Spring Break
Red Sox have themselves to blame for Rodriguez trade
4th And Long
Tom Holzerman
Issue date: 2/27/04 Section: Sports
- Page 1 of 1
Alex Rodriguez is now a New York Yankee if you've been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks. There are very many people you can blame for this.
One might be Aaron Boone for playing pickup basketball and tearing his ACL, thus necessitating the need for a third baseman for the Yanks. You could blame this on George Steinbrenner for being neurotic and compulsive. In reaction to the blasphemy that is three straight years without a title for the Yankees, he's assembled a team of all-stars, much like Mr. Burns did with his nuclear plant softball team so he could beat those pesky punks from Shelbyville.
You could also blame this on Tom Hicks, the owner of Rodriguez's former team, the Texas Rangers. He was the one who three years ago bested the highest offer to Rodriguez by over $50 million. That next highest offer also happened to be his own.
Then, after putting his team into financial shambles just to get one player, leaving no money to acquire decent pitching and sending the franchise to three straight appearances in the American League West basement, he went on a mad dash to get rid of Rodriguez.
The Yankees just happened to be the right team at the right time.
However, while a good amount of blame could be placed anywhere for this deal going down, I place the crux of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Boston Red Sox.
Normally, the Red Sox are a sympathetic case. They used to exemplify the term "lovable loser." They were the ultimate underdog, standing up to the Evil Empire of the Bronx and giving it all they had before ultimately bowing out. Even up until last year, they were a team worth rooting for.
Something changed over this off-season, though. The Red Sox went from lovable losers to Evil Empire Light. They forgot what had gotten them to where they are now - a lineup of solid role players who did their job anchored by their three big time stars in Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez and Nomar Garciaparra - and started playing the Yankees' game, but instead of playing it for the sake of getting the highest payroll possible, thinking that wins the World Series instead of the actual results on the field, they are playing it just to keep up with the Yankees. In turn, they have become the Yankees - only they aren't nearly as good as playing that role as their hated rivals to the south are.
Last season, the Red Sox had one of the larger payrolls in the league. That was mainly due to the giant contracts Martinez and Ramirez had signed. Most of their other players aside from Garciaparra were role players and bit pieces: Trot Nixon, Bill Mueller, David Ortiz, Tim Wakefield, Kevin Millar. These aren't the household names, but those players, who each had the season of their careers last year, helped the Sox score over 950 runs, capture the American League wild card and come within five outs of the World Series.
Why didn't they get those five outs though? It didn't have anything to do with their lineup. It was their manager, Grady Little, who didn't have the testicular fortitude to pull Martinez after it was clear he didn't have his best stuff anymore. That problem was rectified though; Little is no longer the manager.
Also in response, the Red Sox traded for Curt Schilling and signed Keith Foulke, who was a shutdown closer for the Oakland Athletics. They added improvement to the team, but was it really needed? While a better starting rotation could have helped the Red Sox win one of the three games they lost previous to that fateful game seven or while a better bullpen might have been able to close the sieve let open by Martinez, the Red Sox could have won the pennant without much tweaking.
If the Sox had stopped there, they still might have been able to pull off the underdog label without too much scrutiny; the Yankees still went out and outspent the Sox, but no, they couldn't stop there.
The Sox openly engaged in trade talks with the Rangers and the Chicago White Sox for a possible three-way deal that would have sent Ramirez and Garciaparra out of town and brought Rodriguez and Magglio Ordonez to Beantown.
Boston was abuzz over getting the man who could go down as the best shortstop ever to play. Fans were so batty that they were already buying their Rodriguez jerseys. Even Red Sox players were jumping the gun, saying how much they'd love to have Rodriguez on the team and how much of an upgrade he'd be over Nomar - while Nomar was still on the team.
Way to make a guy feel wanted.
The kicker is that this deal didn't go through because Red Sox management wanted the Rangers to pick up a larger tab of Rodriguez' mammoth deal than they were willing.
In essence, they wanted to get a player with a Yankee-sized salary without being totally willing to jump in the pool. Can you say the words "inferiority complex?" Even when the Red Sox wanted to jump in the big spenders' pool, they got cold feet, and why?
They wanted to keep playing that underdog card, they wanted to have someone else to blame other than themselves (in this case, Hicks for not caving to the Red Sox salary demands) when their deal to get A-Rod fell through, they kept wanting to play the victim.
Playing the victim only works when you are one. And now, Red Sox Nation wants the anti-Yankee portion of the country to feel sorry for them now that Rodriguez is in the Bronx. I see Ben Affleck on Sports Center talking about the Evil Empire striking again. Well, I have news for Affleck and the rest of Red Sox fans.
The Evil Empire only acts like this because they know it gets under their skins. The rivalry between the Yanks and Red Sox is considered to be baseball's best, but it is so lopsided that it's not even funny. Why should the Yankees and their fans even care about the Red Sox when the end result is always a New York-sized victory? It's simple.
The Yankees are like a mean-spirited class clown who verbally abuses certain kids because they can't come back with a witty comment to diffuse the insults or have the foresight to ignore him. There's a good chance that the Yankees just traded for Rodriguez to spite the Red Sox and to get under the skins of their fans. In that case, who can blame them? It seems like that's the only way they keep the rivalry interesting on their end. The only way for Red Sox fans to make that part go away is to stop being so bitter, but they're too stupid to realize that.
So at the end of the day, it's hard for me to feel sorry for a team that shot itself in the foot over foolish pride and an inferiority complex.
This baseball offseason has only made it easier to ignore their petty squabbling and concentrate on a division other than the AL East.
