Boston Burned
By Joe Davis
Judging by the way I write, you can probably tell I'm a Red Sox fan. No big suprise there. But you might be suprised that I'm going to stick with this team if, in the next few weeks, these events occur:
Event #1: Terry Francona needs to yell, yes, YELL at this team. Why you ask? Maybe because this team looks like they have their heads up their asses. Francona needs to put some fire into this squad or else you can kiss the Wild Card goodbye. Francona is too damn soft on this team and the Red Sox need to wake up and notice they're not going to get a playoff bid handed to them. If Francona doesn't do this he should be fired. Yes, fired. I'd rather have Grady Little than this wuss of a manager, Terry Francona.
Event #2: The Red Sox front office needs to do something about Nomar Garciaparra. Whether it's dealing him for another bat or pitcher or signing him up for next year. There is no point having Nomar in Boston if he's not signed. More on Nomar in a bit.
Event #3: The Red Sox need to find specific roles for each player. This includes benching Kevin Millar. He's not the same Millar of last year and he is not helping the team.
Now, back to Nomar. What is wrong with Boston? He plays his heart out every single night. When he hit the grand slam a few nights ago, everyone was on Nomar's bandwagon but the next night he made a costly error. What happened? Everyone jumped on his back and put a bigger burden on his back. Now, he makes 3 errors in the two games versus New York and now he is on the trading block? Give me a break! This guy has only played 17 games so far! And he only had 5 or so games in AAA. You might say well Trot Nixon has produced and he hasn't been back that much longer than Nomar. Well, Trot started his extended spring training way before Nomar and has had a chance to fully rehab.
On an online poll on Boston.com it has a section called "The Buzz." It features a poll. The question reads :"Should the Red Sox trade Nomar Garciaparra before July 31?" The choices are as follows: "Yes, the Sox can't re-sign him anyway, and they may be able to get a great "rental" player in a three-way deal," and "No, he's still a huge part of helping this team get to the World Series."
The results? 6,176 people voted. 69.5% voted Yes, 30.5% voted No.
This is stunning to me because I'm a big Nomar fan. This man has given 8 years of his career to Boston. EIGHT YEARS. Suddenly, you want to trade him just because he made a few errors? To me, that's shocking. I'm sorry Boston, that is unacceptable.
Hey Boston, Manny hasn't had a hit this Yankees series, why don't we trade him too? What about David Ortiz, he made an error in the field tonight because his glove broke, should we trade him too? What about Pokey? He jumped in the air to get a ball but didn't catch it, should we get rid of him as well? Come on Boston, you're better than this. Can't you see it? We let Roger go and what did he do? He won a World Series. Letting Nomar go would be a huge mistake.
You know what? Boston doesn't deserve Nomar. In fact, I want him to be traded because Nomar does not need to be treated this way. Doesn't matter to me, if he leaves, I will still follow him.
