ADRIAN!

ADRIAN!!!



No, not that Adrian, this Adrian...



Nope, not that Adrian either, this Adrian...


Yup, that one. Maybe. According to this. Blecht. Rocky will be disappointed.

See my vest...ing options!!

Fact: I will sneak a Simpsons reference in where, and when, ever I can not only Cheese wise, but also in life in general. Now that's cleared up.

Bay more or less painted himself into a corner when he turned down the Sox 4 yr/$60M offer because then every other team knew he wanted either more money or more years.

When apparently no one else was clamoring for Whitey's services, The Mets came in and upped the Sox offer by $1.5M a year and a very Mr. Burns-esque "Vesting" option for a 5th year. While I doubt Omar Minaya opened up his closet and said "Gorilla Chest" or "Gopher Loafer", he did chose to throw some serious cash at a new hitter for their brand new pitcher's park. Speaking in strictly other baseball teams now, this leaves Matt Holliday and super-devil-agent Scott Boras just kind of waiting for someone to low-ball them. Please, someone low-ball Boras. St. Louis, this is to you: Low. Ball. Thank you.

Peace out Jay-Bay... again

All signs are pointing to the Great White Hype signing with The Mets pending a physical. Of course this physical is thought to be more routine than the Mike Lowell probing so there's much less chance of Bay ending up back with the Sox due to a cranky digit. Besides a lot of maple syrup, Bay leaves behind a team that still looks one deal away from being ready for 2010 competition and this signing just kind of solidifies that the OF will definitely be sub-par at best. I guess sub-par might not be the correct word. How about sub-exciting? 2010 Red Sox: Not quite as exciting as last year, but much less Canadian.

Also, this totally effs up my Jason Bay Canadian Maple Syrup/Tasty Suntan Lotion post I was going to make. What a waste of pancake topping.

Blasphemy

They turned Fenway into hell, and hell has frozen over. and by hell, I mean a venue for the worst sport ever... hockey. ok, maybe its not the worst sport ever, the two-man luge is, but still, this is the equivalent of turning the Sistine Chapel into a giant drive-thru Wendy's. Wait, that would be awesome. ok, nevermind. Fenway is being used for something other than baseball, which is like salt in an open wound given the last few months of baseball news.
Anways, since the MLB office is closed, and trades and such are on hiatus for another few days, the Cheese couldn't help but make a visit over to the frozen friendly confines. And we brought our cameras... (well, the Globe did, we didn't want to freeze our asses off)

Look, they installed an outfield fence that even Ortiz can hit over! HIYO!

"Hello all! I'm Beary the Bruin. I am here to spread the good word of hockey. Now if you'll excuse me, I have an 8-year-old I have to go check into the boards."

"Wow, this is much easier than putting on catchers gear. career change?"

"Hey, anybody seen that Victor Martinez? I want to pull his shirt over his head and beat the snot out of him."

Terry O'Reilly: "Cam, I'm telling you, I was ice-fishing up in Winnipeg last weekend and I caught a trout so big that I had to hug it like this..."

Cam Neely: "Terry, you're full of sh*t. And I've told you a thousand times, my name is Sea Bass."

"Gentleman, I think we took a wrong turn on Causeway Street."

Maybe we need to be more Evil

Maybe the front office needs to take a lesson from Dr. Evil and be just that. Evil. Evil in this case means giving Saint Lowell the heave-ho and freeing up whatever space needed, be it Jacoby exiting stage left or something else, then they can evily sign Captain Pastey (Bay) to a back-loaded evil contract and show those jerks in NY what Evil Empire really means. Someone has to put on their big boy evil pants because right now the only upgrade I'm seeing offensively on this team is Scoots at SS and that's just more of a default upgrade because we're assuming he'll be the only guy suiting up there instead of the 12 or so guys that passed through there last year. Yes a full year of V-Mart in place of Tek and the addition of Lackey will help but I think that there is still a piece missing. An evil piece.

Christmas food hangover

The Christmas Food Hangover. It usually happens the night of Xmas but it's quite possible that it can happen the day after if you decide to try and spend a $75 gift certificate at the Outback between two people and eat nothing but chocolate coins before dinner. It's a magical time of the year.

