Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
Email me at btimmermann@gmail.com
Select a date:
Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe got a sneak peek at Seth Mnookin's new book Feeding the Monster about the front office machinations in recent years in Boston. This is, of course, worthy of a book, because it happened in the one of three cities (New York and Chicago are the other two) which people write baseball books about. For all we know, Terry Ryan could go on a murder spree in Minnesota and no one would be the wiser.
The book will apparently have lots and lots of info about the interrelationship among owner John Henry, president/CEO Larry Lucchino, and general manager Theo Epstein. As well as these bits.
Manny Ramírez asked Henry to be traded on the first day he met the new owner in spring training, 2002: ``Look, man, you gotta get me out of here," Ramírez told Henry. ``I hate the pressure. I hate the manager [Joe Kerrigan, at the time]."Other Ramírez tidbits: stat analyst Bill James did a study in the 2003 season in which Ramírez was cited for half of the 60 instances in which Sox players did not hustle, and this spring, after the Sox did not trade him yet again after he'd asked to be dealt, Ramírez directed a rant at the owners in which he referred to them as ``[expletive] white devils."
During the 2005 season, as the Sox struggled without Pedro Martínez, Lucchino walked around Fenway Park humming the tune to Simon and Garfunkel's song, ``Mrs. Robinson," changing the lyrics of the song to: "Where have you gone, Pedro Martínez, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you."
Ha!
2) Pedro Martinez may have the same number of syllables as Joe DiMaggio, but it doesn't scan due to the two syllables in the first word. Back to remedial poetry writing class for Lucchino!
Of course, book titles aren't copyrightable anwyay.
Comment status: comments have been closed. Baseball Toaster is now out of business.