Unless Josh Bard has learned to catch a knuckle ball since his basic one-nighter with the Boston Red Sox in 2007, then his current stay is going to be poorly received, too.

Many catchers in the majors have poor mechanics behind the plate—failing to drop to their knees on pitches headed for the dirt or failing to move their feet right or left when a pitch is off the plate (study the Yankees Jorge Posada, for example).

But Bard was practically in a class by himself.

He blinked every time batters swung—and sometimes when they didn't. A lot of catchers do that, of course, but Bard went a step further, actually flinching as the batter swung.

Want more? Well, don't yell at me, Red Sox fans, because I bleed red, too. But here's the reason Bard had such difficulty with the knuckler: He stabbed his glove forward and snapped it shut as the ball approached.

That may work when the pitch has movement that can be predicted like a fastball or a slider, but it won't do the job when the pitch is likely to go any which way.

So, unless the Red Sox are still in the market for someone to catch Wakefield, 2009 is going to be a long year—and will feel about that long each time he's on the mound, as Bard runs to the backstop to retrieve yet another pitch.

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