In the baseball world things are progressing along like the recovery from the Xmas hangover; very slow and painful. No news yet of any trades or free agent signings or new ball-girls or anything to do with the Sox. Not even a good rumor to keep us occupied til New Years. Hell, showing a Heidi Watney morning workout montage on NESN would at least kind of rally the troops so we all don't feel so in the dark. A Very Remy-Christmas? Happy Eck-Year? NESN, why are you so against all things awesome?

So, you're saying there's a chance??

Besides the obvious issues like money, needing a place to play and him already turning down the Sox offer, every day Jason Bay doesn't sign with another team it makes it seem more and more likely that he is coming back to Boston. There always has to be some type of logic behind the moves that Theo makes but my logic used above to explain Bay coming back, that's called Optimist-ass Logic. It makes no sense except inside of my head and even I know there's something a little flawed. Flawed in the logic that is, not necessarily in my head.

Merry Christmas

While Xmas surely loses some of its' luster when you grow up there is still a good amount of magic around if you have any kids or are within an earshot of one that still believes. I have yet to ever be "the grinch" to a younger kid by telling him that Santa no longer exists because a few years ago all of us were pretty big into "believing".

I hope everyone has a great Christmas and may all your Red Sox wishes come true.

Luke... I am your wireless provider

The AT&T vs Verizon war reached new heights when AT&T got Owen Wilson to do some anti-Verizon commercials. I say VZ has to shoot back and get Luke Wilson to point out his brothers' obvious flaws. While Luke has Old School on his side which is beyond a classic, Owen has Wedding Crashers AND was the voice of a frickin' Lightning McQueen. Rather than Owen show that mashed up nose and straw hair on a commercial, I think he should take the licensing rights to Lighting and show his little (maybe big, not sure?) brother how to do cell phones. If it wasn't the eve before Christmas I'd probably come up with a clever picture and maybe even a few funny links, but I still have to go out and do half my Xmas shopping. Also if I didn't have Verizon I'd be pointing out all their short comings and signing the praises of Luke rather than Owen. OK, now I'm getting them confused. A quick Google shows me there is a 3rd brother, Andrew. Wow. You can even learn things on Xmas eve.

In this post, I predict the future

YEEEES!!! You are correct, SIR! Gotta love Ed.

Anyways, there's a lot of confusion about what's next and what the Sox are going to do. I am here to tap into the vast wide openness that is the future.

Jason Bay, Matt Holliday, Adrian Beltre and Adrian Gonzalez... Players that will not be starting for the Sox come April. Maybe it's the snow or maybe it's the woman in front of me at Dunkin Donuts who ordered half a dozen egg sandwiches when all I wanted was a medium regular, but I'm Mr. Negative right now and I don't see the Sox pulling off anymore moves. My reasons? Oh, I have reasons. Unless Theo gets Bud Selig and his bunch of yes men to change it to a 26 man roster, there's just no room left for anyone else. If they can move Lowell then yes, there will be one spot, but right now there's no room at the Yawkey Way Inn. More reasons? Cashola. Henry has a money tree, but he might not want to shake all the leaves off that sucker on a less than ideal free agent class this year. Maybe save a few bucks to throw at Mauer next year? Just food for thought.

Boof Bosner... The savior of the 2010 Red Sox. No, I'm kidding. The only thing Boof might save is a seat on the bench for one of the starters that actually pitches during the season.

And within all this negativity there lies some anti-jinxing magic that we here at The Cheese put so much faith in. Break a leg, dislocate a thumb, do what you have to do because we need some mojo right about now.

Oh Johnny, how we don't miss you.

Could the Sox use an out fielder right now? Eh, maybe. Will they sink to the the lowly low of all lows by signing someone who recently appeared on, ohhhh I don't know, Monday Night Raw? Someone like, ohhhh, I don't know, like Johnny Damon? I'm guessing no. Damon did some kind of hosting or wrestling or weak arm showing off of some kind last night while taunting the crowd about how he's won WS rings in both NY and Boston. From the clips I've seen it was pretty magical in a "oh how the mighty have fallen" kind of way. In his Boston days Damon would have held himself to much higher standards... like being a guest referee or announcer or at least stealing a kiss from someone besides an old goat named The Fabulous Moolah. My apologies if you looked at that picture.

