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Note to the Boston media:
SHUT UP!
All of you, would you just shut your collective pie holes? Light your keyboards on fire. Turn the microphones off. Crawl under a rock. Just go away! If and when we allow you to return, just give us the box scores, and a handful of quotes about taking it "one game at a time."
|  | | The new ownership is thought to favor renovating Fenway. |
Have you read the Boston papers today?
Don't.
I swear, it'll make you throw up in your mouth. The herd mentality is alive and well. I thought opinions were supposed to be like rear ends -- you know, everybody's got one, and they all stink. We're not all supposed to have the same one. Isn't there one member of the Boston media who is willing to stand on his own? Do all of you have to share the same opinion about everything? Where is the Lone Wolf, howling out the truth in the wilderness?
Every story I read spewed more and more vitriole toward John Harrington -- calling him a puppet for Bud Selig ... saying that Selig wanted Tom Werner and John Henry, because they're part of the Old Boys Network (OBN) -- which must be a premium channel, because I can't find it on my cable. I figure the OBN is the counterpart for Lifetime -- the network for women.
The same words are jumping off every page: "rigged sale," "bag job," "the fix was in." Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy even quoted a Red Sox season-ticket holder saying: "This is the biggest New England bag job since Ali-Liston in Lewiston, Maine."
Apparently, the Boston media has its head so far up Joe O'Donnell and Steve Karp's you-know-what they're checking for polyps. These are local guys who love the Red Sox and would run the team with the passion of a die-hard fan. The media tells us O'Donnell and Karp were misled and ultimately screwed out of buying the team, so that Selig could get his guys in there.
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What matters to me is the cost of ticket prices and the quality of the team on the field. Period. I'm far more interested in Johnny Damon than I am in whether the Red Sox accepted one $700 million deal over another for reasons the media can't prove, but loves to speculate about. |
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First of all, why is a long-time love of the Red Sox a good thing? If I'm not mistaken -- and I'm not -- Tom and Jean Yawkey loved the Red Sox. At Christmas, John Harrington probably hangs red socks from his chimney with care. What did love ever do ... except break our hearts?
Besides, I'm sure the new owners can learn to love their new $700 million investment. Do you think love is going to guarantee signing the right players, making the right trades, and hiring the right people? Love makes you do desperate things. The last thing we need is a new owner charged with stalking a prospective free agent.
Yes, your honor, that man keeps calling me even though I've told him I'm not interested in him. He's shown up at my house at odd hours of the night,
and he's starting to scare my children.
All right, I'm issuing a restraining order. You, Mr. Red Sox owner, are not to go within 2,000 miles of this free-agent slugger, and I'm ordering you
to stop giving him that "come-hither" look.
|  | | The impending deal with Johnny Damon should be more interesting to Red Sox fans than who owns the team. |
Secondly, who cares if the fix was in? As a long-time Red Sox fan myself, I couldn't care less if Bud Selig drove this sale. It doesn't matter to me if
outsiders are infiltrating the Hub. Hissy fits and backroom deals between this billionaire and that billionaire don't impact my life in any way. I'm
not feeling sorry for O'Donnell or Karp today, and the Boston media should stop feeling sorry for themselves.
Why the presumption of negativity? Why the mistrust of anyone whose fingers haven't chapped and blistered while shoveling out of a New England winter? To
quote Tim McGraw: "I don't know why you gotta be angry all the time?" Let's give peace of mind a chance. Let's give the new owners a chance.
Please, don't presume these new guys are going to treat the Red Sox like they treated the Padres and Marlins. Apples and oranges, people! The Red Sox are big market. Their payroll should continue to be in the top five, and with that, the team should remain competitive.
There's no discernible difference between the way the team would be run by one ownership group or another. They all want to win. They all would have tried really, really hard to win.
Who knows who the better choice was? Certainly not a bunch of sportswriters. And I include myself. I don't know who the better choice was, but I'm not
jumping to any negative, hateful and spiteful conclusions either.
What matters to me is the cost of ticket prices and the quality of the team on the field. Period. I'm far more interested in Johnny Damon than I am in
whether the Red Sox accepted one $700 million deal over another for reasons the media can't prove, but loves to speculate about.
I wish I was merely bored by what I read this morning, but I was angered instead -- angered that the Boston media did it again.
This could have been a bright, new day in Red Sox history. It could be a new beginning, the start of something big and wonderful. Granted, it might prove to be none of those things. But the collective rush to judgment that the glass is not only half-empty but that it has been sucked dry borders on the ridiculous and the stupid.
It's times like this that I'm grateful to be living far out of the range of Boston's version of sports talk radio. I'm guessing that today that would have made my ears bleed.
Bob Halloran is an anchorman for ESPNEWS.
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BEANTOWN BUMS |  |
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