The Boston Red Sox Heart Mike Lowell: A Hartford Whaler Salute!

 

Indeed, night falls upon Mike Lowell, Boston Red Sox Organization...

 

And today, Venuist would like to extend our “Hartford Whaler Salute to” -

“The Red Sox Embarrassing String of Failures in their Attempts to Deal Mike Lowell for Value to Another Professional Baseball Club.”

 [[Note: Seriously, if tomorrow, we all woke up to read that Lowell and Tazawa had been packaged together in a proposed deal to the Chunichi Dragons for Tom Selleck, The Venuist would not be surprised.]]

“The Hartford Whaler Salute,” to those readers who are uninitiated, is one of Venuist’s most prestigious staff awards.  It is an award given out – at irregular intervals, and only when occasioned –  ”to commemorate an enterprise, person, or idea which has become clear to all to be doomed to eventual failure.”  

Today, that enterprise, person, or idea is the Red Sox futile attempt to unload Mike Lowell’s expiring contract.  The award will be err, awarded to Red Sox MGMT.

[[totally relevant aside: if baseball, like other professional sports, had a salary cap, this situation would be completely different.  Mike Lowell would be considered a grand bargain for a team looking to pare payroll, because he would have a guaranteed salary without options coming off of the books at the conclusion of the 2010 season.  This would make him an extremely attractive option to many clubs who were looking to maximize production (he might be good for somewhere in the ballpark - pun intended - of 90 RBI if he gets the ABs)  and minimize long-term cap constraints.  In fact, the Sox might not even be looking to deal him in the offseason, instead carrying him past opening day and dangling him like a morsel of shark chum to desperate franchises falling out of contention during the course of the 2010 season.  But alas, since baseball has no such cap -- an argument for another day -- we are just blithely speculating about what might have been.]]

"The Awe! The Spirit! The Glory!"

 

Gellman, can we get a: Drumrooooooolllll please!

Dear Boston Red Sox Management,

We, Venuist, salute you in your futile efforts to unload Mike Lowell.  We realize, fully, how most of the present Red Sox regime had little to do with acquiring him.  Not that we don’t all love Josh Beckett.  But Mikey, well, he was essentially Shanghai-d into coming to Boston by the interim regime while Theo did his famous spirit walk in the winter of 2005.  Moreover, Theo, we realize that you had little choice but to re-up Lowell for a very tidy sum after dude decided to go all Manny ‘04 on the Rockies in the 2007 World Series.  Tough break.  Would that you could have let him go to Philly and traded for Miggy Cabrera without provoking one of the worst PR firestorms of the young Boston Sports Century.  So, here we all are.  You, with two aging DHs who are both, only in name, corner infielders (cough, Papi; cough, M-Low) and two expiring 2010 contracts which no team would dream of taking on.  

We know, this blows.  Sorry.

And we also know that just as the majestic, micro-regionally beloved Hartford Whalers once proudly skated on manmade pond, long fated to disappear into insolvency, and eventually, vanish altogether, so does – Red Sox Management - “Your Embarrassing String of Failures in Attempts to Deal Mike Lowell for Value to Another Professional Baseball Club” have a Joe Sakic slapshot’s chance-in-hell of working out in advance of Opening Day, April 4, 2010.  

We wish you the best.  Sucks for the rest of you that wouldn’t even be in this position if Theo hadn’t taken one of the most ill-timed sabbaticals ever, but then again, you wouldn’t have won the 2007 Series then either.

Anyways, that’s all.  You’re free to go back to counting your piles of money and complaining about revenue sharing.  

Sincerely,

Staff of Venuist