Hot Stove + 12 inches of snow = Water

And water is boring as hell. Chances are Theo should be scheming up some kind of dastardly plan to move Mike Lowell to the Mariners in a Heathcliff Slocumb/Lowe+Varitek deal of yester year, but I doubt even the M's haven't heard the news about "the thumb".

So what to do now? Throw away the season and start to think about 2011? Even though that may be my mentality I'm hoping the front office takes a different look at things and pulls something else out of their collective butts. Moving Lowell is going to be a problem, as if it already wasn't. Short of giving him away for free I just don't know how this is going to get resolved before spring training and before he can prove his thumb is firmly attached to his hand, like a thumb should be.

While we wait on "the thumb" we can take pleasure in seeing that after Jason Bay turned down the Sox 4/$60 deal it looks like the only other team looking for his services at such a steep rate is the New York Mets, which happen to be a hopeless team with a bloated payroll and fancy new stadium but no chance of winning their division and that doesn't sit well with Bay. Let's see, 8 playoff spots total every year, maybe 2 or 3 of those teams are looking for an OF and can afford Bay or Holliday, so that doesn't leave too many suitors that meet Bays' standards to begin with and now he's elimated another one. Oh Jason, what could have been. Shame.

You don't gotta go home, but you gotta get the hell outta here.

So yesterday, in the middle of this crazy snow storm where in NH I see less snow than those south of me in MA, I got the pleasure of seeing that Mikey Lowell isn't going anywhere right now and I assumed that he would be back in Boston come spring training. Now Ken "Ruin your day" Rosenthal is saying there's a snowballs' chance in hell of him actually suiting up for the Sox ever again. Yes I realize Lowell is older and has injuries that are common to those in nursing homes, but he's always been a stand up guy here not to mention he was just riding in the Josh Beckett sidecar in the first place and then proved to be an integral part of the team. I guess Rosey does make a point in The Sox multiple attempts to move him and sign others to come in and take his place, but Mikey just won't go. Let's just hope if the time does come when he is shown the door that he shows the same class leaving as he did coming in and leaves one hell of a bag of flaming sh*t on Henrys' front door.

Mr. Lowell, how nice to see you again

Guys like Mike Lowell don't just give up. Even when you do everything you can to throw his ass out the door, guys like him don't just go because you said so. So it's really no surprise that fate has kept Mikey in Boston for the time being. If the bum hip wasn't enough to scare Texas off, apparently the messed up thumb was where they drew the line because Lowell is going under the knife as a Red Sox and chances are he'll come out that way too.

Overall, I can't say I'm too upset about it. I know they were dealing him to get younger and maybe even get another trade prospect down the line but there was something that the "fan" in me didn't care for. Of course the fan side of me usually doesn't win championships. Actually, I really never have anything to do with winning in any way at all, but I know that if I think the right things it usually helps. Right? Sure.

Snow and football

Around these parts anytime the weather(guess)men even mention the fact that there could be more than a dusting of snow it instantly turns everyone that was around during the Blizzard of '78 into a food hoarding lunatic. Supermarkets become war zones and the second a flake hits the highway everything will come to a stand still and chances are I'll be sitting in the middle of it. Gotta love this part of the country.

The only other thing that looks certain to happen this weekend is football and while I could care less about the actual NFL games this is a big ol week in fantasy seasons everywhere, me included. For those of you lucky enough to tough it out through the last 14 weeks and make it to the money rounds, I just hope you're not playing against me because I'm out of rent money.

I need action

The last few days were great but what the hell happened yesterday? No rumors, no more Sloth on a stage mumbling something through those busted chicklets he calls teeth, no Jessica Biel movies on tv ALL day? It's like the freezing cold has reached its' nipply hardening cold self into all the other good aspects of life and freezed them to death. There's gotta be some low tier free agent that can get us through the weekend? Some organizational depth? A fatter version of Dustin Pedroia that we can pass off as Chunk so he can follow Lackey around all day doing the truffle shuffle? Please Red Sox, for the sake of my boredom, do something else. What was that? You're in talks with Prince Fielder? Oh, do go on...

Meet Slothey

HEY YOOOOOU GUYS!!! Remember The Goonies? If you had a pulse during the 80's, of course you do. Well, Sloth was played by none other than the new hired arm for the Sox, John Lackey. You don't have to look hard to see the resemblance. It's him. He's good buddies with Chunk, and Data was also played by a Red Sox pitcher... Daisuke. Yup, that was Dice coming up with all the inventions and boobie traps. Oh, Slothey is coming to the podium to be introduced as a Red Sock. The Cheese goes live to Fenway Park...

