It’s a scenario more befitting the Seattle Mariners or Pittsburgh Pirates of the recent past: an optimistic spring, a disappointing season, and openings for manager and general manager at the end. But your Boston Red Sox today are in precisely that place, and it’s time we stopped thinking they (and we as fans) somehow lead a charmed existence simply because of where they (and we) partake of baseball.
Statistically, the Sox finished with a better record than all but eight other teams, a feat that would be cause for celebration in the two aforementioned cities, as well as other woebegone hardball havens like Houston and Kansas City. But to say that out loud is to conjure memories of Dan Duquette’s infamous season’s ticket renewal letter in which he wrote of how many days the Sox had spent in first place the year before – the point being that if one of those days wasn’t the last one, what, then, was the difference?
Nay, today’s Olde Towne Team has all the trappings of a second-division ballclub with a bottom-dwelling attitude. By all accounts, there were divisions in the dugout, decisions bred of non-baseball factors, and a general sense of either entitlement or apathy, I’m not sure which, from the clubhouse through to the penthouse. Either way, we know this team coasted to the finish line with neither momentum nor propulsion enough to actually make it there, and we’re now left with the same sunk feeling we had when this ownership group took control a decade ago.
Back then, the Red Sox were just another team, generally posting winning records but accomplishing little else. Today, they occupy that position again, and club officials may be best advised to do what their counterparts in those other places are doing: start over and don’t expect too much.
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