Spring has officially arrived: it's Masshole season! Last night, a Sox fan was caught peeing off the upper deck at Fenway:
As officers were attempting to escort the fan from the park, the fan broke free and began yelling, “I’m not leaving!!! I’m not leaving!!!”
This one doesn't stink of Massholity like other posts you'll find on this tag. In fact, the suspect is from New Hampshire, making him more of a Hamphole. But in this day and age, when all you have to do to piss off a sports fan is mention Boston, we don't need a shonda for the goyim making things worse. We have too many as it is...
I'm not entirely sure Jim Rice got into the Hall of Fame for the right reasons. His statistical argument is weak, as he's one of those guys who looks less impressive now that we monitor walks and OBP so closely. I sure don't think he got 23 people to change their minds strictly on merit, not when old farts can use their ballots to blow off Rickey Henderson as a personal fuck-you. I can assure you that stat nerds are not happy about this, especially when adding in Bert Blyleven's continued absence.
But regardless, Jim Rice deserves to be there. I really don't care how he did it. I don't want to know how they make hot dogs. I just want to eat them. The outcome today was the right one.
I only have vague recollections of Jim Ed, three of which I can share:
1. My earliest baseball memory is the first game I ever went to, sometime in 1984 before I really cared about baseball. We sat along the first base line, and I mostly just played with my friend. But the only strong memory I have left is that when it was time to go, sometime around the 6th inning, my friend's dad said we should "wait for Jim Rice to get a hit." I couldn't tell you if he did. I think he did. But I can't say I was very concerned about it. I was pooped.
2. The next time I went to Fenway, I remembered every detail. I'd spent the summer obsessed with baseball cards and the Red Sox. I eventually convinced my mom to take me to the box office so we could pick up some tickets. I can still see the gigantic season schedule that hung above the ticket windows. I was so excited when game day came along... September 7, 1986. Bruce Hurst shut out Minnesota, 9-0. My dad and I sat all the way out in right field, near Pesky's Pole. Bill Buckner hit a home run into our section, a few rows away from us, which blew my little mind. I remember two different putouts at home plate in the same inning, one coming from Wade Boggs at third, the other coming from none other than Jim Rice.
But the highlight of the game, as Baseball Reference's WPA-o-Meter corroborates, was Jim Rice's grand slam into the bullpen. It was the first home run I ever saw. I can still see it in the air, everyone around me standing up to will the ball outwards, the ball flying swiftly into the benches, Fenway rising up. It was a lesson. You could watch a million games, and you'd never understand what it was like to be there. 1986 ended badly, but Jim Ed was in many ways my official introduction to baseball.
3. The infamous incident a couple weeks later when a typical jackass Yankee fan grabbed Rice's hat and tried to shove it down his own pants as Jim Ed chased after him. I remember watching TV38 and the cameras watching Jim, staring this douchebag down until he surrendered the hat. Lots of other folks jumped in, including noted roidbag Roger Clemens. Jim Ed jumping into the stands that day sets the standard for running-into-the-stands behavior. Do it for a good reason, and don't punch nobody. (Future entrants would not follow these ground rules.)
By the time I began paying oh-so-close attention to the game, Jim was washed up. Years' worth of back problems came home to roost. But he was the face of the Boston Red Sox when I became a baseball fan, and still one of the looming figures in the American League. Jim Rice, for me, is my first. He still stands as the ultimate example of right-handed power. And rightly so.
Congratulations, Jim Ed. And make sure your acceptance speech ends with "suck it, Neyer."
While his physique is certainly staggering, as are the stories Pat Murphy tells in the above link, neither Dustin Pedroia's glistening biceps nor Murphy's expletive-laden war stories are as staggering as the statistic reported today in the Globe's Extra Bases blog:
Here’s one of the coolest stats you’ll see this year: Dustin Pedroia has swung the bat 1,114 times this season. He has connected with 1,027 pitches and missed 87. Think about that. It’s the best percentage in the majors this season.
The stat is repeated in a Pedroia feature in the main paper. As it should be. Yikes. You'd think a stat like that would be evidence of below-average plate discipline, except that he has 45 walks... mediocre, but only 7 fewer than the Greek God of Walks himself. I'd like to see some other whiff figures, just to see who else is in competition, but regardless it's awfully impressive.