Theo Epstein: "It is with great honor that I announce the newest Red Sox pitcher, Mr. John Lackey..." ::applause::
John Lackey: "Thanks everyone. Its great to be here. I'm very proud to be with this team. This is a great city. Always enjoyed playing here at Fenway even though I thought they should tear it down when I was with the Angels. But all is forgotten. Water under the bridge. Questions?"
The Cheese: "Hi, Mr. Lackey, welcome to Boston..."
Lackey: "Thanks."
Cheese: "Were you born with these disfigurements, and did you take it personally when the Fratelli family disowned you?"
Lackey: "What?"
Cheese: "Were you relieved when Chunk came to save you? Do you still enjoy Baby Ruth bars?"
Lackey: "The hell are you talking about. Get this a$$hole outta here."
Cheese: ::being carried away:: "Do you think Mikey is a true leader?!!! He's Rudy for god's sake! Is Corey Feldman a jerk in real life?! Are you and Chunk still friends?"

Welcome to Boston, Mr. Lackey. You will forever be known on the Cheese as "Sloth".

So, Mike Cameron?

First glance I found that cool picture of him and just kind of went by "The name" and figured all was good with the deal but now looking deeper into the stats it's more of a toss up.

First off, it's great that he's a member of the Gold Glove club, but you don't exactly have to be a fielding whiz to play LF in Fenway. See Ramirez, Manny. In the case that the ball does get over your head in LF there's that giant wall about 10 feet behind you and if the ball goes over that, well chances are you weren't going to catch it in the first place. In places Cameron has played, the vast wilderness of pitchers parks like Safeco and Petco and CoCo, his range and OF value may have come in to play, but like I said, that's kind of a wash in Fenway.

For some more positives than just his fielding, fangraphs make some interesting points here in Bay vs Cameron. In a nutshell, Cameron isn't quite as bad as everyone is making him out to be and they even go as far as saying this:

In reality, the odds are pretty good that Cameron is going to outperform Bay next season, just as he’s done in most every season recently, and he’s going to do it for far less money.

Well shiver me timbers, Fangraphs.

Then there's the glaring negatives that people are going to recite/yell at you next time you talk Sox shop and they pretty much all revolve around his strike out rate, his career strike outs and his striking outness. Long story short, he is going to swing and miss quite a lot, so we might as well get used to it now.

So what can we expect in LF this year? Ah, who the hell knows.

Good-Bye Jason. No thanks Matt. Hello Mike and John

We saw The Yankees make a move to get Granderson. Halladay is now in the NL and Cliff Lee back in the AL. Bay rejected Boston's offer. Holliday is asking for silly money. What is a Nation to do? How about a whole sh*t load of signings in the matter of 12 hours. Unofficial word is Mike Cameron is the newest member of the Sox, which makes John Lackey's 2 hours and 35 minutes of "new guy hazing" the shortest of any player to date. Word has it Pedroia didn't even have the chance to try and give him a wet willy.

Looks like Cameron, 37 years old when the season starts, will take over the void in left field left by the man we shall now refer to as "The Picky Canadian". It would be insanely optimistic to say Cameron's best days aren't behind him, but hell there's action in Boston and I'm not going to go around ruining it. Cameron's UZR rating falls in the top 12 or so in the entire league, so playing left with that giant green thing behind him we should all be able to expect some solid D.

More to come today? More presents to open?

Welcome to Boston John Lackey?

Supposedly the dude is getting phsyical with some Boston docs so all things are pointing to having Johnny boy locked up for the next 5 years at $85M. 2 years ago I was at Fenway when Lackey dominated the Sox for 8 innings until Youk popped a meaningless 2-run jack in the 9th. Since then whenever someone has brought his name up, I refer to that start. Now that right there is the worst baseball logic you can possibly have, but judging by Lack's asking price, I'm not the only one who thinks the guy can toss some good cheese. As of right now, The Boston Red Sox have a killer rotation:

1. Lester
2. Beckett
3. Lackey
4. Dice
5. Buchholz
6. Wakefield

Uh oh. That's 6. Chances are you don't sign a guy like Lackey and expect to place him in a 6 man rotation. More things to come?? I'm thinking yes.

