Red Sox owners quietly honor Derek Lowe
Derek Lowe in 2005 with his original World Series ring (Photo by Kelly O'Connor and used with permission)
Yesterday I was complaining on Twitter that NESN was shoving Johnny Damon down our throats. During the week preceding the Cleveland Indians coming to Fenway, every commercial for the weekend series promoted “the return of Johnny Damon” and ever game in the four-game series brought clips of Damon as a Red Sox player and talk of how the fans treated him after he left Boston for the New York Yankees.
My only complaint was that Derek Lowe didn’t get equal time. They certainly mentioned him on Thursday when he pitched against (and beat) Jon Lester and we got to see a clip of his no-hitter but we didn’t get saturated in Derek Lowe talk the way we did Johnny Damon talk and, as far as I’m concerned, Lowe was as important to 2004, if not more, than Johnny Damon. And, hell, he was with the team longer.
Even so, I wasn’t as surprised as I should have been to read this morning that on Saturday the Red Sox owners gave Derek Lowe a World Series ring to replace the one that had been stolen from him. Said Lowe of Larry Lucchino, John Henry and Tom Werner:
“You know me, I can talk. But it was one of those moments where I didn’t even know what to say. It wasn’t like they just sent over a bat boy or sent it over. All three of them came over to give it to me. They said some really nice things.”
This season I’ve read more nastiness written about the Red Sox owners than I have in over a decade. Suddenly, because of this past off-season and a losing start to 2012, people (fans and media alike) are writing about them as if they’re evil incarnate (or just stupid), conveniently forgetting that if not for them 2004 and 2007 never happen.
So where is all the publicity for this? Why aren’t Boston sports writers (or fans for that matter) commenting on how the ownership got this right? There was no fanfare…no big to do made about it. They had the traveling secretary tell Lowe someone was coming to the clubhouse “to give you something” and they gave him a replacement ring (one they had to order, no doubt, unless they have extras hidden away in some cupboard on Yawkey Way).
Right now, this sports town is so obsessed with the negative that they’ll let the good stuff pass them by.
I don’t see what the big deal was about Johnny Damon anyways… he has been with American League teams ever since he left the Sox (And AL East teams for most of those seasons, at that) before that, so he “returned” to Fenway many, many times over the last few years. So why the heck are we supposed to care anymore?
I’m sure Derek Lowe has been in town much less, seeing as how he was, to my knowledge at least, with the Braves all this time. So that should really be the story. The media is lame.
Word, Cyn. Seriously. I was really touched to learn that JH and TW and LL did this for Derek and that they did it in such a simple, personal way. They didn’t make it a photo op. They just did it. Props to the Brain Trust. They can be the Heart Trust too.