Toeing the Rubber

We lost Greg Montalbano in 2009. Kelly O'Connor took this photo of him at the Lowell Spinner's Alumni Dinner in January 2009 (Used with permission)

Just a note of warning:  This entry is long and although I want it to be all-encompassing, I’m sure I’ve missed  few things.  But this is pretty much how I remember 2009!

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2009 was a fairly eventful year for me personally in both the good and bad categories.  Sadly more bad than good which is probably why I initially avoided writing any kind of recap for the blog.  But while I was writing my recap of the Red Sox decade (and I’ll have that up as soon as I finish it!) I realized I should probably write something about the final year of the decade as well.  So here goes.

January:  I started blogging at WEEI.com.  Looking back on my entries for this month, I’m genuinely surprised I found so much to write about (it didn’t stop new readers from complaining that I was writing “drivel” though.  Should have been a sign!).  Personal highlights in January:  The ongoing Jason Varitek saga, the signing of Rocco Baldelli, Kyle Snyder getting picked up by the Mets, the beginning of the MLB Network and Jim Rice finally gets voted into the Hall of Fame!

February:  Bombshell of bombshells for MLB.  Selena Roberts exposes Alex Rodriguez as a steroid user.  The MLB Network cuts its teeth on this one and, unlike Peter Gammons and ESPN, doesn’t disappoint with their coverage.  Unafraid of losing access to the players (again, unlike Peter Gammons or ESPN), they go full throttle on this story and introduce us to their newest addition to the network:  Bob Costas.  I wrote a lot about MLBN in 2009 and a bit about Sl*ppy.  I would have written much less about the two, most likely, had this story not broken.  Personal highlights in February:  The Caribbean World Series on MLBN (I was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed it!), Truck Day, pitchers and catchers reporting and Joe Torre’s book about the Yankees.

Chapter 10: The End of the Curse. When asked by Regis Philbin the other day what happened to the Yankees over the past 7 years, Joe responded “The Red Sox happened”. That will go down as possibly my favorite Red Sox/Yankee-related quote ever.

March:  I spent a lot of March writing ‘rants’ and pointing folks toward baseball-related Twitter accounts.  Must have been resting up for April!  Personal highlight in March:  The WBC.  I spent a lot of time ranting about players getting hurt and how I didn’t care who won only to be totally sucked into it by the end.

April:   The beginning of the season!  Lots of liveblogging and picking up more WEEI readers (with mixed results!).  Personal highlights in April:  Going to both Sox/Mets exhibition games at CitiField, attending Opening Day at Fenway and high-fiving JD Drew and Hideki Okajima during their introductions, being at Fenway for the walk-off win against the Yankees, Jacoby Ellsbury stealing home on Andy Pettitte, Tim Wakefield taking a no-hitter into the 8th inning (thus setting the table for his All Star selection), watching Jonathan Van Every pitch while Javier Lopez floundered in right field then eventually getting DFA’d (watched on television, not in person), the Patriots Day game where Luke Scott got all pissy and some idiot fan threw a ball onto  the field and “Toeing the Rubber” getting nominated for a New England Sports Blog Award in the category “Best Red Sox Blog”. Relatively speaking, a great month except for one thing that really hit the baseball world hard and made the month miserable:  the death of Nick Adenhart.

But I don’t cry because of any personal connection I have to Nick. I don’t cry because a future baseball star is dead. I cry because parents lost a son today. Many people lost a friend. And the world lost someone who could have potentially been great. Not just at baseball but at life. No drunken ass has the right to take that away from us. This doesn’t “put things into perspective” for me. I hate when people say that. I’m forty years old for God’s sake, I’ve seen enough death and tragedy in my life to have proper perspective, thank you. I don’t watch baseball and think that what goes on down on that field is life or death and more important than anything else in my life. I’d argue that most sports fans, even if they act like they have no perspective, have exactly that. Baseball is an outlet to forget about the realities of life for a few hours.

