One Thing That Bugs Me About the Big Red Sox Trade

From a baseball standpoint, the Red Sox freeing up salary and roster space makes sense. Fixing the problems with this team required more than just a few tweaks and some small additions. And to build a new foundation, the old rotting foundation needed to be completely removed.

From a business standpoint, the move made sense. The fans were sick of this team losing, and utterly disgusted with their attitude. So much so that a Facebook group with over 11,000 likes has been spawned, urging fans to boycott the team after only 4 current players attended Johnny Pesky's funeral. The fans were fed up, and the Sox were in danger of losing customers.

It's the business standpoint that bugs me. Lucchino and the Sox made this drastic move in order to keep people interested in the team, not to win. So while I wholeheartedly support and celebrate the decision, the motivation behind the decision irks me.

The goals of winning and selling aren't mutually exclusive. But when the primary goal of a team is to sell a brand, then things can go wrong. You wind up signing Carl Crawford for too much money. You go nuts and bid $51.1 million on a Japanese pitcher. You make bogus lowball offers to popular free agents, then leak stories to the press after they sign elsewhere. You fire a manager and do nothing else, and declare the team's problems solved with a new disciplinarian skipper.

Look at the Patriots. They're not afraid to make unpopular moves. They'll let Wes Welker sit out, they'll say goodbye to Richard Seymour, trade Randy Moss in the middle of the season, and give absolutely nothing to the media in a press conference.

And when they make these unpopular moves, they don't trash their former players. They don't wage PR wars. They don't try to present themselves as wanting to keep those players.

It's all about winning in Foxborough. Personnel decisions are made with winning as the only goal. Not the case at Fenway. Fenway includes selling and spinning in the equation, making decisions in an effort to build a winning ballclub AND market the brand. And that's a problem. That should be handled by marketing and promotions staff. Not baseball operations.

Could you imagine Bill Belichick or Cam Neely, or Danny Ainge trying to balance winning games/titles with building a brand? Why do Larry Lucchino and the Red Sox attempt this unprecedented and unsound balancing act?

As the Red Sox rebuild themselves, they need to do so with winning as the only goal. Sign players to win. Make trades to win. The goal of winning should be handled by the baseball side of the organization, and should be the only goal. And the goal of selling should be handled by a completely separate wing. There should be no overlap, no meeting point, no Larry Lucchino.

The Red Sox have pushed the reset button, but if they continue to play the same way it'll once again be "Game Over."

Only 4 Red Sox Go to Johnny Pesky's Funeral

David Ortiz, Clay Buchholz, Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Vincente Padilla. Those are the 4 Red Sox who went to Johnny Pesky's funeral on Monday. The rest of them couldn't be bothered.

This story is the straw that has broken the camel's back. It sums up who the Red Sox players are, it demonstrates the problem the Red Sox Front Office has (making excuses for players not attending), and it shows that this team simply doesn't care. They didn't care last September, they don't care about winning games, they don't care about the late Johnny Pesky.

And the players have the gall to be upset that the media and fans are talking about this funeral. The players have no right to be upset with anyone but themselves.

How is it that Vicente Padilla has been with this team only a few months, and he makes the effort to go to Pesky's funeral but long-time Sox players don't? Where were Josh Beckett, Dustin Pedroia, Jon Lester, and Jacoby Ellsbury?

Pedroia says that his wife is pregnant and could give birth any day. The last time she gave birth there were complications, so perhaps Pedroia's absence is pardonable.

What about everyone else?

A busload of ushers, ticket-takers, and security were able to find the time to get to the funeral. These are people with full-time jobs who made the effort to pay their respects to Johnny Pesky. The Sox players were off on Monday.

Red Sox Information Minister Larry Lucchino defended the players, pointing out that they had a late (early Monday) arrival time after losing to the Yankees Sunday night, that the buses to the funeral that the team provided were essentially full with staff, and that players would be paying tribute on Tuesday by wearing the number 6.

More excuses, more player-coddling, more stories.

This organization, from top to bottom, has an excuse for everything. So many outside factors seem to conspire against them. The schedule, the wind, the umpires, the official scorer, the media, et cetera. And now current Sox players can't be bothered to attend the funeral of a man who has been a part of the game and this team for 6 decades? On an off day?!? BECAUSE OF A LATE NIGHT AND FULL BUSES?!?

Johnny Pesky was rolling over in his grave before he was buried in it.

Thank you, Red Sox. Thanks for these lost seasons. Thanks for the shame. Thanks for desecrating those uniforms, for befouling a city with the stench of apathy, stale Bud Light, and Popeye's chicken bones. Thank you for not caring about the death of a man who cared more about the game and winning than the entire 2012 Red Sox combined.

Thanks for nothing, you bastards.

R.I.P. Johnny Pesky

Johnny Pesky described himself once: "I wasn’t a great player. I was a decent player. I knew the game, I’d like to think. I know I had a lot of fun."

He wasn't an earth-shatteringly great player. He only managed to stay in the Majors for 10 seasons (although he missed 3 due to military service in World War II). He was a career .307 hitter with an impressive .394 career OBP, but most of his success came early in his Major League tenure.

He didn't have much power (his career high in HR was 3, and he had 17 career homeruns). He only made one All-Star Game. And it's likely that his good numbers were due significantly to hitting in front of Ted Williams.

And that doesn't matter. Pesky was much more than a player.

Johnny Pesky was a 92 year old baseball lifer who spent over 6 decades working for the Red Sox. He was a player, a manager, a coach, an instructor, an executive, and a living symbol; a personification of this team's history.

He passed away at the age of 92 yesterday. The Red Sox will wear black armbands for the remainder of the season to honor him.

I'm glad he was able to participate in Fenway Park's 100th Anniversary celebration.

Baseball was Pesky's life and livelihood. I wish more players on this current edition of the Red Sox cared about the game as much as players like he did.

And hopefully the soulless marketing mavens on Yawkey Way won't turn Mr. Pesky's death into an opportunity to cash in.