First of all, why did this Mass-tard think IMMEDIATELY was the best time to announce his sad attempt at a curse? If he'd just kept his mouth shut for a few months, it'd be too late anyone to dig it up. Presumably this is why he's working construction and not pulling jewel heists or working on his Ph.D. in nuclear physics.
Second, why would any Red Sox fan in his right mind want to SPREAD the notion of a curse? We just spent twenty fucking years trying to get everyone to shut up about it, and now this clown is resurrecting it. Was that not the whole point of winning??? It's such a childish, unnecessary idea, entirely opposite to the notion of what the rivalry should be: two phenomenal organizations duking it out on an effectively even playing field.
Third, this level of obsession is no longer cute. It's just stupid. It's precisely the sort of idiotic homer crap that does more to embarrass than to celebrate. We longed, collectively, for 86 years to be just another group of fans. A perfectly rational and noble goal. Now we're trying to be known as More Obsessed Than You. It's as if we all watched Jimmy Fallon's stink-eye performance in Fever Pitch and collectively thought, "yeah, I want to be just like that guy!" NO!!! FAIL!!!!!
It's one thing to exchange a few playful jabs with a Yankee fan; it's a whole other ball of potatoes to go and sabotage their stadium. It's within our power to take the high road. Not the smug, self-absorbed, holier-than-thou high road, which we've apparently chosen, but the magnanimous high road. We can relieve ourselves of the petty instincts we grew up adhering to. We can be free of this nonsense and just watch some great baseball.
Or we can try to bury Manny's jockstraps in the new Monument Park and look like even bigger douches than we do already. Either/or.
This season, I'm on a mission of mercy. I'm here from Mitch and Murray!
With a division title under my Red Sox' belts, and a fast-ballooning Boston payroll, the playing field is truly even, for the first time since the days of Donny Baseball. We can finally be magnanimous about the local nine, and not treat baseball like an arms race. Acting like dickheads about the Yankees is entirely unnecessary; we have nothing to prove and nothing to gain by doing so. Theo the Pimp has afforded us the luxury of sitting back and just enjoying the ride. We can free ourselves of all this hate and just be happy.
But nobody's getting that message. It's just the same old Yankees-suck bullshit as always. We've all been greedy. Envious. Wrathful. Prideful.
We have a fast-growing karmic deficit on our hands. If we're not careful, Kevin Spacey is going to put our heads in a box. (And God knows what he'll do to the rest of our bodies.) Hell, after this past Super Bowl, a well-deserved kick in the nuts to an entire region (my testicles are still ringing like Christmas church bells), maybe it already happened. Maybe we've already been Spacey'd. It sure feels like it.
Well, I'll be goddamned if I'm going to endure another nightmare scenario because of my compatriots' aggregate assholery. This season cannot be allowed to devolve into the same old bitterness, bile, and bloviation. It's time to fight back against my own kind.
How, you ask? By pointing out every case of Massholery that I find.
Trust me. It's for our own good.
Anyway, the first entry is the perfect example to get this series started:
The victim’s sobbing girlfriend told police the couple went to the Cantab Lounge at 738 Mass. Ave. midnight Saturday. The couple was inside the bar for a while when a large group of people came up to them and started arguing with the victim because he was wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, according to police reports.
Best part: the Irish accents. Worst part: everything else.
Gentlemen... you skidmarks on the underwear of life... this isn't cute anymore. Five years ago, this might have elicited a brief, evil smile from me. Now I just roll my eyes at how pathetic and pedantic it is. Gee, you really showed that guy. If you stood under a blacklight, you'd shine blue, like the cumstains that you are.
I hope I won't need more installments in this series, but if Chuck E. Cheese's fights are any indication, I probably will.
Red Sox They signed up their only two potential offseason losses, and did so cheaply. It's a testament to the Red Sox organization that a couple of smart guys like Curt Schilling and Mike Lowell, both of whom had enormous market value, took less to stay. After watching the Dan Duquette era, this is maybe the best part of the revival: that Boston actually is a city where ballplayers will sign for less, and that the previous statement isn't just something the fans tell themselves to justify their cruel treatment of the local losers. Anyway, it's positive news w/o any qualification on it.
I'm still curious what they intend to do with Coco Crisp, and whether they intend to toss their hat into the Johan Santana derby. Theo Epstein is usually active at the winter meetings, so I'd expect one of those two things to become a major hot stove story.
