Sunday, August 26, 2012
Luss. I Am At A Luss.
As Kim and I left the car wearing our various items of leopard-print clothing (our neighbor the burlesque dancer puts on a yearly Bettie Page tribute), we felt secure knowing the Red Sox had a 9-3 lead. When we got back to the car at 11:40, the first thing I heard was Castig's voice. I had DVR'd the game, so I quickly turned the volume down, but then I thought, "that didn't sound like highlights, that sounded like the game was still going on." Knowing I'd only recorded through to 11:00, I figured if the game was going on, and I don't listen, I'll get home, see the game to 11, then have the rest cut off. So I decided I had to turn the volume back up and just catch it live.
I turn it up, and Joe's in the middle of a call. Wow, this freakin' game is somehow still on at 11:40. Joe ends the call with a sad "and this one's over." Yup, we randomly got to the game to hear the final out, and the Royals had beaten the Red Sox in 12 innings, overcoming a 6-run deficit, the second one we've blown in three nights. Sigh.
And the deal is official. I guess my first thought is: How can a person be named Rubby? Anyway, the move was made for salary-dumping purposes, and you have to do that sometimes. Still, Gonzalez is a guy you build around when trying to improve, not a guy you get rid of. I just really hope we can sign Papi next year and Ellsbury the year after that, and that these Dodger dudes end up being what they could be. Or that we can use 'em as chips to get other awesome guys. I thought Loney was good but not this year I guess. He's the guy that hit the foul ball last year that hit me in the hand....
I'm still not listening to any Boston media, but I do "hear things," like what they say on NESN during games and in pre- and post-games, and on the radio broadcasts, and what I read on Joy of Sox. And I keep hearing these smug media guys thinking they know what fans want to hear by acting like the only players you want on your team are the ones who are nice to the media! O'Brien said tonight that the trade was "made largely..." (at this point I thought he was gonna say something about payroll) "...to change the culture and climate of the clubhouse." Did the team say this? And do I give a shit about what happens in the clubhouse or who's a "leader" (something the media decides on as if they could know)? How can the announcer tell the audience something that's his opinion as if it's fact? Tom Caron did the same thing the night before, while the rumors were flying, saying how Salty "gets it" because he "knows what the fans expect of him" based on the fact that he says the right things when asked questions of the media. The same media which has basically said the Red Sox fans, "you've always hated Adrian Gonzalez, and you're glad to have that cancer removed from the team." As those fuckers aren't just gonna lambaste whoever else comes to town and has the nerve to just want to play baseball and not have his personal life under a microscope.
Maybe I'm wrong about all of this. But fans want the team to win. In the end, it doesn't matter who was good in the clubhouse. So if the media wins and gets all the perfect media-friendly guys onto the team, and they don't win, everybody's still gonna be pissed. So what's the point? We need to put the media on waivers. Problem is, no city in its right mind would claim these assholes.
And I hear about Aceves, and I'm thinking What the fuck? But then it hits me: It's another case of the media spinning it how they want. Beckett was just finally officially run out of town with these guys all saying how he doesn't get it, how he clearly doesn't care, doesn't want to win, bla bla bla, and then Aceves goes berserk due to what? A desire to take the ball and pitch. And it's "this guy's on his way out of our new, how-the-media-wants-it, proper-attitude clubhouse because he's a bad seed." At least that's how O'Brien spun it. The guy should have controlled himself, and I'm assuming the suspension was because of his inability to do so, and I agree with that. But the message from the media to the players remains: "Whatever you do, we're gonna kill you for it. Even if it's the exact opposite of what we killed someone else for. We know the fans are pissed at the losing, and we can manipulate them into thinking that literally anything you do off the field is the cause of the losing." In a weird way I'm glad Beckett, Crawford, and Gonzalez got out. They get to just be baseball players again. And they were all really good ones, too, and could be again.
