when a team betrays you...
Everyone else has talked about why they're a fan of whichever team they root for. I never really did.
I've been a fan of the Boston Red Sox since before I can even remember. My parents dressed me in mini-uniform t-shirts and Sox snugglies before I could even walk. I watched every minute of the 1986 World Series, even though I don't remember any of it. At two, I learned to read by looking at TV Guide, newspaper circulars, and the box scores in the Herald. A love of Red Sox baseball was ingrained in me at a very early age through the two diehard fans I call my parents, and there's never been a moment during which I doubted that inimical faith.
But.
I love Fenway Park, but I love anything with basepaths and foul territory and 60 feet, 6 inches between the mound and home plate. I love white uniforms and hooked red lettering, but I love the smack of a snagged line drive even more. I'm a Red Sox fan second and a baseball fan first.
And as much as I love the Red Sox, that faith's been shaken. At 5:15 p.m. today, I was sitting in a cramped little conference room in Boston University's English Department, waiting for my creative writing class to start, when my professor said to the class, "Did you read the paper this morning? Not true. He's not going to sign."
And since that professor is a man named Leslie Epstein, it carried a little more weight than usual.
Theo Epstein steps down as general manager.
Deal didn't get done. Theo walked away from $1.5m per. Why? Well, if you read SoSH, it's because Larry Lucchino is Steinbrenner Incarnate. If you're a devotee of the Boston Globe's least-respected columnist, it's because Theo's a greedy kid. If you're me, you're not quite sure, but God damn, are you ever pissed off.
The Nomar trade upset me to the point of tears -- strictly an emotional reaction. Nomar Garciaparra was my favorite player, but I eventually understood that it was done for the good of the team. And it paid off. But this? No. This isn't just me being emotional. This is me being angry. Angry to the point where I can't scream, can't curse, can't even cry. So angry that I can't concentrate on anything else. This, kids, is the boiling point.
I'm angry because I feel betrayed. Not by the former general manager, but by an ownership troika that pays lip service to the idea of putting the best team on the field while concentrating all their efforts on profit. Letting Theo Epstein go is the dumbest thing I've seen happen in the nearly twenty years I've been following Boston baseball. This surpasses letting Clemens go. This surpasses letting Pedro go. This laughs in the face of every stupid free agent signing of the last two decades.
Some people will say that they didn't offer him enough money. That's bullshit. Some people will say that he wanted more power, like Billy Beane. That's not true, either. Some people will say that he doesn't like living in a fishbowl. True enough, but is that enough to drag you away from your dream job, especially when you'll be living on Easy Street, financially? I call bluff here, and I'll tip my hand in terms of my personal opinion -- this is about working under Larry Lucchino, Steinbrenner du Nord. I don't think this is about money or power or the Boston atmosphere -- this is about a general manager who wants to put the best possible product on the field, and a CEO worried that the best product might not be the most profitable one.
Earlier, I spoke about how Theo isn't necessarily the best GM in baseball, but how he has the potential to be. And I stick to that. As much as it pains me to say it, Theo Epstein is a replaceable commodity.
But.
With whom will he be replaced? Paul DePodesta? I like DePo, but if he couldn't deal with ownership and the media in L.A., he's not going to hack it here. Josh Byrnes? Whoops, they let him run off to Arizona. Brian Sabean? Yeah, I'd love to see an outfield full of exhumed corpses and a starting rotation of Civil War vets. Pat Gillick? No, please. Chuck LaMar? Sure, I've been dying to see what the cellar of the AL East looks like. Larry Lucchino? Why not? Seems like he wants all that power anyway.
Theo Epstein is theoretically replaceable, but in reality? Who the hell are they going to find that can do the same job? If someone who grew up rooting for the Red Sox will turn down $1.5m a year because of the conditions under which the job exists, who the hell do they think they're going to get to replace him? Speculation says that half the Sox FO will be heading to Arizona along with Byrnes, and I don't blame them one bit.
