Originally published September 17, 1989, by Mike Barnicle for The Boston Globe
It’s Sunday and I’m trying to be charitable but it’s awfully difficult because the Red Sox are still around like Uncle Harold, the cranky knowitall who never knew when to go home. I hate to say it, but I’m sick of them. I love baseball, but I truly dislike this 1989 edition of whining malcontents who effectively stole my summer.
Actually, the larceny began in the spring when I discovered that Roger Clemens had a bolt in his head. This happened when PeaBrain hinted he might have to settle any beefs with boo birds, sportswriters, real estate agents, carhops, carpet salesmen or anyone else around here cowboy style.
Of course, his catcher, Richie Gedman, jumped in and said the fans were ingrates. This was an odd statement coming from a guy who can’t hit his hat size, never mind his own weight.
Poor Richie. He seems like a sincere kid. He’s on a major league roster and sucks down a million bucks a year despite the fact that when he’s up bat in hand, flailing away he makes you wonder about his eyesight. You’d think he’d be smart enough to shut up.
Then we had Jim Rice’s elbow. He’s had more bone chips than Tammy Faye has had facelifts. Who do you figure performed the surgery on Rice? The guy in the ad who says, “I’m not a doctor. I just play one on TV.”? Clearly, the medical mumbo jumbo hasn’t affected Rice’s appetite because this morning he looks like the black Raymond Burr. Ironsides as DH.
Next came the sorrowful mystery of Ed Romero, followed by Joe “Turn the other cheek” Price. When the manager had the gall to question the pitcher’s inability to hold a runner on any base, the lefthander told the man to go frost himself and told the press he exploded because Morgan had popped the question at an inopportune time. Beautiful. Try that one on your boss next time you screw up an assignment.
Finally, a couple of days ago, Morgan, a nice guy who is still a minorleague manager, said the club might be only one or two guys away from being able to turn things around. I’ve thought a lot about that statement and he might be right if the two guys were Jim Jones and Joe Francis.
Jones had the Kool Aid concession at Jonestown a few years back. And Francis was an executioner at the old Charlestown State Prison.
The Reverend Jim and a stack of Dixie cups sure would clear out some of the deadwood. That plus old Joe Francis, hand right on the switch, and you’d have the ultimate waiver wire.
Unfortunately, it’s the fans who are currently getting zapped at Fenway. The ballclub has a builtin incentive not to change things too quickly, if at all.
You see, the park is actually a cash register. They can sell turkeys all year round, not just on Thanksgiving. They sell out early. They pack them in throughout the summer and don’t have to depend on the heat of a pennant race or the personality of a legitimate star, a drawingcard, to put fannies in the seats.
So the Red Sox are never forced to get tough, make trades, cut players or, when you get right down to it, compete in order to succeed. The bottom line in pro sports is financial success, not first place. This is a bank before it is a ballclub. They are winners before the first pitch or verbal assault is thrown. Management can tolerate nitwits because the faithful accept losers.
Yet, certainly, this assembly of sullen solo acts cannot be called a team. That implies unity and there is none here, only a meanness of spirit that lingers in the hazy air.
Friday night, sap that I am, I sat at the ballpark and was struck by the fact that a majority of Red Sox players had faces that looked as if they had been soaked in cement. They resembled a pack of surly, spoiled teenagers, mad at the old man for not allowing them to have the car that evening.
My friends, the problem is not a lack of talent. It’s simply a lack of heart, desire, spine, spunk, soul, whatever. This club is not a collection of majorleaguers. It’s merely a group of selfish, disagreeable, unattractive, unappealing little boys who have jobs paying big dough and bosses who allow them to take the months of July, August and September off. Why, Hemingway once wrote a book about the pitching staff. It was called “A Farewell to Arms.”
And the clubhouse might as well be a daycare center called FenwayRUs because the players, not all of them but more than should be allowed, act like they have chronic diaper rash. They’re good at whining, complaining, making excuses, pointing fingers at others and picking up their paychecks.
But they’re unable to act or play at a professional level. Like I said, I love the game of baseball but I hate the games this particular crew plays.
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