May: Getting to see Daniel Bard’s first Major League appearance (after having seen him pitch in Pawtucket) was very special.  Finding out that Jerry Remy was recovering from cancer was sad and a little frightening.  Personal highlights in May:  Seeing Kyle Snyder with the Bisons at Pawtucket, Javier Lopez signing Steve the Ferret’s “Lopez” jersey (also at Pawtucket), Aubrey Huff fistpumping to Joba Chamberlain, appearing on “The Baseball Show” on Comcast SportsNet, crying (literally crying) over Big Papi’s first home run of the season, getting to meet metsgrrl and “paloozaing” with a huge group of people I love during the Mets/Sox series at Fenway.

Yesterday was an amazing day spent with friends (most of whom I haven’t seen in quite a while or hadn’t met yet!). There are many amazing tales to tell (but not here!) – my favorite being when our friend Susan noted that we could start singing “O Canada” except no one knows the words past “O Canada!”. Standing up and singing loudly and proudly, a group of us proved her wrong. That our serenade didn’t get us thrown out still kind of surprises me.

June:  This month brought us the end of interleague play, the end of Jonathan Van Every’s season (thanks to knee surgery), Tim Wakefield hitting ten victories with his torn labrum, John Smoltz making us all wonder why we were so excited to have him on the team while Dusty Brown makes his major league debut.  Personal highlights for June:  Derek Lowe returning to Fenway with the Braves, Nick Green’s walkoff against those same Braves, sitting in Fenway during a mind-numbing rain delayed game that turned into a loss for the Sox (okay, that one is a lowlight, really) and the Sox capping off 7 wins in a row against the Yankees with an eighth.

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Photo of the Captain taken at the last game at Fenway in 2009 - ALDS game 3 - courtesy of Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.net and used with permission.

It came as a surprise to no one that Tek exercised his option on Wednesday and will be back with the team.  He seemed resigned to his new role as the playoffs began this year and Theo made it quite clear before Tek’s decision was made public that Victor Martinez would be the full-time catcher – so Tek knows what his staying on with the team will mean.  EVERYONE knows that Tek knows this.   And Tek’s history is such that no one really thinks this will be an issue.  He’s always been professional and seemingly puts the team first.  Well, everyone knows this except this guy.

In their on-going effort to make an issue where there isn’t one, the Boston Globe publishes a piece about how Tek coming back “won’t end well”.  Not because he’ll play poorly due to his age and obviously decline in his skills…no not that.  It “won’t end well” because Tek’s “mere presence” is going to “undermine” Victor Martinez.  I’m using quotes here because I don’t want it to be mistaken that I am the one writing those ridiculous words.   Here’s more from Mr. Gasper:

Tek’s return for a 14th season with the Sox sets up Martinez’s game-calling skills to be second-guessed at every turn by fans, media and possibly his own pitchers.

very time Martinez puts down a sign this season and a Red Sox pitcher shakes him off, you’ll have to wonder if the pitcher is doing it because he thinks there is a better pitch in that situation or because it’s not the sign that Varitek would have put down.

I’m wondering if Gasper actually paid attention to the Red Sox during the second half of the 2009 season.  The fans, the media and the Red Sox pitchers all fell in love with Victor Martinez, pretty much on sight.  Of course, it seemed that Josh Beckett had some trouble adjusting but you know how Tito dealt with that?  He let Beckett pitch to Varitek most of the time.  But even Beckett finally gave in and let the reality hit that, sadly, Tek was turning into Doug Mirabelli.  If the starting rotation in 2010 is the same as it was in 2009 – every pitcher on the team will have had sufficient innings under their belt having pitched to Victor Martinez.  Some with great success.  Does Gasper think a new pitcher will come in and question Martinez’ talents?  Does he think the pitchers currently on staff are so stupid they thought Martinez was a quick fix and Tek was coming back to the every day role in 2010?

The kicker in this “commentary” comes here:

Can’t you already envision a scenario where Josh Beckett, who seemed to be the most obstinate about Martinez supplanting Varitek as the team’s best option behind the plate last season, goes to manager Terry Francona and asks for Varitek to be his personal catcher?

