medication with the team doctor to make sure it wasn’t excessive.

Incidentally, if a ballplayer was in such pain from 30-year old knee problems that he had to have blood drained from one of them hours before a game, on the road, by the visiting team’s doctor, **in** the stadium, and he still played that night with only mild medication, the owners wouldn’t imply he was abusing painkillers – they’d deify him. They did so when a pitcher named Curt Schilling pitched a World Series game in 2004 even though blood was supposedly leaking from surgery on a tendon sheath in his right ankle. He’s a legend. But Francona’s option wasn’t picked up and he was portrayed as having a problem.

Yet there was one more detail about Francona, revealed to the newspaper, that elevates this particular hatchet job to the level of making one hope it is another 93 years before Boston wins, that they go from the overwrought “Curse Of The Bambino” to “The Curse Of The Lucchino.”

“While Francona coped with his marital and health issues, he also worried privately about the safety of his son, Nick, and son-in-law, Michael Rice, both of whom are Marine officers serving in Afghanistan.”

To drag into this, the service to this country of Francona’s son, and son-in-law, is not only beyond any pale. It isn’t even new. They didn’t just get there this year. But publicizing where they are is something Francona has asked even his friends not to do. It actually might materially affect their safety.

But a large corporation, needing to scapegoat the departing geniuses whom they will replace with malleable mediocrities, doesn’t give a damn about anybody but the three clowns at the top, who have mistaken the success and effort of others, for something they somehow created. Not even the one thing those owners did bring to the equation – cash for a large payroll – earns them any credit. The principal owners of the Red Sox only became such, via a sweetheart deal engineered by the Commissioner of Baseball a decade ago. They have been playing with house money ever since.

And they have now shown themselves to be truly good at only one thing: blaming others.

In short, the wrong executives are leaving Boston.

UPDATE: I left out another relevant morsel in this unpleasantness. The Boston Globe is still owned by The New York Times. And The New York Times still owns 16.6 percent of New England Sports Ventures. And New England Sports Ventures still owns the Red Sox, Fenway Park, and much of NESN, among other stuff.

http://keitholbermann.mlblogs.com/20...-the-lucchino/
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I wouldn't mind him being right about the Curse of the Lucchino thing. Fuck 'em. Gimme the Pats and Celtics and the Red Sox can shove it, I'll root for somebody else.

[Metes]

Does anybody outside of New England really give a shit about this soap opera?

[Ramp]

I'm sure Yankees fans in New York are enjoying this, even though it's much ado about nothing

[Metes]

I'm sure for Yankee fans it is like a midsummer night's dream

[DColts]

I'm enjoying the talk radio up here.

[Fritz]

I think the Yankees fans are enjoying it.

[THE_REAL_MIBS]

Everybody loves dirty laundry. That's how the tabloids stay profitable even though 99% of what they print is bull shit.

[Ramp]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...op-player.html

apparently all of John Henry's owned teams have a player that drinks a bit much

(Andy Carroll of Liverpool)

[Branch]

That's a silly thing to point out. Lots of people are alcoholics, I bet most professional sports teams have at least one alcoholic. Granted, it is probably less common that the alcoholic is also the (supposed) star player, but I'd bet that isn't too uncommon either.

[Ramp]

said tongue-in-cheek
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and as an Everton fan

[MiamiHomer]

John Henry now comes out and says he was against signing Carl Crawford.