Putting on my Tuesday night Sox.

Sometimes, it's not as easy to be proud of our team and our organization.

This story doesn't thrill me. I'm not even concerned about the act so much: there are few to none males who do not do that after the onset of puberty. Where is the intelligence in, y'know, not closing the blinds or curtains? I don't know. Not thrilling in the least, and I feel at least a bit of shame as a Sox fan over this.

Not much better.

I don't necessarily disagree with Paps. He needs to be treated fairly. I've talked in the past about how I can see where players can feel insulted when getting say, $575K vs. $725K. It's like play money to most of us, but that is the reality of their salary structure. I do feel, however, that where Paps needs to address his concern is to union chief Don Fehr. The CBA is what makes it possible for the Sox to pay whatever they wish until he reaches arbitration. If you've been watching the news of any other teams, you'll know that quite a few other players in Paps' situation have been publicly unhappy about their "plight" as well. Am I the only one who doesn't remember this being so big an issue before?

Despite seeing things his way, to some degree, I really don't like airing all this out to the press. I don't feel like it's the best way for Paps to get what he wants: the Sox generally like to keep all these kinds of talks private/confidential. I'm not sure Theo is the kind of guy to see Paps talking like this and say: "Oh, okay. Maybe we should just give him whatever he wants instead of possibly making him upset."

The Sox beat the Pirates 5-3 this afternoon. Daisuke pitched effectively for three innings, Paps tossed a 1-2-3 4th, and Julian Tavarez and Craig Hansen pitched a scoreless inning apiece. In Randy just might be wrong news, Argenis Diaz went 3-4 on the day while knocking in 2 and scoring once. First cut my ass.