Daily Links - Matt Finally Loses It: Your Daily Dose Of Negativity

This is getting tiresome. Each day, almost literally each and every day, the Red Sox find new ways to lose. Or just go back to the old tried 'n true. Tuesday they kinda did both. But I don't want to write about that bucket of pig filth any more than you want to read about it. So we move on.

Link time!

And when I say "move on" I mean to articles about how awful the Red Sox are and how everyone associated with the team should be summarily executed from the owners down to the janitors whose failure to correctly replace the urinal mints is killing the team from the inside out. 

So you want negativity? Let's beat this puppy with a tire iron! Metaphorically, people! Fox's Jon Paul Morosi, whom I'd trust with my children's lives, thinks Theo Epstein is an incompetent boob masquerading as a boy genius. He's so clearly correct I almost didn't link to the article. I mean, if you don't count anything that Epstein has done correctly, he's never done anything correctly ever! The thing that blows my mind is that Morosi doesn't even get into some of the worst stuff. Like why Theo thought it would be a good idea to leave about a hundred rakes lying around the clubhouse, tines up. A grainy clubhouse video can be seen here. Is that a smart thing to do to in the clubhouse of a championship baseball club, Theo? No, I don't think so. To Mr. Morosi's undying credit he totally agrees with me about the rake thing. I mean, he doesn't say so specifically, but I can see it in his eyes.

Not enough historical revisionism for you? I hear you! Well swallow this bunk of bunk from SI.com's Tom Verducci. According to Mr. Verducci the Red Sox can't do health or free agents correctly. Sadly, after looking at Mr. Verducci's  evidence, I can't disagree. Was it smart to give Josh Beckett a four year extension even though he obviously had Bubonic Plague? I was pretty sure that had been eradicated. Then the Red Sox served Grandma's East German Chicken Flu Dumplings after a game and down went Kevin Youkilis. For some reason the team insists on calling it a "hernia" but we all know better, don't we Mr. Verducci? Then there's the whole 'sign good players to long term contracts but tell them to play badly as a challenge to the other players already on the roster' thing. I have to side with Mr. Verducci, I just don't get that one either.

The amazing thing about all this failure when it comes to free agents is that it was all done over the objections of everyone. I mean, everyone. I remember the day the Sox signed Crawford. My phone rang, it was my grandmother who lives in southern Virginia and knows nothing about baseball. I said, "Hi Grandma" and the first words out of her mouth were, and I swear this is true, "Fine, Matt, how are you?" Can't get any more pointed than that. I was so taken aback at her criticism of the Crawford deal that I slammed down the phone. But that was nothing. Indeed, even the Vernon Wells trade was like politely whispering for more popcorn in a crowded movie theater compared to the outcry, the anger, the picketing, the marches, and of course the public self-immolation that accompanied the John Lackey signing. And we're all familiar with the Carl Crawford Signing Suicides so there's no need to delve back into that again.

At least we can all sleep at night comforted by the fact that when this hellish season ends we can just give Carl Crawford away to the Angles, who are composed A) 50% of money, and B) 50% of stupid.

Finally, you don't have to search hard for the irony in a chubby guy calling professional athletes out of shape.