Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I missed the memo from the heads of Red Sox Nation. Is the world still crashing in around us or not?
Five minutes ago, Sox fans were taking up glowing torches, pitchforks and bloodhounds and marching on Yawkey Way, hoping to pick up the scent of whoever ran Theo Epstein out of town.
Today, we’re banging down the doors of the ticket office, demanding that they put World Series tickets on sale 10 months early.
It’s one thing to be a Red Sox fan and have one’s enthusiasm rise and fall with the tide of public opinion. It’s quite another to have to adjust your Zoloft dosage every time somebody in the Boston front office chooses to have their turkey on wheat instead of rye.
I’m exaggerating right? Well, for now, perhaps. But based on the ebb and flow of Red Sox fans’ emotions over the last month, I’m not sure it’s safe to keep any sharp objects in greater New England any more.
Four weeks ago, suicide Hotline workers were lining up to jump off the Tobin Bridge. Theo was gone, nobody any good was going to want to take his place, and Larry Lucchino was going to trade David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Jonathan Papelbon, Hanley Ramirez and Jon Lester for Jeff Bagwell. Then he was going to hire Lou Gorman to trade Bagwell for Larry Andersen again.
Now all of a sudden, we’re on the verge of a dynasty.
Funny how a trade for a pitcher who’s been on the disabled list nine times in five years and a guy who makes Kevin Youkillis the team’s best power hitting option at third base, can make things all sunny and right again in our lovable but confused six-state region.
There’s reason to be excited about the trade the Red Sox executed over the holiday. Josh Beckett is a potential ace. He’s got all of the tools, and he already proved he can pitch on the big stage when he joined Bill Mazeroski, George Brett and Luis Gonzalez on Boston fans’ “All-time favorite Yankee-killing non-Red Sox players” team with his domination of the pinstripers in Game 6 of the 2003 World Series.
But I was against this trade at first. Hanley Ramirez is going to be a star. I’m certain of this. It’s just my opinion from having seen him play a handful of times and, of course, my assessment is all based on potential at this point.
But so is the belief that Beckett will be the ace of the Red Sox staff for the next decade. He’s reached double figures in wins once. He’s started 30 games and pitched 200 innings as many times as Papelbon (0). And his right shoulder was such a concern that the Marlins had to shut him down at the end of last season.
The addition of reliever Guillermo Mota, seemingly at the last minute, to the seven-player swap made giving up some of the organization’s top prospects a little more palatable. Don’t be surprised if his acquisition proves as vital as Beckett’s in the short-term, and potential has nothing to do with it. Mota has been a top setup man, though he has struggled from the time the Dodgers traded him to Florida at the 2004 trading deadline.
So while I’m willing to give this deal a cautious thumbs up, many fans are already comparing it to Theo Epstein’s Thanksgiving courtship of Curt Schilling two years ago or the heist Dan Duquette pulled on Montreal to get Pedro Martinez in 1997. They’re convinced the Sox have found Pedro’s replacement for now, and Schilling’s replacement for the future. They’re not just ready to pencil in the 2006 World Series rotation (Schilling, Beckett, Arroyo and Wakefield), but the 2010 rotation, too (Beckett, Papelbon, Lester and some guy we haven’t heard of yet).
Wasn’t it just two weeks ago that everybody was declaring the Red Sox dead? Wasn’t Lucchino single-handedly turning the Boston organization into a puppet theater? Hadn’t all hope been gutted out of the organization by the loss of Theo, the wunderkind? Weren’t the Toronto Blue Jays an A.J. Burnett signing away from eclipsing Boston as the Yankees’ only true competition in the American League East?
You know, I thought winning the thing two years ago was going to take care of all of these mood swings. I thought we were all going to take a step back and look at the good and bad of the Red Sox with less of a jaundiced eye and more of an analytical one.
I understand that this has been a very momentous off-season so far. Losing the GM who finally led us to the championship is disconcerting. Adding one of the top young arms in the game is promising. I got that much straight.
But what happens if/when they trade Manny Ramirez? Is Lucchino going to be on the hit list again, or are we going to demand that they open a wing in the Hall of Fame in his honor?
I’m so disoriented right now. I’m up. I’m down. I’m up. I’m down. Uuuupppp. Doooowwwwnnn. This isn’t like riding a roller coaster. It’s like chaperoning a date between Edgar Allen Poe and Sylvia Plath.
Could we at least wait until spring training before we declare 2006 a boon or a bust?
Randy Whitehouse is a staff writer. He can be reached by e-mail at rwhitehouse@sunjournal.com
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