Sox
Obituary '11
SOX FANS
ASSESS
TEAM'S COLLAPSE
By U. Neetanya Tokef, Obituary Editor
with
Bella Whiner, Alvin T. Fuller, and Shill Shamelessly on
Landsdowne St.
BOSTON,
Mass. – In the aftermath of the Red Sox's epic collapse in which they
blew a 99.6% chance of making the post season and the sacrifice of
manager Terry Francona to the gods of commodity trading [Surely, baseball? – Ed.],
the subjects of Red Sox Nation predictably had a few ideas about what
went wrong.
Time
for Tito to go
FENWAY PARK
– As another gallant Sox campaign falls just short, despite the best
efforts of inspired Sox principal owner John Henry and baseball
geniuses Larry Lucchino and Theo Epstein, ol' Shill has to agree with
the Sox front office: Tito had to go.
After all,
someone has to pay the price for the Sox collapse, and it can't be the
far-seeing and generous Fenway front office. Speaking of
which, thanks much to team management for letting ol' Shill take home
the five pounds of corned beef and ten cases of Bud Light that the Sox
owners had thoughtfully stocked for the playoffs. It's a long
cold winter until the equipment truck leaves and who wants to see
good cold cuts go to waste? Not anyone who knows his
commodities!
And it
certainly can't be the glittering array of talent that that front
office assembled. Leaving aside the fact that even a
centimilllionaire like Mr. J.H. might not want to eat about $200
million
on the contracts of Messrs. Lackey, Matsuzaka, Crawford et al. while
leaving the deli platters to ol' Shill, who could blame the talent?
Lackey
might have had just a scoch of trouble getting batters out on occasion,
but he always gave 10%
[Surely, 110% percent? – Ed.], whether to
his ballclub or his divorce lawyer. And up until his arm gave
out on May 1, Dice-K would never give up.
And you have
to hand it to key Sox pickup Carl Crawford – otherwise he
might drop it! Just kidding! We're sure that he'll
repay Mr. Lucchino's faith in him next season, if not the remainder of
his $160 million plus contract!
Mr. John
Henry himself told me that firing the manager is no different from
cleaning out the bilge of his 100-foot yacht: sometimes you have to
just hold your nose and hire someone to do it. By the way,
Mr. H., do you know where the spare battery for the bilge pump is?
Next
week: Ace baseball columnist Shill Shamelessly says
that managing the Red Sox is just like cleaning out the bilge
on Mr. Henry's yacht: your first goal is not to drown in the
s***.
Devoted
Sox fan Attorney General Martha Coakley expressed
disappointment over the unexpectedly early end of the Olde Towne Team's
season, blaming the collapse on their failure to protect Tom Brady in
passing situations.
In a crumpled note wrapped around a rock thrown through our
newsroom window, a long-time Red Sox fan who identified himself only as
“Whitey” opined that the team was a bunch of “f******in' worthless
f***-ups who deserve to get f***ed” and that if he were in charge of
the team, “heads would f***in' roll but you'd never find them because
I'd f***ing dump their f***in' heads in the same quarry as the rest of
their sorry asses.” He said he was looking forward to next
season.
At the Cask
& Flagon on Brookline Ave., waitress Tiffany Burke recalled how
as a 16-year-old she held up a sign along the route of the 2007 World
Series parade offering to marry Jonathan Papelbon and bear his
child. Now she says after his blown save that cost the
Kenmores the AL wild card spot, the offer no longer stands: “Instead I
want to marry Tyler Seguin and bear his child. That would be
wicked.”
Other Sox
players came in for criticism as well. Alone at the bar, a
dapper older man in a tweed jacket and Red Sox cap nursed a beer and
picked at a pile of nachos. He introduced himself as “the
Eternal One, the Ruler of the Universe, and the Source of All
Blessing.” The Sealer of Names in the Book of Life was most
critical of overhyped first baseman
Adrian Gonzalez's claim that if God had wanted the Red Sox to win, they
would have one.
“First of all, how the hell does he know what I, the Divine
One, am thinking? I don't recall writing anything down on
stone tablets and leaving them in his locker,” said The Almighty.
“Second, of course I wanted the Red Sox to win. All
of my children do, except for Lucifer, who presides over the South
Bronx,” He said. Asked if he meant Hell, the Shield
of Abraham responded: “You mean there's a difference?”
In Los Angeles, Brookline native Conan O'Brien said that he
mourned the Scarlet Stockings' poor showing and predicted that he would
have something funny to say about it within the next three to six
months.
The
ham-fisted firing of Sox manager Terry Francona came in for its share
of criticism as well. “I don't think it's fair for Red Sox
management to blame Tito for their failure to sign enough quality
pitching,” said Cincinnati Reds ace Bronson Arroyo.
“Yeah, like he says,” echoed Carl Crawford, winner of the
coveted Lugo Award for the Most Overpaid Stiff of the Year.
But from across the pond came a contrary view from James
“Thanks Dad” Murdoch, who released a statement saying: “When the s***
hits the fan, someone's got to pay the price and it's certainly not
going to be the people who threw it in there.”
Other long-time fans refuse to despair over the results of
one bad season. Former human sacrifice and Turnpike plow
driver Joe Morgan said that the way he looked at it, “it's six, two,
and even.