Patriots They had their C-game last night (especially on defense... wowee!) and still won pretty effortlessly. I found that quite comforting, actually. They popped out a turd and won anyway. Good on them.
More urgent/important is the purported "discovery" by Andy Reid that the team's weakness is its secondary and short coverage by the linebackers. DUH! Once you get past Asante Samuel, it's a hell-hole in there. Even Rodney Harrison has been awfully silent. If there's no pass rush, then of course they will be exposed. While the whole "blueprint" meme is pretty on-target... the notion that Andy Reid "discovered" this strategy is just stupid. Yes, the way to beat the Patriots is to stop their four unstoppable defensive linemen (including the soon-to-be-very-rich-elsewhere Jarvis Green) and not throw towards Samuel. Also, I just discovered that the "blueprint" for preventing typos is to use a spell-checker before hitting Send. COMPLIMENT ME JOHN MADDEN FOR BEING SMART AND FAT
The other troubling thing was to see Randy Moss shut down so effectively. Wes Welker stepped up, but seeing Moss get shut down in the cold brings a lot of late-season Vikings collapses to mind. Something to stow away for later.
Celtics They are playing like garbage. Really. Paul Pierce in particular is leaning back on his old tricks... take the ball, ram it past double-team, hope they don't strip me. Low-percentage shots. What made me fall back in love with the team was their ball movement, not Pierce's scoring aggregates. When the C's go on their scoring runs, it's because they're finding open shooters; when they drop behind, it's because they get lazy with their shot selection. Between Ray, KG and PP, they WILL move the ball if they choose to. It's that simple.
Anyway, the other message is that America had better not sleep on Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins, because they're both making the most of their newfound job security. This season is shaping up to be Rondo's coming-out party; he makes plays, and he's hitting open 18-footers with the greatest of ease. Perkins has brick fingers on offense, but his always-tight defense is all that will really matter.
In conclusion, last Saturday's fuck-you buzzer-beater was absolutely beautiful, for so many reasons. The bush-league Bobcats talked shit all through the timeout leading up to the inbounds pass. I sat there, watching Jeff MacInnis shoot his mouth off to fucking Kevin Garnett, and thought "they're gonna steal the ball, and they're gonna win." And sure enough, Eddie House stole the ball, and forgotten man Ray Allen sent the Bobcats to bed. What a moment.
Bruins Amazingly, even the Bruins are growing on me. They aren't going anywhere, but I have to tip my cap to favorite whipping-boys Tim Thomas and Dennis Wideman.
Thomas is a hockey verison of David Eckstein; too short, nobody wanted him, what a competitor, blah blah blah. So I hate him, and I truly detest when his fans give him credit for winning and look the other way when his mediocrity returns to the surface. But this year, Thomas actually is the reason they're winning. He has to save 30-35 shots a night for the team to win (because their blue line situation is so atrocious)... and he's actually doing it. So I give credit. It may not last, but I'll take it while we have it.
Wideman, meanwhile, is already visibly better than he was in October. He's starting to mix net-positive plays in with his trademark bonehead turnovers. More credit given there for starting to get his act together. Still not seeing much value (he's not even remotely physical as a defender) but any improvement is welcome.
The last thing I want to say is: Marc Savard. Can you Bruin bastards PLEASE play up to this guy's level? Or at least hit the empty nets Savard gives you twice a night? This guy's got worth-the-price-of-admission passing skills, and they're lost on offensive doofuses like P.J. Axelsson and Old Man Murray. Pearls before swine.
Revolution Sorry, boys... I'm pretty much done with you. The "choker" business may be overblown, but that collapse was just awful. And you could see it coming. It really was a choke. Ugh.
Hope you enjoyed your week out of the house, Cleveland. Now go back to being miserable losers. Sit down and watch some Mind of Mencia reruns. I'm sure that's up your alley. And I'm sure they'll be on until April.
In the same vein as the New Yorker story on him, found this:
There's a fair chance Boston's Manny Ramirez will find himself on the wrong end of an inside fastball next time the teams meet. The Mariners didn't appreciate his over-the-top celebration, throwing his helmet into the air and raising his arm while rounding the bases, after hitting the go-ahead homer in the eighth inning Thursday night. There was speculation, however, that Ramirez was confused about what inning it was and thought he'd hit a walk-off game winner.