The Red Sox have the loyalty of generations of New Englanders. But does the organization care about the fans? It was easy, during the 2004 honeymoon, to think that they cared about nothing else. But by driving away one of the brightest people working in the game today, the owners of the Boston Red Sox have shown their cards -- damn the talent, damn sabermetrics, damn a general manager who brought us a championship for the first time since the Wilson administration. It's a public relations disaster, but who cares? It's all about the Benjamins, baby.
And that makes me sick. People say that Boston fans aren't happy unless we have something to bitch about, but do these people ever think that the reason we bitch so much is because of how much bad shit there's always been? That my grandparents complained about the Sox because underneath, Tom Yawkey was too racist to sign Jackie Robinson or Willie Mays? That my parents complained about the Red Sox because between pennants, the ownership's cronyism destroyed all chances of winning? That as a kid, I complained because the team's vast pool of resources was constantly mismanaged and ill-spent, and that as a college student, I now complain because the current group's focus is on turning profits instead of double plays?
I bitch because I care about the Red Sox more than I care about almost anything else, but do I really have a solid reason for caring so much?
My family and my friends always ask me questions about the business of baseball, like I'm some sort of sabermetric Svengali when all I really do is obsess over a game that's too misogynistic and too conservative to ever let someone like myself -- a socialist-style girl who hasn't tied on spikes since the ninth grade -- attain any measure of power. But it's fun to speculate. When a major deal goes down, I always think about whether or not I'd want to be in the GM's shoes. And there's never been a situation that's ever made me think otherwise. The idea of making trades and structuring contracts never lost its intrigue.
When I got home from class, and after I ate half the kitchen along with my feelings, Beth asked me, "If someone said they'd pay you that much money to be the general manager of the Red Sox, right now, would you take it?"
And for the first time, I hesitated.
I'll always love baseball. I believe in baseball like better people believe in God. But will I always love the Red Sox?
After today, I'm not so sure.
I've been a fan of the Boston Red Sox since before I can even remember. My parents dressed me in mini-uniform t-shirts and Sox snugglies before I could even walk. I watched every minute of the 1986 World Series, even though I don't remember any of it. At two, I learned to read by looking at TV Guide, newspaper circulars, and the box scores in the Herald. A love of Red Sox baseball was ingrained in me at a very early age through the two diehard fans I call my parents, and there's never been a moment during which I doubted that inimical faith.
But.
I love Fenway Park, but I love anything with basepaths and foul territory and 60 feet, 6 inches between the mound and home plate. I love white uniforms and hooked red lettering, but I love the smack of a snagged line drive even more. I'm a Red Sox fan second and a baseball fan first.
And as much as I love the Red Sox, that faith's been shaken. At 5:15 p.m. today, I was sitting in a cramped little conference room in Boston University's English Department, waiting for my creative writing class to start, when my professor said to the class, "Did you read the paper this morning? Not true. He's not going to sign."
And since that professor is a man named Leslie Epstein, it carried a little more weight than usual.
Theo Epstein steps down as general manager.
Deal didn't get done. Theo walked away from $1.5m per. Why? Well, if you read SoSH, it's because Larry Lucchino is Steinbrenner Incarnate. If you're a devotee of the Boston Globe's least-respected columnist, it's because Theo's a greedy kid. If you're me, you're not quite sure, but God damn, are you ever pissed off.
The Nomar trade upset me to the point of tears -- strictly an emotional reaction. Nomar Garciaparra was my favorite player, but I eventually understood that it was done for the good of the team. And it paid off. But this? No. This isn't just me being emotional. This is me being angry. Angry to the point where I can't scream, can't curse, can't even cry. So angry that I can't concentrate on anything else. This, kids, is the boiling point.
