July 25th, 2008 → 1:02 pm @ Seth Mnookin
This morning, Portfolio magazine — a Conde Nast business title, for those of you not living in the Manhattan media echo chamber — published a report with a juicy sub-hed: “Red Sox appear increasingly likely to let Ramirez go in 2009.” The magazine has had some buzz-worthy sports stories in the past, notably last year’s dispatch in which Franz Lidz gave the best evidence yet that George Steinbrenner is no longer all there (before this year’s golf-cart trip around the field during the All-Star Game, that is).
Lidz is the author of the magazine’s Manny column as well. Unfortunately, it amounts to — to further a metaphor that Lidz labors over in his lede — an overflowing toiletbowl full of crap. There’s a drawn out anecdote provided by a “prominent relief pitcher” about how Manny refuses to use toilet paper that sounds an awfully lot like similar tales peddled to me back when I was with the team in ’04 and ’05, except the way I heard it, the overflowing toilet was in a hotel room, not the clubhouse. There’s a quote from an anonymous “fuming” member of “the Red Sox hierarchy” saying that Manny is “totally passive-aggressive.” (It took an anonymous source to figure that one out?) And there’s a rehash of the much-discussed incident in which Manny watched three of Mo’s pitches sail by him for a called K to end the ninth of a tie game in the Bronx.
Besides that, the “evidence” Lidz marshals is a series of quotes from Andrew Zimbalist, a Smith College professor. Zimbalist has done some good work on the economics of sports, and has become a particular thorn in Bud Selig’s side in regards to his frequent, and frequently spot-on, critiques of MLB’s contra-logical profit-sharing system. But to say that he “has a pretty good idea what the Sox are thinking” is ridiculous; he has no better an idea of what the Sox are thinking than any stat geek with a well-thumbed collection of Bill James Abstracts on his bookshelves. He might, in fact, have a worse idea; Zimbalist’s conclusion is, according to Lidz, based on his belief that the team got “burned” when they signed Schilling to an $8 million deal and Zimbalist’s conclusion that Manny is an “adequate, injury-prone left fielder” with diminished sentimental value. Then, for good measure, Lidz reminds readers that the Sox placed Manny on waivers back in 2003, citing that as one of the “numerous occasions” that the team has “tried to bid farewell to Ramirez.” That’s like saying John McCain won’t carry South Carolina in the fall because he lost the state to George Bush in the 2000 Republican primary.
Back in 2006, I spent some time explaining why Manny would likely remain with the Sox and unpacking the extent to which the market has changed since 2003; these days, with low-revenue teams collecting more money from the rest of the league, it’s not as easy to spend $20 million on an immediate impact player as it once was. And the Sox are not, as Lidz quotes Zimbalist as saying, “very cautious about signing older players,” nor are they convinced that “performance peaks at age 28.” (See: Drew, J.D., signed at age 31 to a five-year, $70 million deal in 2007.) They are cautious — but they’re also cautious about signing younger players. And considering that Manny’s first year in Boston came when he was 29, he’s shown that players on the so-called downside of their career can do pretty well; in his seven full seasons with the Sox, he’s average 36 HRs and 114 RBIs.
This doesn’t mean that the Sox will pick up Manny’s $20 million option for 2009.* I could make arguments that would support either position, but at the end of the day, neither I, nor Andrew Zimbalist, nor Franz Lidz, nor anyone else who isn’t actually in the room has any idea what’s actually going on in the Sox’s front office. To pretend any differently is, well, a load of crap.
* It is worth pointing out that Manny is fourth in the league in OBP, tied (with Youk) for fifth in OPS, and ninth in RBIs. It’s also worth noting that while the last month or so worth of shenanigans are frustrating, they’re nothing the Sox haven’t dealt with before. Are there better players making less money? Of course. Are there better players that will be available next year for a one-year deal for $20 million? Unlikely.
Post Categories: Andrew Zimbalist & Franz Lidz & Manny Ramirez & Portfolio & Sports Reporters
July 24th, 2008 → 3:21 pm @ Seth Mnookin
The year’s most brilliant movie: Italian Spiderman. Enjoy.
