It occurred to me recently that baseball is a perfect game played by imperfect players. There’s nothing as athletically poetic as a well-turned double play and nothing as maddening as a wild pitch that walks in a run – particularly the winning run. But, while these things happen from time to time, the ratio between inexcusable, clumsy plays and brilliant ones usually runs at an acceptable level.
Usually.
For the past eighteen months or so, there’s been
something seriously awry within Our Beloved Ball Club and trying to identify it
has been driving me nuts. What’s particularly annoying is that there
doesn’t seem to be any particular element present that could go some way
towards explaining this grand funk – or is there?
Beer and chicken aside, this was a team that
once exhibited a healthy chemistry not often seen. Teammates seemed to
genuinely like each other and they were led by a manager with good baseball
savvy who mentored his younger players, gently guided his veteran staff and
enjoyed the warm affection of the fans. And, up until the last weeks of
2011, it all seemed to work fine.
Well, we all know what happened. In the
wake of one of baseball’s most epic collapses, a series of knee-jerk reactions
saw the manager – and his boss – terminated with a prejudice that approached
extreme. And for the longest of times, the players were left wondering
just what the hell would happen next. They were embarrassed by what had
happened in the privacy of the clubhouse and the terrier-like attitude of the
Media Pack gave undue importance to a silly story and elevated it to the level
of a political scandal. The pressure of playing in Boston, already
intense, continued to grow and the NOG’s idea of a fix was a painfully prolonged
searched for a new manager which resulted in the appointment of the biggest
baseball egoist since Ty Cobb. The players must’ve been thrilled as they
headed towards 2012.
Of course, the club was hamstrung from the
get-go. Long time DL dwellers provided the Media Pack with reams of pulp
fiction speculation about their future and from the onset, the new manager
cavalierly strode into the limelight, stepping on toes as he went and making
this correspondent feel that the 2012 Red Sox would be more about Bobby V. than
the business of winning games. Reports of fractious Spring Training
frictions between manager and players merely confirmed my misgivings.
The ensuing, imprudent remarks to the press
questioning the allegiance of certain players may have sounded like the casual
blathering of someone who’d engaged their mouth before their brain, yet one
can’t help but sense some calculation behind it all. Were these incidents
designed to inform the players that the friendly Francona reign was over and
that there was a new boss with a hard nose and an ass to match? In the 21st Century,
the Martinet Method of Team Management has no hope of working and if Valentine
believed a dictatorial approach would work, he was at best ill-informed.
It seems to me that a large part of this year’s
sub-par performance has to be sheeted home to the atmosphere in the clubhouse –
and that atmosphere, dispirited and seemingly exit-less, was not completely
generated by the players. In their darker moments, these guys must be
evaluating the solidity of their tenure, given that no player seems secure on
the roster, and finding their conclusions more than a little depressing.
And a depressed, insecure player can’t reasonably be expected to turn in regular
Major League level performances. Continual speculation about trades further
exacerbates the situation – although it seems that Youkilis is slowly regaining
his form over on the South Side, in a clubhouse with a different dynamic.
In any case, I have no optimism in my heart for
the remainder of this season. Right now, all I hope is that the NOG has
been involved in some top-secret discussions somewhere – the backseat of John
Henry’s limo or a broom closet at Fenway – seeking a solution to this malaise
that doesn’t involve the perfunctory trading of players in temporary slumps, or
those nursing temporary injuries. And if the issue here isn’t wholly the
players – they are demonstrably capable of playing at the highest level – then
the fault must lay elsewhere. And it shouldn’t take a baseball genius to
figure out where.