That’s what I’m in the mood for.
Things seemed to be going in the opposite direction last week when Beckett and then Adrian Gonzalez granted interviews to national outlets.
Beckett went on the MLB Network with Kevin Millar (who never will be mistaken for Mike Wallace) and said, “We stunk on the field and that was the bottom line. If we would have played better, none of that [chicken and beer] stuff would have ever been an issue.’’
And of course the tall Texan trotted out the time-tested, “What happens in the clubhouse should stay in the clubhouse’’ line.
Next we had Gonzalez insisting, “We just didn’t play good baseball,’’ and famously uttering, “People gotta eat, whether it’s chicken or steak.’’
People gotta eat. That’s right up there with the long-lasting remark by the late, great Lou Gorman, who once looked up at a clear Florida sky and said, “The sun will rise, the sun will set, and I’ll have lunch.’’
This is an important season that starts today when pitchers and catchers report and the manager holds his first official spring training news conference. The Red Sox have a new manager for the first time in nine years. They have a new general manager for the first time in 10 years.
They have lost their closer, their $142 million free agent outfield bust is going to miss the start of the season after wrist surgery, there is no established fourth or fifth starter, and the Angels, Rangers, Tigers, Yankees, and Rays all got better during the offseason while the Sox got worse.
Meanwhile, now that they have overspent badly over the last couple of years, Sox ownership has decided to operate like a middle-market franchise. Why else do you trade your starting shortstop to recover $6 million in salary?
Sox owner John Henry has shifted his wallet and his heart in the direction of Liverpool and, appropriately enough, seems to have a new Manny Ramirez situation on his hands in the person of Luis Suarez.
If all that is not enough, the Sox are opening a spectacular new spring park and getting ready for the long-awaited 100th anniversary of Fenway Park.
