The Amazing Red (Cross) Sox

The Major League Baseball season gets back in gear today after the All-Star festivities and without a doubt, the miracle team of the year, throughout the first half, has been the Boston Red Sox; or, as I should say, the Boston Red  Cross Sox because of their inability to stay off the disabled list.  Their manager, Florence Nightengale a.k.a. Terry Francona, continues to piece together the framework of a team from used rags and twine.  For much of the season thus far, their outfield has consisted of their utility infielder and two minor leaguers. 

Currently, their starting left fielder is out, courtesy of a collision with their third baseman; their backup outfielder is out; their second baseman and the Papi-noted “heart” of the team broke his foot hitting a ball off it; their starting catcher caught a foul tip on his thumb breaking it; their #2 pitcher, after getting his first major league hit during interleague play, couldn’t decide whether he wanted to break up the double play at second or just cede the out so he pulled up lame instead with a tweaked hammie; and two more of their starting pitching staff have been on the D.L. most of the season.  Oh, and their best middle reliever has a strained right forearm and is now on the D.L. too.

Everyone of the injured who doesn’t pitch has a broken bone.  And their starting right fielder, J.D. Drew (or “D.L. Drew” as someone corrected me while I attended the Red Sox-Giants game in San Francisco at the end of June) gets a hamstring pull twice monthly. 

In the span of one week alone, they lost four of these players, including both of their catchers.  Even football players are reading this and saying, “Golly, they sure get injured a lot in baseball.”  (Because that’s how footballers speak.)

The season, especially that week in June, has been like a horror movie where some mysterious entity is killing off everyone, one at a time.  OR . . .  is it being done by someone from within?! [Dun dun duhhhhhh!]

You’ve seen the story before – a group of friends walks into the woods and then one of them has to “drain the weasel,” so he goes off.  A few minutes later, when he doesn’t come back, another guy says, “Oh, what a clown.  He’s just messing with us.  I’ll get him.”  Then he doesn’t return.  This causes someone else to get suspicious when he realizes something weird is happening.  One of the girls lets out a little whimper and moves closer to the brave leader of the group (also the most handsome), who suggests that everyone stays together right before deciding to split into pairs to look for the missing hikers.  (Apparently, staying “together” can be done separately.)  So when one pair loses a member (usually due to that person’s clumsiness and perhaps some rudimentary squirrel-catching device), the remaining member runs back to join the other pair, only to find that THE ENTIRE TEAM IS BASICALLY MADE UP OF CAREER MINOR LEAGUERS AND SOME JOURNEYMEN!!!

At the beginning of the year, everyone thought it would be a “bridge” year, a season of futility before their highly-touted prospects (one of whom recently had brain surgery after doctors discovered a cavernous malformation in his brain stem) were ready for the show. 

They adopted a philosophy of pitching and defense which is now coming to fruition, only the inverse of it.  They are tenth in the American League in E.R.A. while their hitting and offense puts them first in runs scored.  Explain that one, Bill James!

To give the appearance of competition, they signed defensive whiz Adrian Beltre (who leads the team in errors), a 37-year-old centerfielder who began the year by passing a kidney stone and then getting a sports hernia, and a shortstop who had a career year in 2009 at 33 years old (who’s second on the team in errors).

Through all this, with a lineup consisting of only two regulars from last year’s playoffs-reaching team, they are knocking on the door of the Yankees (well, five games back, so it’s a very thick door and they may not be heard) for the best record in the division, let alone the entire major leagues.  How is this possible?

These Red Cross Sox never cease to amaze us.  They’re constantly writing tales of the incredible, from the 2003 playoffs to the 2004 playoffs to the offseason their general manager Theo Epstein had to leave his office in a gorilla suit, stories that any self-respecting Hollywood producer would quickly say, “No one would believe a word of this!  It needs more monkeys and midgets!”  (Because that’s how Hollywood producers speak.) 

They’re like a beer commercial.

It is said their walk-off home runs can feed an African village for a week.

The sun rises in the East, unless the Sox are on a West Coast swing.

News channels follow them twenty-five/seven.

They can sell out Fenway Park on a travel day.

New born babies are named after the team’s equipment manager.

They are . . . the most interesting team in the world.

Voiceover: “I don’t always drink be-ah, my friends, but when I do, I drink Sam Adams . . . and a lot of it . . . with a cup o’ chowdah.”  (Because that’s how Bostonians speak.)