The longest trade in the history of the world!!!

I feel that title should be said with a menacing laugh while twirling a handlebar mustache and possibly rubbing your hands together. Half Mr. Burns, half Dick Dastardly. Too bad my photo shop skills are far below that level so you get Rollie Fingers. ANYWAYS, that Lowell trade that went down, it's still going down. They're checking Mike's thumb, Max's wrist and checking to make sure Max's real name is Maximiliano. Hot damn it is. I assume they don't need to check the $9M that will accompanying Mr. Lowell to Texas, but seeing how things are going they just might. Of course while body parts are being looked at the Sox are kind of in 3rd base flux right now. So now we play the waiting game... the waiting game sucks, let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Bay Says Nay

Jobs I would do for a 4 year $60 Million deal:

• Official mayonnaise tester - Duties include testing every single jar of mayonnaise as it comes off the production line.
• Hugh Grant movie watcher - That's right. I'll watch, and give thorough reports on every Hugh Grant movie ever made. At least until I slit my throat with a broken DVD.
  
• Sewage inspector - Make sure all the sewage has its full amount of whatever it is that makes sewage.

Jobs Jason Bay won't do for a 4 year $60 Million deal:

• Play baseball for the Boston Red Sox.

Is it more complicated than that? Sure. If someone was going to give me 5 yr/$70M for suffering through Hugh Grant flicks I'm sure I'd take it. But I'd also take 10 yr/$57.30 if I had to continuously watch Back to the Future to find all the historical inaccuracies. There are 17. I already checked.

What's my point? Why does there always have to be a point? My point is I like Back to the Future and chances are Jason Bay won't be back next year. That's my point.

Pat the naughty Patriot

Things are going pretty well for the Patriots as of late. That 4th and 2 garbage, the taint-handing courtesy of the Saints and we all thought it came to a head with the loss to Miami last week. Nope. The other day, Pat the Patriot was arrested for being tied up in a prostitution ring in Rhode Island. The story will tell you that it was the guy inside the suit who was arrested, but I find it hard to believe that any working class American man looking for a little happy ending wouldn't be more inclined to go to the whore house with the Patriot mascot in charge of things, so this guy was just thinking a little faster than the Krafts on this one. Now if the Pats don't take advantage of this PR opportunity and suit up Pat the Patriot in a hat and cane on Sunday then I for one am done watching football for the rest of the year. Well that and the Pats are sucking something serious as of late.

Where you at?

Although winter has a chokehold on us here in the northeast, the meetings regarding the winter are over. What huge haul did the Sox come away with you ask? They pulled in a guy named Boof, re-aquired the ghost of Eric Gange and lost the MVP of the 2007 WS, but not his hefty salary. So 3B is vacant (although we haven't heard from Pedroia yet), as is LF unless they are considering Hermida as the full time guy, and now there is physical proof here in Boston that some effed up parent named their child "Boof". What Theo has up his sleeve next could be anyones guess. I'd like to think LF and 3B are weighing more heavily on his mind than which burrito place to eat at this afternoon, but the alure of Chipolte can be a strong one indeed. I know from first hand experience of burrito withdrawal. Anyways, I still trust the guy, I mean we've come up with about 10 different trade scenarios here at the Cheese and we don't even have any trained stat monkeys working for us, so I can only imagine with all the primate power Theo has right now at his command there's gotta be trades coming out some monkey a$$es down on Yawkey way. The biggest questions is whether we have to endure the Sox bashing over Christmas dinner when your aunt spouts off something stupid about "The Boston Sox" or will we ripping the Jason Bay Maple Syrup off the shelves to give out to everyone. Jason Bay Maple Syrup doesn't exist yet you say? I'm on it.

Welcome

Welcome to the Boof Bonser era. Please keep your mind open, your arms by your side and your expectations firmly in check.

Enjoy your stay,

~Boof

Happy Trails Mikey Lowell

Pending a physical and some nerd doing some number crunching, Mike Lowell is Texas bound. The Rangers parted ways with one of their dozen or so young stud prospect catchers, Max Ramirez. While I do like the name "Max" because I think it instills fear in others, (or wonder because you wonder "did your parents name you Max, like a dog?") I am definitely going to miss old man Lowell. I think if it was any injury besides the most typical old man injury, the hip, then it would not have been quite as bad, but when the guy with grey hair on your team sits out 40 games with a bad hip, well it just ain't your time any more brotha.