Post Categories: Crappy Fans & Leslie Nielsen
July 21st, 2008 → 9:03 am @ Seth Mnookin
Among the many reasons I haven’t been posting as much as of late is that I recently returned from several weeks in Iraq. While I was there, the only exposure I had to baseball was during the pair of meals I ate in a D-Fac — that’s military for “dining facility” — in Diyala province a couple of hours north of Baghdad; the US Armed Forces does keep its troops sated with a steady diet of SportsCenter and Fox News. For most the trip, however, I was unembedded, which meant no baseball for me.
I did get one jarring reminded of the global reach of the Crimson Hose. One afternoon, I set out (with the mandatory armed guards) to spend a quick half-hour exploring a local market which has only recently re-opened. Included among the too-large, garish Iraqi shirts–my wife is none too fond of the Maystro brand number I’ve been sporting since my return–was a table of counterfeit Sox hats…decorated with glued on sequins formed into a heart with the word “Love” written out in the middle. This is not a joke.
For what it’s worth, there were no Yankees hats to be seen.
July 21st, 2008 → 8:56 am @ Seth Mnookin
It’s late July and humid enough so that my sweat feels like it’s sweating. Perfect time, in other words, to distract yourself with some great book reading. Or magazine reading, as the case might be: take the time to read this excerpt from David Carr‘s about to be published memoir, Night of the Gun. David is a good friend, but even if he wasn’t, Gun is the type of bracingly honest and shockingly well-written book that would make a man jealous if we wasn’t so impressed. Once you start down that wormhole, there’s plenty else to explore, ranging from a rash of press coverage to what is perhaps the best book-related web site I’ve ever seen.
Post Categories: Bad Advertising & Car Salesmen & Wally the Green Monster
June 5th, 2008 → 10:09 am @ Seth Mnookin
The University of Mississippi Press has just released Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson, which is not, as it might seem, a series of interviews but a collection of 30 articles about HST written over the last forty some odd years. The table of contents is impressively eclectic: there’s a Doug Brinkley piece from The Paris Review, a Craig Vetter article from Playboy, and — no joke — a old Ron Rosenbaum story that first ran in High Times. (If you’re wondering: yes, that’s the same Ron Rosenbaum who wrote Explaining Hitler and The Shakespeare Wars.) (There are also, predictably a pair of articles titled “Still Gonzo After All These Years.”) (Triple parens alert. The book is also co-edited by someone with one of the all-time great handles: Beef Torrey. I’ve spoken with him, and that’s his honest-to-goodness, god-given name. His parents, I assume, were not vegetarians.)
All of that should more than enough to recommend the book. There is also an essay I wrote back in 2000, when I first met Hunter during a couple of all-night editing sessions at his ranch in Owl Creek. I hadn’t read the piece, titled “Fear and Writing,” in a good five or so years, and it made me both sad and proud: I miss that old fuck, and the piece is actually pretty good. And since it ran in the now-defunct Brill’s Content, this the only place you’ll ever get to read it.
Post Categories: homophobia & Red Sox Nation & Ron Gant & Ugueth Urbina
June 1st, 2008 → 5:36 pm @ Seth Mnookin
Love, Jonathan Papelbon.
Post Categories: 2008 Season & Broadcasting & Jonathan Papelbon
May 25th, 2008 → 12:23 pm @ Seth Mnookin
This Sunday’s Boston Globe Magazine features, “What are they doing to my high school?”*, a story I wrote about my alma mater, Newton North, which is currently in the process of being ripped down in favor of a brand-spanking new $200 million facility…which means the new building will actually cost more than the Red Sox’s annual payroll.
For those of you worried that the nuances of the article will be over your head if, for instance, you’re unfamiliar with the social topography of North’s “house” system circa the late 1980s, don’t fret – the story includes this handy cheat sheet:
“If The “Breakfast Club” had been set at North, Ally Sheedy would have hung out in Bacon, Molly Ringwald in Riley, Emilio Estevez in Adams, and Anthony Michael Hall in Beals. Despite the mushes’ often violent dislike of the punkers, Judd Nelson could have hung out in either Palmer or Bacon, drugs being, of course, the great equalizer.”
Ah, yes…the joys of pre-“Home Alone” John Hughes movies.
* Warning: the print edition includes a picture of me on prom night.
Post Categories: Boston Globe & John Hughes & mushes & Newton North High School