The media isn't going away. Yet. Not until we run them out of town. So once the clubhouse is "fixed," the next time the team of spotless angels has a losing streak, maybe people will join me in another anti-media day, because only then will they realize they were duped, that what a player does off the field has nothing to do with his talent level.
I turn it up, and Joe's in the middle of a call. Wow, this freakin' game is somehow still on at 11:40. Joe ends the call with a sad "and this one's over." Yup, we randomly got to the game to hear the final out, and the Royals had beaten the Red Sox in 12 innings, overcoming a 6-run deficit, the second one we've blown in three nights. Sigh.
And the deal is official. I guess my first thought is: How can a person be named Rubby? Anyway, the move was made for salary-dumping purposes, and you have to do that sometimes. Still, Gonzalez is a guy you build around when trying to improve, not a guy you get rid of. I just really hope we can sign Papi next year and Ellsbury the year after that, and that these Dodger dudes end up being what they could be. Or that we can use 'em as chips to get other awesome guys. I thought Loney was good but not this year I guess. He's the guy that hit the foul ball last year that hit me in the hand....
I'm still not listening to any Boston media, but I do "hear things," like what they say on NESN during games and in pre- and post-games, and on the radio broadcasts, and what I read on Joy of Sox. And I keep hearing these smug media guys thinking they know what fans want to hear by acting like the only players you want on your team are the ones who are nice to the media! O'Brien said tonight that the trade was "made largely..." (at this point I thought he was gonna say something about payroll) "...to change the culture and climate of the clubhouse." Did the team say this? And do I give a shit about what happens in the clubhouse or who's a "leader" (something the media decides on as if they could know)? How can the announcer tell the audience something that's his opinion as if it's fact? Tom Caron did the same thing the night before, while the rumors were flying, saying how Salty "gets it" because he "knows what the fans expect of him" based on the fact that he says the right things when asked questions of the media. The same media which has basically said the Red Sox fans, "you've always hated Adrian Gonzalez, and you're glad to have that cancer removed from the team." As those fuckers aren't just gonna lambaste whoever else comes to town and has the nerve to just want to play baseball and not have his personal life under a microscope.
Maybe I'm wrong about all of this. But fans want the team to win. In the end, it doesn't matter who was good in the clubhouse. So if the media wins and gets all the perfect media-friendly guys onto the team, and they don't win, everybody's still gonna be pissed. So what's the point? We need to put the media on waivers. Problem is, no city in its right mind would claim these assholes.
And I hear about Aceves, and I'm thinking What the fuck? But then it hits me: It's another case of the media spinning it how they want. Beckett was just finally officially run out of town with these guys all saying how he doesn't get it, how he clearly doesn't care, doesn't want to win, bla bla bla, and then Aceves goes berserk due to what? A desire to take the ball and pitch. And it's "this guy's on his way out of our new, how-the-media-wants-it, proper-attitude clubhouse because he's a bad seed." At least that's how O'Brien spun it. The guy should have controlled himself, and I'm assuming the suspension was because of his inability to do so, and I agree with that. But the message from the media to the players remains: "Whatever you do, we're gonna kill you for it. Even if it's the exact opposite of what we killed someone else for. We know the fans are pissed at the losing, and we can manipulate them into thinking that literally anything you do off the field is the cause of the losing." In a weird way I'm glad Beckett, Crawford, and Gonzalez got out. They get to just be baseball players again. And they were all really good ones, too, and could be again.
The media isn't going away. Yet. Not until we run them out of town. So once the clubhouse is "fixed," the next time the team of spotless angels has a losing streak, maybe people will join me in another anti-media day, because only then will they realize they were duped, that what a player does off the field has nothing to do with his talent level.
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DVR news: I noticed there IS a thing when you go to record something called "extend time." I have told you before my complaints about taping something that goes past its scheduled time. So there is a solution. Of course, you have to remember to do it, which I didn't tonight, doing the old way of recording the 10 and the 10:30 show. Turns out I would have had to tape 2 more shows to get the whole game recorded.
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