In regards to the team as a whole this can set up for a few big things:

1. Adrian Beltre at 3rd. With Lowell gone and there not being that huge free agent power OF bat they might need to get the power from Beltre at 3rd and by resigning Bay in left. It's definitely a step up from Youk at 3rd and Kotchman at first.
2. BIG THINGS - Move Youk to 3rd and bring in our dream scenario of Adrian Gonzalez or Miguel Cabrera or Prince Fielder. The movable pieces are there and with Lowell cleared out (salary smalarly) they can push Youk over to 3rd and let Adrian or Miggy or Big Fat Prince float around first base.

Things are in motion and it could mean more to come. I'm selfish, give me more. Gimme.

Marco Scutaro on a scooter

Marco Scutaro on a scooter:


Sorry everybody. This is as good as its going to get this offseason. Yanks are grabbing good players like Granderson, and we're left with guys on scooters. Merry Christmas.

(notice how Marco is standing still, doesn't have his chin strap on, isn't paying attention to traffic, and a PT Cruiser is passing him... yeah, there's some symbolism there.)

One Hundred BILLION dollars!!!

That's how much the MLB Network and MLB.com must have paid Peter Gammons for leaving ESPN to now sit beside Mitch Williams, Matt Varschuersomething and ex-ESPN-er Harold Reynolds. Gammons, who was best known for making ESPN tolerable through what I refer to as the "Stuart Scott era", leaves an absolute wake of awesomeness behind him as he instantly makes MLB network analysis something not to miss. As a Sox fan, and Gammons as a lifer around these parts, I've felt that Gammy (What Tito calls him) always wanted to blurt out some anti-Yankee sentiment in the middle of some of his trade rumors.

"Word has it, Stuart, that The Yankees are going to go after CC Sabathia, Mark Teixera AND AJ Burnett... did I read that right? Do these asshats have no shame? Great, that leaves what, table scraps for the rest of the league. F#*kin' Yankees. Back to you Stuart, you lazy eyed motha f#&ker."

So now Gammons continues his analytical dominance at a channel which really was made especially for him. 100% baseball all the time. Hell, even the field they have in the studio looks like somethings Gammy could have ran around on in his hay-day.

**EDIT** Hold the effin' phones. My apologies for the first part of this post that I wrote last night, but now they're saying Petey boy is also going to be working for NESN in 2010? So what you're telling me is we get DO, Remy, Watney, Rice, The Eck AND Gammy?!?! This is like a movie about Micheal J Fox driving a time machine into Rocky's fight with the Russian while Arnold is just about to give the thumbs up to Jessica Biel (clothes optional) as he's dipped into a tub of "magma" and Peter Gammons is doing play by play on the entire thing. Wow. Just wow. See you around Gammy.

The Jason Bay Negotiations

Well guys, we gave it a good shot but it just looks like Jason Bay doesn't want to come back to Boston. I say we go after this thing Irish wake style. I'll go get the gorilla suit and the Bud Lights.














Theo. I don't know if you read the latest SCWNOC, but I was flipping through the pages....














The what?













The Sporting Canadian World News of Canada.














Let's see, Hustler. Check. Handsome Men Under 40. Check. No Sporting Canada thing though.














Well, Theo, here it says Jason Bay is Canadian.














Yarrrr, why don't we pay the lousy swab in Canadian dollars then? What say you, Theo-rrrrr?














Well, if that's the route you're interested in traveling down, just to let you know, $15 Million American dollars is roughly about $22 Million Canadian dollars.














YARRR!!! My NASCARRRRRRRR doesn't even bring in that kind of bounty.













What's up Theo LaFluer!!! Did I hear someone say Jason Bay is signing for $20 Million dollars? Me'Shell Sabathia, go have a word or three with Mr. Bay.














Right away Mr. Steinbrenner.













Yarrrrr!!! John Henry the Pirate don't like the looks of this. Yarrrrrrr...

... to be continued...

Amazingly, all photo shopping was done in house, not by semi-drugged, semi-professionals being held under their own power in my basement.

