Dan
Shaughnessy Sucks –
He cannot be stopped! Dan Shaughnessy IS The Highlander. There can only be
ONE!
(Shaughnessy’s drivelings in bold,
my snivelings in plain.)
Rays Are Big Fish Now
Except all they did this offseason
was lose players and get older, while the Yankees broke the bank and the Sox
made some shrewd signings to improve their squads..
PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. - Remember
those days when the Red Sox and Yankees would meet in Florida, just four months
after an epic seven-game American League Championship
Series?
So…2004 & 2005?
Fans would sleep on the
sidewalk trying to get tickets
No, I think those were just bums.
They’re like Yankees fans, only with better hygiene.
and we'd promote the Grapefruit
joust with something like . . . "Game Eight! This Time It Counts!"
And then we’d laugh & laugh
& laugh…
Nothing like that happened
yesterday, even though the traditional tumblers were in place.
There were tumblers?! Were there
plate spinners?
It was, after all, a spring training game featuring the two titans of the
AL East just four months after they completed a seven-game clash for the right
to advance to the World Series.
Dan Shaughnessy: Harbinger of Bad
Memories.
Red Sox-Rays. Let the madness
begin anew.
Nah.
Ah, yes. The Rays. The
erstwhile Devil Rays. The reigning
What are you, from
Tampa's traditional doormats
crashed the party last season, winning 97 games to take the division, then
dethroning the Red Sox in the ALCS. Sox fans
won't soon forget the sight of rocket rookie lefty David Price whiffing J.D.
Drew with the bases loaded and two outs in the eighth inning of
Yeah, that was really awesome.
Great stuff, Dan.
Aaron Boone! Bucky Dent! Bill
Buckner!!!!
Baseball's mystery guests are
back for more (they looked pretty good yesterday, trashing the Red Sox, 12-4,
at renovated
(in a February Spring Training
game with half-squads)
and they've added some
righthanded power in Pat Burrell and old friend Gabe Kapler.
Old & older. Yeah, they’re
gunnin’ for a repeat this year..
The rest of the faces are
pretty familiar. Remember Matt Garza,
The guy I put a hit out on this
winter? Never heard of him.
who stuffed the bats down the
throats of the Sox in Game 7? Still here. Same goes for James "Big
Game" Shields, Andy Sonnanstine, and Scott Kazmir.
Andy Sonnanstine: Still sounds
like a 1940’s Broadway musical composer.
The lineup looks pretty good,
too. B.J. Upton,
The Next Hank Aaron/Willie Mays,
according to Papa Booker.
Carl
Crawford,
Still amazed he hasn’t completely
& utterly snapped, yet..
Dioner
Navarro,
Still don’t know how you say
that..
Evan
Longoria,
His name’s like a girl’s name!
LOL!
Carlos
Peña,
Meh.
Willy
Aybar,
Double meh.
and Jason
Bartlett
Scrappy!
are all still here, and
Burrell's potent bat has been imported from
Does his bat regularly impregnate
women? Shaughnessy has a crush on an inanimate object.
Please, always wear protection
when pitching to Pat Burrell.
"We can't be a
fluke," said inimitable Rays manager Joe Maddon.
Is inimitable another word for
‘lesbian’?
"We won 97 games and our
division. We got to the World Series. That can't
be a fluke."
“Unless it doesn’t happen again.
Then it’s definitely a fluke.”
"They're not old,"
said Sox manager Terry Francona. "They're
not going to forget how to play.
Damn, that was our only shot..
They certainly make our life
more difficult in the American League East."
Why can’t they just let us win the
World Series every year? This competition crap sucks!
The Rays know they have the
proverbial bull's-eye on their backs in 2009. No more sneaking up on
unsuspecting teams.
Isn’t that why they have
schedules; so you know who you’re playing next?
Newcomer Kapler, a member of
the 2004 Red Sox world champs, said, "This team is similar to the
Milwaukee team I played for last year. They are enthusiastic. They are
youthful.
They are fat.
They want to be at the ballpark
working, and I'm talking about the core guys, the stars - compared to Boston
where the stars are different.
Yeah, our stars are awesomer.
Carl Crawford is here working
his butt off early when nobody is looking.
The sneaky bastard..
Evan Longoria knows how to get
ready for baseball.
Well that’s good, since it is
part of his job and all.
The starters are fiercely
competitive."
Don't look for flamethrowing
Price in the rotation at the start of the season. He probably won't even be in
the big leagues.
What?!?!?!?!?!!!
The Rays don't want him
throwing 200 innings this early in his career.
Oh, of course not. Hey Tampa,
here’s a tip: Win now. A healthy David Price ten years from now won’t matter
when the rest of your team bolts for cities with outdoor stadiums and single
women under the age of 69.
Righty
Jeff Niemann, who started
against the Sox yesterday, is a candidate to be Tampa's fifth starter. The
closing situation is up in the air. Troy Percival
is recovering from back surgery and says he'll be ready.
I think Troy Percival was
recovering from back surgery in his mother’s womb..
Tampa Bay's emergence creates a
big problem for the Red Sox and Yankees. The division is shaping up a little like
the old AL East when the Red Sox, Yankees, and Orioles were all superpowers.
You know, back when Tampa Bay
didn’t exist..
In 1977, the Orioles and Red
Sox won 97 games while the Yankees took the division with 100 wins. Now we
again see three teams capable of 95-plus wins. Only two can make the playoffs.
The answer is clear: We must take
the entire city of Boston and move it somewhere in between LA & San Diego.
The emergence of the Rays has
hit hardest in New York, where the Yankees (failing to make the playoffs for
the first time since 1994) responded by spending almost a half-billion dollars
over the winter.
Poor guys..
The Rays are trying not to
notice. Asked about the Yankees' spending spree, Maddon said, "Bully for
them.
Wait, what? Seriously, he said
that?!
Alright Maddon, I see you, I see
you…
We try not to focus on what
they do. It's about what we do.
That’s a solid managerial system.
Focus on the team that you’re paid to manage.
I can't worry about [CC]
Sabathia and [A.J.] Burnett and all those guys. We take a lot of pride in the American League East and playing in the division
that's perceived to be the best one. This is the best division for us to play
in because it's permitted our guys to get better faster."
Why do I think that’s how Maddon manages?
“Hey BJ! Get better faster!
Faster, dammit!”
"The thing we've got to do
is worry about what's going on with our club," added Longoria, who homered
in yesterday's drubbing of the Sox.
Good for her!
"We can only get in
trouble by looking ahead.
We must look sideways toward the
present!
But I can tell you as a hitter
looking at our division, we're going to see a tough group of pitchers coming at
us.
"For the longest time,
it's only been the Red Sox and Yankees. It's just good to know that we can compete
with them now and that we're part of the discussion."
For another month or so..
They are more than just part of
the discussion, of course. The Yankees have the money and the new stadium. The
Red Sox have the MVP, the Nation, and newfound stability. But going into 2009,
the Tampa Bay Rays are the defending league
champs and the team to beat in the American League East.
Jinx! Jinx! Jinx!
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe
columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com.
~~~
Now, I
may tend to razz Shaughnessy from time to time. Zing him every now and again.
Even ass-blast him on occasion. But this is one of the finer jinx pieces he’s
ever written. Heap praise on the fluke team and watch in maniacal pleasure as
they death-spiral into desolitude. (Not a word)
On the
other hand, if this was written in earnest truthfulness; then Dan’s a douche,
like I’ve been saying from the beginning.
What I’m
trying to say is Dan’s a douche.