Red Sox fans: A few quick home truths


In reaction to the following Boston Globe headlines which were emblazoned on their front page on Friday.




  • Panic-button time for Sox?
  • Credibility at stake for Red Sox

Since those two incredibly inane headlines (we'll get to that in a second) the Sox have erupted for about 72 runs on the back of 1,596 hits and two pitching performances that made Nolan Ryan look like Hideki Irabu. Okay so, hyperbole alert, however the point is, it's April. Give me a break.

Do these writers really think we are that fucking stupid? Honestly, do we have 'Goldfish' tattooed on our collective foreheads? Even the casual Sox fan remembers last season, where Boston stumbled out of the gate, subsequently stumbled into the best record in the Majors, and then stumbled into the off-season on an underwhelming wave of chicken buckets, crushed Coors lite cans and shattered dreams.

Back to those headlines. Are you serious? That's actual, real journalism? Experienced baseball people ready to call it a day after about a week of baseball? In full knowledge of what happened last season? (and indeed most seasons before hand, where the Sox give us the roller-coaster treatment. We should not accept those type of headlines, we can't accept them. Take a step back and look at them. They are lazy, ignorant and stupid headlines, and every single season they try to force this crap down our throats.

Look, guys and gals of the Globe, the Herald and a host of the more negative blogs. We know what you are up to. We know that you know that this isn't panic time. We know you actually like baseball, and have followed it for a long time, and we know that you absolutely understand that it is a long season and there is a lot of baseball to go before we know how good, or bad, this Sox team is.

Sadly, we also know what you are up to.

A few quick home truths. Take note, so called Knights of the keyboard.

  • The Sox are not going to score 20 runs every weekend. They will be pretty good, however. Flaming headlines that the Sox are in panic mode don't cut it anymore. We know they are going to be good, and in some stretches they are going to be bad. This is baseball. The best hitters fail 7 times out of 10, and the best teams lose over 60 games.
  • Fenway Park is going to sell out every single night because the average fan loves watching them play baseball. They will do this despite of your negativity, not because of it.
  • The Sox might win the World Series, they might not. Focusing on predicting whether they are going to be good, or whether he should reject the product out of hand straight off the bat, is nothing but an ugly attempt to jump the old unique IP address hits number up. We average fans are smart enough to know this now. We know what you are up to.
  • Bobby Valentine might turn out to be Joe Kennedy, or he might turn out to be Tito II. We don't, can't and won't know, for a long time yet. Calling him a 'bust', or indeed calling him a success, at this point is nothing but absolutely stupid. It is something you might expect from a noisy, bland and creativity lacking blogger, but it is not something we should be getting from experience journalists. We know Bobby seems enthused, we hear and we know from previous experience he is a very thorough, dedicated manager. He would appear to be doing his best. That's what we know. Everything else is as yet to be found out and experienced.
  • The Red Sox club-house is a better place than you try to make it out to be. There are proud, experienced and accountable players in there that will ensure that the unfortunate demise of 2011 doesn't happen again. Continuously talking about the end of 2011 just shows us that you have nothing creative to write about or say.


Look, seriously, people really want to cast judgement on the 2012 season already? Come on now, let's all take a collective breath and just try and focus on what's going on in front of is. Young, promising Felix Dubront takes the hill today. Check him out, see what he's about, he could be something good.

Keep this ridiculous 'panic' rubbish up, and you just might end up missing a pretty decent Red Sox 2012.

It's about the journey, not the destination.





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