There's an old saying in the NBA that a playoff series hasn't really started until the road team wins a game. We know that the Boston baseball season has not officially begun until a star Red Sox player starts bitching about something.
And so the Sox season is finally under way.
Thank goodness. It was getting downright boring here in the toy department.
Last weekend in New York, I wrote three columns about the Red Sox without a single shot at any player, manager, coach, or front office person. What else could one do? The Sox were almost flawless against the Yankees. A weekend of feel-good commentary was followed by a glowing tribute to the new, media-savvy Ramirez in Tuesday's Globe.
The readers were reeling. Our offices were bombarded with "What have you done with Shaughnessy?" inquiries. Kidnapped by aliens? Blackmailed by Boston Dirt Dogs? Hit in the head by a foul ball and unable to summon usual measures of sarcasm? Or maybe The New York Times Co. ordered him to write puff pieces about the Sox to protect its $75 million investment.
None of that was true. It's just that things were going so well for the Red Sox that the usual rules didn't apply. Searches for buffoonery, controversy, ineptitude, and hopelessness came up empty. It was as if the Sox suddenly were following the Patriot game plan that produced two Super Bowl championships in three seasons. Praise the Sox and pass the pompoms. That's all we did. Everything was perfect. Never was heard a discouraging word.
Now, finally, Pedro has delivered. After not speaking publicly for a month, he unloaded on the front office. He said, "I just don't like people lying, trying to fake that they're signing us when they never made an effort to actually think about anything." He mentioned teammates Derek Lowe and Jason Varitek as other players who'd been dissed by management.
On the surface, Pedro's remarks do not constitute much of a news bomb, but the story still shook the timbers in most of the homes in Red Sox Nation.
