Clubhouse

By Peter Abraham, Globe Staff The Red Sox played just shy of 1,500 innings this season spread out over 181 days. In an ideal world, all 25 players would pay rapt attention to all 1,500 of those innings and be at their best all 181 days. But that's not the case for any team. On a given day, there are 4-7 players on a 25-man roster who aren't going to play in the game. You have the other four starting pitchers, a reliever or two getting a day off, and maybe a position player nursing an injury.

Josh Beckett compared the last three days of his life to being on a reality show. "I'm on ‘Khloe and Lamar Go To Boston' or something," he said while standing in front of the home dugout at Fenway Park on Friday. "How did that happen?" Beckett knows exactly why. We don't need any Kardashians in New England, we have our athletes and they provide plenty of contrived drama. The Red Sox have been a disaster since last September and Beckett is the face of their fall collapse and sickening spring.

By Peter Abraham, Globe Staff Josh Beckett's habit of hanging around the clubhouse during games is nothing new according to former Florida Marlins manager Jack McKeon. McKeon told the Palm Beach Post today that he locked the clubhouse door in 2003 to keep Beckett and Brad Penny from escaping the dugout during games. He even resorted to issuing bathroom passes. "In between innings they'd go to the clubhouse to get a drink or hang out," McKeon recalled. "I said, 'Hey, I got no rule against going up if you have to go to the bathroom or something, but get back.' A couple of times I...

By Peter Abraham, Globe Staff A few pregame notes on a beautiful day at the ballpark: ߦ Kevin Youkilis played catch out to 90 feet today, his second day of such activity. But he has yet to start swinging a bat, so his activation remains at least a few weeks off. ߦ The pitchers are taking batting practice in shifts with the first interleague road game coming up on May 18. Daniel Bard is lined up to start that first game and he reports that he was a pretty fair hitter at Charlotte (N.C.)

FORT MYERS, Fla. - Red Sox pitchers will not be drinking beer in the clubhouse during games this season. In fact, there won't be any beer at all. Manager Bobby Valentine told the team yesterday that he has banned alcohol in the clubhouse and on team flights returning to Boston. The edict was expected, given the revelations last fall that starting pitchers Josh Beckett, Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester, and John Lackey drank beer and ate fast-food chicken while games were going on. But Valentine may have done it anyway, as alcohol was banned from the Mets clubhouse when he managed the team...

Eight more men have made sexual abuse allegations against former Red Sox clubhouse manager Donald J. Fitzpatrick, in what has become the worst sexual abuse scandal in Major League Baseball history. The eight men, including two former batboys for the Baltimore Orioles, have come forward since two former Sox clubhouse attendants accused Fitzpatrick in December of sexually abusing them as teenagers at Fenway Park. The allegations, when added to similar allegations levied decades ago, bring to 20 the number of men who have accused Fitzpatrick of molesting them between the 1960s and...

There will be no drinking in the Boston Red Sox clubhouse this season. The team will ban alcohol in the clubhouse and on the last plane flight of road trips, new manager Bobby Valentine announced on Saturday. The move comes in the wake of last season's September collapse in the AL East, a tailspin that included reports of Boston starting pitchers drinking beer in the clubhouse on their off-days rather than supporting their teammates in the dugout. It's one of a handful of new rules that Valentine is imposing in his first season as Red Sox manager, and he...

Major League Baseball is planning to consider whether there should be a ban on alcohol in clubhouses. MLB executive Joe Torre talked about the issue Sunday before Game 4 of the World Series. There have been recent reports that several Boston pitchers drank beer in the clubhouse on days when they were not starting. Torre says baseball is concerned about the alcohol issue and wants to look at it on a wider basis. Torre says that many teams already ban alcohol in the locker room.

By Peter Abraham, Globe Staff Theo Epstein, Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino did their best tonight to deflect Terry Francona's comments about the clubhouse and the apparently poor attitude of some players. "Certain players we have who are leaders can step up and raise the level of their leadership even more. A new manager is going to be an opportunity, for new leadership in the clubhouse, too," Epstein said. "We'll raise our level and meet those high standards that we have.

Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine denied on Monday that his clubhouse alcohol ban was a public relations move, and pitcher Josh Beckett blamed "snitches" for leaking the story about players drinking beer and eating fried chicken during games while the team was plummeting to an unprecedented September collapse. Valentine instituted the ban in response to postseason reports that Red Sox pitchers, including Beckett, hung out in the clubhouse on their off-nights eating and drinking instead of sitting in the dugout with their teammates.

NEW YORK - Terry Francona's nerves were jangling in spring training. Every time he had walked into a major league clubhouse, he had been in uniform, part of a team. He had belonged. But as he stood at the doorway of the Braves clubhouse, he was a member of the media. His job was no longer to do. It was to talk. "The first time walking into a clubhouse with a suit and tie on is hard," said Francona, who is now in the booth for ESPN. "Tim Kurkjian, that first day in spring training, he goes, ‘I'm going in. You need to come.' "I opened the door, and I literally bumped into Eric...

Kevin Youkilis was back in the lineup for Tuesday night's game against the Rangers, and the Red Sox third baseman expressed hope that there would be no lingering controversy from the firestorm that seemed to engulf the clubhouse Monday. "I hope it's a one-and-done type thing and we're all good," Youkilis said before the game. "We're all going to be one big happy family and play some ball. " The controversy stemmed from comments made by manager Bobby Valentine Sunday night on Channel 7 that seemed to question Youkilis's commitment.

Josh Beckett will be warming up in the bullpen when he is introduced to the crowd at Fenway Park before Friday's home opener against the Tampa Bay Rays. Whether he is cheered or booed will likely not register with the righthander. His focus before games is such that Beckett rarely notices teammates standing a few feet away as he walks through the clubhouse with a baseball in his hand. But after six years in Boston, Beckett understands that the passion here flows both ways.

Josh Beckett will be warming up in the bullpen when he is introduced to the crowd at Fenway Park before Friday's home opener against the Tampa Bay Rays. Whether he is cheered or booed will likely not register with the righthander. His focus before games is such that Beckett rarely notices teammates standing a few feet away as he walks through the clubhouse with a baseball in his hand. But after six years in Boston, Beckett understands that the passion here flows both ways.

Prospective bidders are being invited to gather for an onsite public auction of Meadow Creek Golf Club on May 1, but the club's owner and operator, Jeffrey Brem, is telling members it will be business as usual for the start of the golf season. Brem has had an ongoing legal dispute with Reality Financial Partners Inc., which holds the lease on the Meadow Creek clubhouse and main parking lot, since he fell behind on payments. The company blocked access to the clubhouse and lot in January, and now the mortgage holder, Bank of New England, is holding the auction.

Nothing like a snowman to put a damper on the party. Henrik Stenson was one hole from celebrating his 36th birthday as the clubhouse leader at the Masters on Thursday. But that last hole, oh, what a doozy. Stenson tumbled from the top of the leaderboard with a quadruple-bogey 8 on the par-4 18th. He still finished at 1-under 71, but it may as well have been a 90. "Finishing with an 8, I don't think I've ever done that," Stenson said. Stenson's problems started off the tee, when his drive hooked left and into some bushes.

PAWTUCKET, R.I. — Outside the Pawtucket Red Sox’ clubhouse door is a faint stain stomped into the carpet. It’s something you’d expect to see in a high-traffic area, but to clubhouse manager Carl Goodreau the imperfection stands out like an ink blotch on white pants. While giving a tour of the clubhouse Thursday, Goodreau pointed out the stain and confessed not scrubbing the spot likely would interrupt his sleep that night. But life is so busy around McCoy Stadium these days that a small stain can slide.

By Peter Abraham, Globe Staff FORT MYERS, Fla. — Jacoby Ellsbuy fouled a ball off his right knee in the fifth inning today, finished his at-bat then left the game. "I wanted to get some ice on that," Bobby Valentine said. Ellsbury was walking without a limp afterward and left the clubhouse with only an elastic bandage around his knee. "I'm fine," he said, flashing a thumbs-up. "No problem. "