Beckett, who in three regular-season starts with Martinez had a 6.19 ERA, would have been forced to adjust if Varitek departed. Now, Beckett, in a contract year, can cling to his security blanket. So, every time the Red Sox send their ace to the mound they’ll have to take Martinez’s valuable bat (.303, 23 home runs, 108 RBI, .861 on-base percentage-plus-slugging) out of the lineup, a bat that is the primary reason Martinez is valuable as a catcher in the first place.

It makes me think that Gasper has never seen Martinez play.  Is he unaware that most actually think he’s a better first baseman than catcher?  Does he not realize that Tek catching most likely will almost NEVER take Martinez’ bat out of the lineup because Tito will probably schedule days off for Mike Lowell…our aging, creaky, third baseman…putting Youk at third and Victor Martinez at…wait for it…first on those days?  (Not to forget the struggling designated hitter who will benefit from rest this year as well…)

Gasper ends his piece by saying it would have been better for Tek to have signed elsewhere.  Not for his offensive and defensive declines, but so the players, media and fans won’t second guess everything Victor Martinez does behind the plate.  In two-plus months this year no one second guessed Martinez.  Actually, the media and fans were clamoring for him to take over the lead role from Tek and even Gasper points out that Clay Buchholz actually improved with Martinez and Jon Lester “worked well” with him too.  It was also determined that he could serviceably catch Wake.  That’s three out of five, Gasper.  Slide in Daisuke, who only pitched to Martinez once in 2009 (against the Yanks, giving up 1 earned run, 7 hits and 5 walks so there’s too small a sample size), and maybe your only “issue” is Beckett?  (And that’s a big maybe since I’m not even close to being convinced Beckett will be an issue here.)   Tim Wakefield pitched for years to his own catcher, is it really the end of the world if Beckett does it for a season?

I’m happy the Captain is back.  He means a lot to the team and to many of the fans.  He seems to be dealing with the issue of his new role, even acknowledging as the playoffs began that it was tough but that you do what’s best for the team.  I’m okay with people arguing that having Tek on the team, even in this diminished role, could hurt the team – no one enjoys a hitter in there batting a solid .200, even for just one game a week – but to argue that he,  just as a man, will hurt this team is that typical alarmist crap that the Globe has now become expected to write.  Slow news day?  Let’s try to get the fans worried about what MIGHT happen!  Thankfully and, admittedly, surprisingly, most of the fans – even some of the nuts who comment over at Boston.com, weren’t having any part of Gasper’s ridiculous argument.  A few agree with him, though.  There’s one commenter who chides the folks criticizing by defending it as an “opinion”.  Fine. It’s his opinion that he’s spouting like fact – and it’s  my opinion that all he’s trying to do is get fans riled up about Tek.  Hell, the Globe needs to tout a new villain for the new season.  Instead they’re getting riled up about the lazy writing going on over at the Globe.  I like it.

So welcome back, Tek.  I, for one, am happy you’ll be back in the clubhouse…but I’m also happy that VMart will be taking on the majority of catching duties, I can’t lie about that.  So that’s one issue settled for the Sox and a whole lot more still left hanging out there.  It’s going to be a long and, hopefully, interesting hot stove.

Tough to post daily right now with all the little things going on but that doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention.  Thrilled that the Sox picked up VMart’s option, happy that Wake will be returning albeit with a new contract and not surprised at all that the Sox didn’t pick up Tek’s option.  So far no huge surprises in the early days of the Hot Stove.  Right now folks are hanging on to whether Tek will exercise his option or let Scott Boras talk him into doing something seemingly stupid – but he only has until today (Wednesday) to decide.  I don’t know that I’m ready for the Jason Varitek era to end (although, in a sense, it already has given that if he comes back he’ll be the backup catcher) but I’m eager for moves to be made.

More important than Tek’s deadline, Wednesday is Veterans Day.  So I’m going to make this entry short and with purpose.  Be thankful for the men and women of the military, folks.  Regardless of your views on the war, there is no denying that these folks put their lives on the line so chickens like me don’t have to.  They don’t get as much appreciation as they genuinely deserve, so, thank you, people of the military.  Thank you for your sacrifices.