Fin-ished

I've said it before, I'm not a Pats guy. I'll hop on the wagon when things are going well then sneak out the back door once it starts looking grim. Losing by one point to the teal and orange in Miami after getting their taints handed to them the week before, well that reeks of me jumping off the wagon and finding a new team to latch onto come playoff season. Again, non football guy here, but why does a seemingly inferior Dolphin team always seem to play the Pats so tough? I'm guessing it's Parcells doing. That guy has been up to no good for the last 70 something years. He's like the older, fatter, more short-wearing Belichick.

As for Sox, what, you want a rumor? Sign Miguel Cabrera. That's my rumor. Do it, Theo. Come on tough guy. Get it done. Is that a threat? What if it was? Huh? Did this stop making sense? You bet.

Winning is for losers.

The 2010 Red Sox will be lame. You heard it here first. Look at them. They're the ugly middle child. Yeah, maybe they bring home a few A's here and there and make the playoffs, but you're not bragging to your friends and family about them. In fact, you probably leave them out of the family picture for the yearly Christmas card. Yeah, I'm a fair-weather and ungrateful b*tch. but whatever. I want a team to get excited about. This lame free agent class, Marco Scutaro and this business-like approach bores the sh*t out of me. I blame Moneyball and steroid testing.

And that is why I am starting an all-out campaign for the gang over on Yawkey Way to make a run at Prince Fielder. Sure, its far-fetched (though in my mind its close-fetched), and there's really no reason to get a first-baseman with Youk there. But lets see what Prince has to bring to the table...

• He's the son of Cecil. It almost sounds biblical. "The Son of Cecil." Plus, they hate each other. Cecil shows up to the field, and we've got ourselves a Jerry Springer episode.
• His name is Prince. You don't second-guess royalty.
• He's fat. Fat guys are great to laugh at. And when they have 40+ HR potential you can easily turn the mock laughter into victory laughter. Ortiz has lost his "quintessential fat guy" luster. And we all remember how enjoyable the Mo Vaughn days were. "Enjoyable" is a fairly large euphemism there.
• When he gets thrown at, he skips the mound and charges the opposing team's locker room. I take that as "competitiveness" (though a better word is crazy). Still, there will never be a dull moment with Prince's fuse in the dugout and plenty of matches to be lit in the AL East.
• His home run celebrations are awesome and sometimes violent.
• He plays in Milwaukee. He'll be bringing us beer and bratwurst.

I've sparked the rumor. Spread it carelessly. If he's not here in April, I'm boycotting baseball. or just shutting up and being happy I'm not a Nationals fan.

Baseball Hall of Fame, I spit on you!

Well, I don't spit on you, but Roberto Alomar might just huck a loog at you if you don't watch out. The 2010 Hall of Fame Ballot was released a couple weeks ago but I've been so busy trying to get the patent on my Marco Scutaro Scooter idea that I totally forgot to write about it. Let's have a look, shall we?

First, the animals: Andres "Big Cat" Gallaraga, Andre "The Hawk" Dawson, Fred "The Crime Dog" McGriff, Mark "I injected myself with enough horse testosterone to be considered part animal" McGwire and Alan Trammell played on the Tigers.

Other noteables: Ellis Burks (because he was on the Red Sox), Barry Larkin (because he played with Chris Sabo), Roberto Alomar (Sir Spits) and Robin Ventura (not batman).

Well, that turned out to be incredibly un-interesting. Besides maybe Barry Larkin and eventually Roberto Alomar, guys like Ellis Burks and Robin Ventura really have no chance in hell of ever making it to the Coop. Definitely a step down from last year where there was the near unanimous vote of Rickey Hendu and the long awaited vote of Jim Rice. I mention near unanimous with Rickey because this guy didn't think Rickey was even in the top 10 in that class. Top 10, or top 8 I guess because according to this little piece of info here, he didn't realize he had 10 to choose from and would have voted Rickey in if he had those 2 more votes. Glad there are such great minds at work when determining who makes it into the hall.

Ok, what's next?

