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Here we are in another winter, for Red Sox fans another off-season waiting for next year. And once more there is that other team, the Evil Empire, throwing its weight around.
True, the Yankees are not in the same league with Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, or North Korea, but they are evil enough for Red Sox fans. And this off-season has seen the ultimate insult, far worse than the Yankees’ signing of Alex Rodriguez or trading for Randy Johnson. The Yankees grabbed the most popular player on the Red Sox, maybe also their best, Johnny Damon. The long hair, the beard, the stolen bases, the clutch hitting, the charisma that made grandmothers swoon-all gone.
In fact, most of that exciting, devil-may-care hair is gone, too. Now Damon, clean-shaven and with stylishly short hair, looks as if he stepped out of a New York law firm-the sacrifice he apparently was willing to make to join the enemy. How could the Red Sox let this happen? Not only does Boston have neither a center fielder nor lead-off hitter, but the Yankees have both, removing one of their greatest weaknesses from last year, the lack of a center fielder who could run and hit. And with Damon leading off, Derek Jeter can drop down to second in the order, where he may be even more effective.
How quickly the earth swings back into its normal orbit. This is how the world has been, how it is, seemingly how it will always be: Red Sox stars bolting for the Big Apple, as if Boston were just a hick town between no place and might have been. The litany is so painful to recite: Babe Ruth, Wade Boggs, Roger Clemens. And do not forget Sparky Lyle and Tom Gordon, relief pitchers of recent memory; and two of the Yankees’ all-time greatest pitchers, Waite Hoyt and Red Ruffing.
Hoyt toiled for the Red Sox in 1919 and 1920. Then he joined New York, winning sixteen or more games seven times in pinstripes and notching twenty-two and twenty-three victories for the 1927-28 Yankees, which swept the World Series both years. Ruffing lost forty-seven games combined for the Red Sox in 1928-29; they gave up on him, and he promptly became a Yankee ace, winning fifteen or more games every year but one from 1930 to 1941. Both are in the Hall of Fame. Thank you, Red Sox.
Oh, sure, sometimes it works the other way. A Yankee descends to the Sox. Take this off-season, for example. The Yankees signed Damon. They also grabbed Mike Myers, one of the few effective pitchers in Boston’s bullpen last year: sixty-five games, three wins in four decisions, an earned run average of 3.13. Now he gives the Yankees an effective left-handed reliever, which they lacked, while the Red Sox have no one to get tough left-handed hitters out. Whom did the Red Sox sign away from the Yankees? Back-up Yankee catcher John Flaherty, thirty-eight years old and bringing a .165 batting average from last year. It looks a lot as if the Yankees have some skilled mathematicians under contract. They obviously have figured out not only addition by addition but also addition by subtraction from the other guy.
Of course, there has been more to the off-season for both the Red Sox and Yankees than these signings. The Red Sox have made a lot of changes (and had many forced upon them) since the end of the season, from general managers (trying to replace Theo with a committee, then Theo’s return) to infielders (a total makeover), to acquiring a talented, much injured pitcher named Josh Beckett (a young Curt Schilling?). Some of the moves are promising, some thoroughly unfathomable, but a dissection of those moves must await another day-and another column.
Edward J. Rielly is a Westbrook resident, English professor at Saint Joseph’s College, and widely published author with two books on baseball and American culture.
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