Once again, caution pays off for the Red Sox.
Recently I noted how fortunate the Red Sox were that Nomar Garciaparra turned down a five-year, $60-million offer from the club during spring training of 2004, and that they traded him in mid-season that year. Since then Garciaparra hasn’t come close to putting up the kinds of numbers he did for the Red Sox.
It looks more and more like they also made the right decision when they let Pedro Martinez walk after winning the World Series in 2004. The Red Sox and Mets were offering roughly the same money for his services, but the Mets were willing to go to a fourth year, and the Red Sox weren’t.
Since signing with the Mets for four years and $52 million, Pedro has made just 60 starts and won 27 games (27-17). He missed most of last year while recovering from rotator cuff surgery, and now, after one start this season, he’s out for four to six weeks with a pulled hamstring.
The Red Sox do spend a lot of money — although they have only the fourth-highest payroll in baseball this season, but you have to give them credit. They do spend it wisely.
Comments (9)
Stop picking on Teddy's binky! Only I can do that!
Posted by T2 | April 3, 2008 11:06 AM
Posted on April 3, 2008 11:06
After the latest injury, even I have to admit to being WRONG!
There! I said it! You happy now!!!!!
Posted by Teddy P. | April 3, 2008 3:17 PM
Posted on April 3, 2008 15:17
Ever since Theo and the Trio as they are known have been running things for the RedSox: It seems that there have been Very little mistakes in every aspect of running the franchise. Wether its what players to keep or to add more seats to the park and Most of all to Keep Fenway Park just where it is! I and all RedSox fans should stand up and applaud the current organazation for the way they have and I believe will continue to run the team.
Posted by Shappy | April 3, 2008 4:02 PM
Posted on April 3, 2008 16:02
LOL! Thank you!
The best trade Theo never made was the one for Beckett. Theo never would have made that trade!
Posted by T2 | April 3, 2008 5:54 PM
Posted on April 3, 2008 17:54
Shappy - I absolutely love the charm and the environment of Fenway Park.
However- unless the braintrust can find a way to install seats that are not made for people that were probably about 1/3 the size of people currently living in the US I say it needs to be replaced! There's no reason they can't put in a Camden Yards-like ballpark that seats many more than Fenway does and with the same dimensions, Green Monster, etc as Fenway. If the Yankees can build a new Yankee Stadium and someone can (GASP!) think of selling the naming rights to Wrigley Field there's no reason a "new" Fenway Park can't be constructed. Let's give the politicians some free front-row tickets for the first season in a new Fenway and get it done!
Even if I could financially afford it I refuse to try to attend more than one Sox game a season in Boston. I have been to the new parks in Chicago, Baltimore, and Philadelphia and, while they may be lacking in some aspects that Fenway is rich in, the comfort difference I experienced made it a far more enjoyable experience than my last couple of Sox games.
Posted by dboisver | April 4, 2008 3:48 PM
Posted on April 4, 2008 15:48
Not to mention the joy of going to the men's room and walking through floors flooded with god knows what just to relieve yourself.
Honestly, the place is a DUMP. Unless you're one of the fortunate few to be in the "millionaire's club" sections that they've recently built or dressed up. And many of those still have to share the same, disgusting bathrooms as the rest of us peasants. And yet, kool-aid nation still waxes poetic about the "nostalgia" of the place.
Hey, my father was born in small villiage in Greece that had no electricity and had an outhouse a few yards away from the house. When I went to visit in 1978, I didn't come away thinking about the "nostalgia" of this ancient, primitive structure. I was disgusted that people actually had to live that way.
Not that I'm equating rural Greece to Fenway Park, but at least my dad's villiage has put in working toilets now!
Posted by Teddy P. | April 4, 2008 8:45 PM
Posted on April 4, 2008 20:45
My wife managed to get us some tickets from her dad back in, I believe, 2004 in the then-.406 club. It was a Saturday game and the most dressed-down we could get was business casual dress (on a Saturday!?!?) Sure the seats were great but it was like watching being a voyeur with that silly encased window thing around the seats. NO WAY I'd even do that experience more than once or twice a year. Give me the game-day experience I get at the Spinners at Lelacheur behind home plate all season long over that overblown, overhyped "experience".
Teddy- I wasn't even thinking of the men's room (trying to get some bad images/scents out of my mind, I think). I was thinking more about my last game out in the RF bleachers with some relatives from Maryland who bought us the tickets (we visited them maybe 2 years prior and saw an Orioles game at Camden Yards with them). All I remember is my poor mom's cousin who had hip surgery trying to get up every time (which was nearly every other pitch) someone in the row needed to get up to head to the concourse. I think back to the most recent visit I made to one of the newer parks which was "the Cell" in Chicago (admittedly this place is in a BAD part of town) and all I recall having to do was slide my legs over to let people pass when they needed to get up. That alone is reason enough to do something. LOL.
Posted by dboisver | April 7, 2008 4:38 PM
Posted on April 7, 2008 16:38
That's why I think those Coca-Cola Tower of Terror seats will go like hot cakes...all the leg room in the world!
Posted by Teddy P. | April 7, 2008 4:42 PM
Posted on April 7, 2008 16:42
But you'd have to wear a bungie cord so that when someone next to you has to get up you can make it back up to your seat when they try to squeeze by!
Posted by dboisver | April 7, 2008 9:06 PM
Posted on April 7, 2008 21:06