The last 2 days were some top notch off-season hot stove action. I was all caught up in the Scoots rumors and he wasn't even the top guy on my radar for off-season moves. So now I ask, what's next? Doing a quick lineup check they're still short on an OF and they could probably use a backup plan in the starting pitching department seeing as relying on Wake for an entire year might not be the best move. There are still Tiger rumors out there that they want to ditch salary, and that Miguel Cabrera guy would be the guy to move if they wanted to trim the fat. I can only wish.

Another good call by the MLB Network with the '96 AS game last night. Ozzie Smith's last AS game, Cal Ripken in mid streak, Bob Costas calling a guy running onto the field a "moron" and one of my favorite guys growing up, Ellis Burks, tripled. He was on the Marlins then, but he'll always be a Sox guy.

Also, Nick Cage getting Jessica Biel in that movie Next? There's a better chance of Youk not eating red meat for 2 days straight. I've never seen the movie so I don't know if Nick Cage does actually get Jessica Biel but I bet Nick sneaked it in his contract that he gets to at least cop a cheap feel.

Scooooooooots

You can understand my disappointment when I thought The Sox were signing this guy (above) but it turns out they are signing Marco Scutaro, the baseball player, to a two year deal. This move reeks of desperation, just like every other SS free agent Theo has ever brought in. The positive here? My expectations are extremely low. I don't expect much out of Scoots so when he inevitably lets me down, I won't really be that upset. I'm sure I'll come around to the idea of him taking over the most haunted position on the team at some point but 'til then I'll be figuring out other ways the team can make a huge deal and bring my confidence level back above the miserable 2006 level it's currently hoovering at.

*Edit*
Ok. I've had a few minutes to cool down and catch my breath after waking up and finding out the Scoots news. Maybe this isn't the worst thing in the world. They HAD to find a SS and you might as well get one that is accustomed to the AL East and has some versatility in the fielding department. Arguably, Scooter is the best available right now, so instead of being all down I'll look at it that way. They got the best guy they could without giving up anything besides money. Money which grows on the Henry/Luchino money tree they had planted in the Fenway Park offices.

Joy to the World!

Baseball fans can rejoice, at least temporarily, as Chip Caray has been fired by TBS!!!

Nope, no hoax here. Its not some other Chip Caray who was an insurance adjuster from Hartford who got fired for making a sexist joke in the break room. Nope, this is THE Chip Caray. The one who's done his best to make us hate playoff baseball the last few years. And according to my sources (that website above), he got fired for the reason we wanted... for butchering every aspect of the play-by-play broadcast (though if he got fired for making a sexist joke in the TBS break room, that would have been equally satisfying). Lets take a look at Chip's resume:

• comes from a long line of baseball broadcasters, notably hilarious Cubs announcer Harry Caray.
• f*cked things up behind the mike for the: Orlando Magic, Seattle Mariners, Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves.
• joined the Brotherhood of Idiotic National Baseball Announcers (BINBA) in 2004 when he joined TBS. Other notable members of BINBA: Chris Berman, Joe Buck, Steve Phillips, vice-president Joe Morgan and president Tim McCarver.
• a world-class, over-reacting dipsh*t.

So fellow fans, take this as an early Christmas present. And while its unclear whether this will give D.O. more face time on TBS (and what a big face it is), we can only hope this sends Chip into a 12-month bender full of scandalous affairs and bad publicity. ok, thats mean... D.O.'s face isn't that big.

The MLB Network ain't that bad

I'm not going to go checking previous posts, but I think I put up something to this extent before. Right now I'm really jonesing for some actual baseball. All this Hot Stove: The Arbitration Version ain't really feeding my need. Last weekend MLBN showed back to back to back to way back All-Star games and I made it a point to make sure I DVR-ed the '99 game in Fenway. I remember walking around down-town Cambridge when they did the fly-by before the first pitch and a line of car alarms went off because those things were so damn loud and then to top it off I made it to the bar just in time to watch Pedro make the steroid era look like a bunch of puss*es.

Now I'm not sure if this tops Pedro in the AS game, but they just showed The Yankees losing the 2001 World Series to the D-backs. With the entire country rooting on the Yanks (if you recall that 9/11 thing just happened) it was sweet to watch them lose it again this time. Then it's nothing less than god damn eerie to watch Schilling go into Yankee Stadium 3 years before "the sock" and know what you're about to watch. Good work MLB Network. You get a free pass until I watch one of your stupid shows and write a post about how I don't like Harold Reynolds.