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| Beckett Golfing While "Sick" In 2011 (FenwayNation Photo) |
Former Red Sox starter
Josh Beckett has charged that the team
forced him to claim a fake injury that led to a DL stint in May of 2012. He goes on to assert that the ruse was a way to allow
Aaron Cook on the roster and avoid that pitcher's potential move to
The Evil Ones. Unfortunately, the
facts don't bear out Beckett's story. As
MassLive.com's Christopher Smith points out,
the Texas righty never went on the DL in May of 2012, and was
not a party to the corresponding moves that added Cook to the Red Sox roster. The team
did skip a May 2nd Beckett start because of a lat injury—and Beckett was seen on May 3rd golfing—but he was
never on the DL due to the lat injury. Here's what Beckett told
98.5 The Sports Hub today,
"Aaron Cook had an opt-out in his contract. I was pitching terrible, which is my fault. So we made up an injury so that he could get called up so he couldn't opt out and go to the Yankees. And that was the thing. But I don't think that that's actually legal to do. I don't think you can just phantom DL somebody. And that's the whole thing that I had a problem with — that nobody really stood up. And that's when I knew it was kind of the end. Because then you don't have anybody in the organization backing you either. So that's when I kind of knew, 'This is what the end looks like.'" Wrong. It's unclear if chicken and/or beer aided the "mis-remembering".