Tom Holzerman is a junior majoring in materials engineering. Tom knows a lot about an inferiority complex living in this perennial losing sports town.
One might be Aaron Boone for playing pickup basketball and tearing his ACL, thus necessitating the need for a third baseman for the Yanks. You could blame this on George Steinbrenner for being neurotic and compulsive. In reaction to the blasphemy that is three straight years without a title for the Yankees, he's assembled a team of all-stars, much like Mr. Burns did with his nuclear plant softball team so he could beat those pesky punks from Shelbyville.
You could also blame this on Tom Hicks, the owner of Rodriguez's former team, the Texas Rangers. He was the one who three years ago bested the highest offer to Rodriguez by over $50 million. That next highest offer also happened to be his own.
Then, after putting his team into financial shambles just to get one player, leaving no money to acquire decent pitching and sending the franchise to three straight appearances in the American League West basement, he went on a mad dash to get rid of Rodriguez.
The Yankees just happened to be the right team at the right time.
However, while a good amount of blame could be placed anywhere for this deal going down, I place the crux of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Boston Red Sox.
Normally, the Red Sox are a sympathetic case. They used to exemplify the term "lovable loser." They were the ultimate underdog, standing up to the Evil Empire of the Bronx and giving it all they had before ultimately bowing out. Even up until last year, they were a team worth rooting for.
Something changed over this off-season, though. The Red Sox went from lovable losers to Evil Empire Light. They forgot what had gotten them to where they are now - a lineup of solid role players who did their job anchored by their three big time stars in Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez and Nomar Garciaparra - and started playing the Yankees' game, but instead of playing it for the sake of getting the highest payroll possible, thinking that wins the World Series instead of the actual results on the field, they are playing it just to keep up with the Yankees. In turn, they have become the Yankees - only they aren't nearly as good as playing that role as their hated rivals to the south are.
Last season, the Red Sox had one of the larger payrolls in the league. That was mainly due to the giant contracts Martinez and Ramirez had signed. Most of their other players aside from Garciaparra were role players and bit pieces: Trot Nixon, Bill Mueller, David Ortiz, Tim Wakefield, Kevin Millar. These aren't the household names, but those players, who each had the season of their careers last year, helped the Sox score over 950 runs, capture the American League wild card and come within five outs of the World Series.
Why didn't they get those five outs though? It didn't have anything to do with their lineup. It was their manager, Grady Little, who didn't have the testicular fortitude to pull Martinez after it was clear he didn't have his best stuff anymore. That problem was rectified though; Little is no longer the manager.
Also in response, the Red Sox traded for Curt Schilling and signed Keith Foulke, who was a shutdown closer for the Oakland Athletics. They added improvement to the team, but was it really needed? While a better starting rotation could have helped the Red Sox win one of the three games they lost previous to that fateful game seven or while a better bullpen might have been able to close the sieve let open by Martinez, the Red Sox could have won the pennant without much tweaking.
If the Sox had stopped there, they still might have been able to pull off the underdog label without too much scrutiny; the Yankees still went out and outspent the Sox, but no, they couldn't stop there.
The Sox openly engaged in trade talks with the Rangers and the Chicago White Sox for a possible three-way deal that would have sent Ramirez and Garciaparra out of town and brought Rodriguez and Magglio Ordonez to Beantown.
Boston was abuzz over getting the man who could go down as the best shortstop ever to play. Fans were so batty that they were already buying their Rodriguez jerseys. Even Red Sox players were jumping the gun, saying how much they'd love to have Rodriguez on the team and how much of an upgrade he'd be over Nomar - while Nomar was still on the team.
Way to make a guy feel wanted.
The kicker is that this deal didn't go through because Red Sox management wanted the Rangers to pick up a larger tab of Rodriguez' mammoth deal than they were willing.
In essence, they wanted to get a player with a Yankee-sized salary without being totally willing to jump in the pool. Can you say the words "inferiority complex?" Even when the Red Sox wanted to jump in the big spenders' pool, they got cold feet, and why?
They wanted to keep playing that underdog card, they wanted to have someone else to blame other than themselves (in this case, Hicks for not caving to the Red Sox salary demands) when their deal to get A-Rod fell through, they kept wanting to play the victim.
Playing the victim only works when you are one. And now, Red Sox Nation wants the anti-Yankee portion of the country to feel sorry for them now that Rodriguez is in the Bronx. I see Ben Affleck on Sports Center talking about the Evil Empire striking again. Well, I have news for Affleck and the rest of Red Sox fans.
The Evil Empire only acts like this because they know it gets under their skins. The rivalry between the Yanks and Red Sox is considered to be baseball's best, but it is so lopsided that it's not even funny. Why should the Yankees and their fans even care about the Red Sox when the end result is always a New York-sized victory? It's simple.
The Yankees are like a mean-spirited class clown who verbally abuses certain kids because they can't come back with a witty comment to diffuse the insults or have the foresight to ignore him. There's a good chance that the Yankees just traded for Rodriguez to spite the Red Sox and to get under the skins of their fans. In that case, who can blame them? It seems like that's the only way they keep the rivalry interesting on their end. The only way for Red Sox fans to make that part go away is to stop being so bitter, but they're too stupid to realize that.
So at the end of the day, it's hard for me to feel sorry for a team that shot itself in the foot over foolish pride and an inferiority complex.
This baseball offseason has only made it easier to ignore their petty squabbling and concentrate on a division other than the AL East.
Tom Holzerman is a junior majoring in materials engineering. Tom knows a lot about an inferiority complex living in this perennial losing sports town.