I'm angry because I feel betrayed. Not by the former general manager, but by an ownership troika that pays lip service to the idea of putting the best team on the field while concentrating all their efforts on profit. Letting Theo Epstein go is the dumbest thing I've seen happen in the nearly twenty years I've been following Boston baseball. This surpasses letting Clemens go. This surpasses letting Pedro go. This laughs in the face of every stupid free agent signing of the last two decades.
Some people will say that they didn't offer him enough money. That's bullshit. Some people will say that he wanted more power, like Billy Beane. That's not true, either. Some people will say that he doesn't like living in a fishbowl. True enough, but is that enough to drag you away from your dream job, especially when you'll be living on Easy Street, financially? I call bluff here, and I'll tip my hand in terms of my personal opinion -- this is about working under Larry Lucchino, Steinbrenner du Nord. I don't think this is about money or power or the Boston atmosphere -- this is about a general manager who wants to put the best possible product on the field, and a CEO worried that the best product might not be the most profitable one.
Earlier, I spoke about how Theo isn't necessarily the best GM in baseball, but how he has the potential to be. And I stick to that. As much as it pains me to say it, Theo Epstein is a replaceable commodity.
But.
With whom will he be replaced? Paul DePodesta? I like DePo, but if he couldn't deal with ownership and the media in L.A., he's not going to hack it here. Josh Byrnes? Whoops, they let him run off to Arizona. Brian Sabean? Yeah, I'd love to see an outfield full of exhumed corpses and a starting rotation of Civil War vets. Pat Gillick? No, please. Chuck LaMar? Sure, I've been dying to see what the cellar of the AL East looks like. Larry Lucchino? Why not? Seems like he wants all that power anyway.
Theo Epstein is theoretically replaceable, but in reality? Who the hell are they going to find that can do the same job? If someone who grew up rooting for the Red Sox will turn down $1.5m a year because of the conditions under which the job exists, who the hell do they think they're going to get to replace him? Speculation says that half the Sox FO will be heading to Arizona along with Byrnes, and I don't blame them one bit.
The Red Sox have the loyalty of generations of New Englanders. But does the organization care about the fans? It was easy, during the 2004 honeymoon, to think that they cared about nothing else. But by driving away one of the brightest people working in the game today, the owners of the Boston Red Sox have shown their cards -- damn the talent, damn sabermetrics, damn a general manager who brought us a championship for the first time since the Wilson administration. It's a public relations disaster, but who cares? It's all about the Benjamins, baby.
And that makes me sick. People say that Boston fans aren't happy unless we have something to bitch about, but do these people ever think that the reason we bitch so much is because of how much bad shit there's always been? That my grandparents complained about the Sox because underneath, Tom Yawkey was too racist to sign Jackie Robinson or Willie Mays? That my parents complained about the Red Sox because between pennants, the ownership's cronyism destroyed all chances of winning? That as a kid, I complained because the team's vast pool of resources was constantly mismanaged and ill-spent, and that as a college student, I now complain because the current group's focus is on turning profits instead of double plays?
I bitch because I care about the Red Sox more than I care about almost anything else, but do I really have a solid reason for caring so much?
My family and my friends always ask me questions about the business of baseball, like I'm some sort of sabermetric Svengali when all I really do is obsess over a game that's too misogynistic and too conservative to ever let someone like myself -- a socialist-style girl who hasn't tied on spikes since the ninth grade -- attain any measure of power. But it's fun to speculate. When a major deal goes down, I always think about whether or not I'd want to be in the GM's shoes. And there's never been a situation that's ever made me think otherwise. The idea of making trades and structuring contracts never lost its intrigue.
When I got home from class, and after I ate half the kitchen along with my feelings, Beth asked me, "If someone said they'd pay you that much money to be the general manager of the Red Sox, right now, would you take it?"
And for the first time, I hesitated.
I'll always love baseball. I believe in baseball like better people believe in God. But will I always love the Red Sox?
After today, I'm not so sure.
posted by Suzie at 9:33 PM
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