HoraceClarke66: Fourth time is DEFINITELY NOT a charm

From the troubled computer of HoraceClarke66...

Let’s face it:  they’re baa-ack. 

No matter how the rest of this series or even this season goes, like demented cicadas on a hopped-up schedule the Boston Red Sox are back. This makes the fourth tear down and build up of our nemesis to the north since the traumatic events of October, 2004.

 The Carmine Hose have, yet again, built up a genuine contender, and the odds are that they will bring home another ring to Kenmore before our New York Yankees so much as grab their next division title.

 I would blame this on a flip in karma, or the bargain Jake Ruppert made with Mr. Scratch expiring, or some other magical mystery turn. But then I would be just like them, all those Red Sox fans blaming their misfortune on the Curse of the Bambino, or some piano that was pushed into a pond rather than eight decades of racists, fools, and scoundrels filling the front office and the manager’s seat in the dugout.

 Do you remember January 17^th, 2002? I do. It was the day MLB approved the sale of the Red Sox to John Henry and Tom Werner. 

 I laughed. Henry and Werner were known at that time as a pair of geeky billionaire vandals, who went roaming around the country wrecking the likes of the San Diego Padres and the Florida Marlins for their own entertainment and profit.

 All of New England was enraged, just seething mad, and the mood didn’t improve when the Red Sox’ new owners immediately launched a campaign to tear down Fenway Park. Next, they installed a 28-year-old numbers wonk—known mostly as the son of a pretty fair novelist and the grandson and grand-nephew of the men who wrote Casablanca—as the general manager.

 

What a joke! Well, at least we won’t have to worry about Boston for the next decade or so, I remember chortling.

The chortle was on us, of course. The sad reality was that, beginning on that January day in 2002, the Red Sox had smarter management than the Yankees for the first time in about 85 years.

Even after Epstein went off to work his magic at Wrigley, the Sox kept winning. Or rather, they kept on winning, tanking, and winning again.

This now makes four total, top-to-bottom renovations since 2004. All along the way, for almost 20 years now, they have outwitted us.

When the Yanks were picking up the likes of A-Rod and Giambi and…Raul Mondesi, they went Ortiz and Mueller and Millar, and Johnny Damon. While we grabbed Jose Contreras, “The Bronze Giant,” out from under their noses, they were busy developing Youkilis and Pedroia, and snatching up our own Mike Lowell.

 We went Randy Johnson? They went Curt Schilling. And Josh Beckett. They went Dice-K? We went…Kei Igawa.  When we went Giancarlo Stanton, they went J.D. Martinez.   

 When even terrific players and prospect didn’t pan out, the Red Sox didn’t hesitate. Off they went. Babe Benitendi, Jackie Rogers Bradley, Jr., Carl Crawford, David “The Churl” Price—it didn’t matter.

 They didn’t hitch them to some new, multi-year, gazillion-dollar contract. They shipped them out, for whatever they could get. Even a franchise player like Mookie Betts. He won a ring with the Dodgers? That’s nice. The Sox are already well on their way to their next ring, courtesy of Bogaerts and Devers and Verdugo.

 Sure, there have been some small disasters.

 Their 2003 managerial meltdown, and when the Yanks took the 2005 division title in Fenway, on the last weekend of the season. Boston Massacre II in 2006, and how after winning their first 8 games against us in 2009 they lost 9 of the next 10, and the division. The great collapse in 2011, the last-place finishes in 2012, 2014, 2015, 2020. Bobby Valentine.

 But secure in the strength of their farm system and their ability to assess talent at all levels, the Sox roll on, replacing managers and general managers as they leave or stumble.

 But they’ve cheated! I hear you protest. (I have very good hearing.) Yes, they have. The Big Papi Sox were juiced to the gills, and then there was the Dick Tracy two-way wrist radio scandal, and the trash can bangers.

 But so what? Cheating is allowed nowadays, as long as you’re not too blatant about it.

 The 21-century Sox understand that. In fact, they understand everything about the contemporary game of baseball very, very well. Analytics, contracts, payroll caps, young talent, old talent, foreign talent—you name it.

 Above all, they understand how to tear down and build up in the modern game, and how to play for the extended playoff system as well as the long season.

 Hey, you and I may not like much about this modern baseball. For all we know, the Sox don’t either. But they know how to play it. They have rebuilt four times in the past 17 seasons while HAL and George’s favorite office boy spent most of that time polishing his own reputation.

 Indeed, the further we’ve come from the great core built by the Blessed Trinity of Stick-Bob-Buck, the more one-sided the whole contest has become.  2002-2012:  Yanks with 6 division titles, 1 ring; Sox with 1 and 2; 2013-2020: Yanks with 1 division title, no rings; Sox with 4 and 2.

 And counting? We’ll see. Maybe they don’t have quite enough this year, but they’ll be back stronger than ever—while another certain franchise continues to both burn out and fade away.