Toeing the Rubber

Red Sox owners quietly honor Derek Lowe

Cyn — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:07:53 +0000

Yesterday I was complaining on Twitter that NESN was shoving Johnny Damon down our throats. During the week preceding the Cleveland Indians coming to Fenway, every commercial for the weekend series promoted “the return of Johnny Damon” and ever game in the four-game series brought clips of Damon as a Red Sox player and talk of how the fans treated him after he left Boston for the New York Yankees. My only complaint was that Derek Lowe didn’t get equal time. They certainly mentioned him on Thursday when he pitched against (and beat) Jon Lester and we got to see a clip of his no-hitter but we didn’t get saturated in Derek Lowe talk the way we did Johnny Damon talk and, as far as I’m concerned, Lowe was as important to 2004, if not more, than Johnny Damon. And, hell, he was with the team longer. Even so, I wasn’t as surprised as I should have been to read this morning that on Saturday the Red Sox owners gave Derek Lowe a World Series ring to replace the one that had been stolen from him. Said Lowe of Larry Lucchino, John Henry and Tom Werner: “You know me, I [...]

Now THIS is how you blow off the media

Cyn — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:08:03 +0000

Milwaukee Brewers closer John Axford had a sweet saves streak going, 49 consecutive saves to be exact, going into Friday’s game against the Chicago Cubs. While the Brewers ended up beating the Cubs in 13 innings, it happened at the expense of the streak, which ended when Axford gave up three runs in the ninth inning. After the five-hour game, there was no sign of Axford in the clubhouse. In Boston, this would cause days and days of character assassination pieces about how selfish Axford and how he’s a poor team leader…except Axford not only had a good excuse, he left the media a note and Brewers Media Relations Director Mike Vassallo posted it via Twitter: Axford himself tweeted yesterday that his wife (and the baby) are fine and that the doctors stopped the labor and their son is due on June 28th…so far a happy ending for all!

Where’s the Joey Votto love?

Cyn — Mon, 14 May 2012 06:03:13 +0000

In August of 2008, the father of a 24 year-old Major League Baseball player died four months into the player’s first full season in the bigs. MLB offers their players seven days of bereavement leave, which this player took and then he went back to his job in baseball. He ended up playing in 151 games in 2008. He had 156 hits, 24 of them home runs, with 84 RBI. His OBP was .368 and he slugged at .506. His average to end the season was .297. Again, all in his first full season in MLB the year that his 52 year-old father died suddenly. Since that time, he’s won a Gold Glove, been on two All Star teams and won the League MVP award. He’s also led the League twice in on-base percentage, once in walks, once in doubles and once in putouts. He’s an incredibly fun player to watch and one of the most popular on his team with the hometown fans. He’s so important to his team that this year he signed a 12-year deal worth $251.5 million. When the deal was made it was the second largest contract in MLB’s history (well, third really given contracts [...]

Icky girl ruins baseball for everyone

Cyn — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:22:00 +0000

Meet Paige Sultzbach. Because of her, high school baseball team Our Lady of Sorrows Academy in Phoenix, Arizona, didn’t play in the state championship game and her team, Mesa Preparatory Academy, won the championship by forfeit. Sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Who would want to lose the championship by forfeit? Our Lady of Sorrows Academy, apparently. Our Lady of Sorrows has a policy to teach male and female students separately and they believe a baseball team of boys playing against a team that has a girl on it would violate that policy. The other schools know about this policy and Ms. Sultzbach had previously sat out two games so they wouldn’t be forfeited by OLoS but this was THE game and she didn’t want to sit this one out. There are 11 players on Mesa Prep’s team. Sitting one out in the championship game would be ridiculous. And, really, why should any player sit out ANY game just because the opposing team doesn’t want to play against him or her? So the students at Our Lady of Sorrows and Mesa Preparatory Academy don’t get to play in a game they all earned the right to play in because some organizations can’t [...]

I grow weary

Cyn — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:35:54 +0000

To pretend things aren’t terrible now for the Red Sox and their fans is disingenuous. I know this. I know how genuinely awful things are right now. You don’t hear 20,000 people booing a guy who helped them win a World Series when things are going well. Last night was definitely a low point for the Red Sox and their fans. So why am I not among the teeth gnashers? Why did I wake up this morning excited that there’s a game tonight instead of dreading putting on NESN at 7pm? I’ve gone through too much in my life to be a glutton for punishment. As a matter of fact, I mentioned on Twitter that I’d probably be doing a massive dump of all the people I follow who insist on doing nothing but trashing the team (an unfollow list which, interestingly, will most likely include more sports writers than fans but last night the fans were giving the writers a run for their money) because I go to Twitter to be entertained (and get information) not to be annoyed by people. There is no doubt this team is annoying right now so why am I not writing them off [...]