Fenway Pastoral

Every master manipulator knows that successful spin control is a matter of quantity over quality. Not surprisingly, quite a few details were left out of the Boston Globe’s “Inside the Collapse” expose on the 2011 season.

They may have captured our hearts for months and won games at a dizzying pace for two-thirds of the season. But, seriously, these guys were absolutely incorrigible…

To wit, many story ideas that were work-shopped in those lush, think tank executive suites on Yawkey Way wound up on the cutting room floor, deemed far too perverse for public consumption—even amidst a full-fledged smear campaign:

After pounding grape soda with Jed Lowrie, D'Angelo Ortiz tries to crack a smile out of clubhouse recluse Jacoby Ellsbury (REUTERS).

Jed Lowrie: “I shared a can of grape soda with Big Papi’s little kid, D’Angelo, back in August…By the time batting practice rolled around, we were both too jittery to take any swings. My god, what a day.”

Jose Iglesias: “I’ve never seen The Cosby Show and, thus, have no direct knowledge of its impact on pop culture or the modern-day sitcom format. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Who’s Tom Werner?”

Scott Atchison: “I’m actually a 55-year-old man…”

Drew Sutton: “I gave Globe beat reporter Peter Abraham a pair of $300 headphones that I found sitting in my locker one day. I assumed they belonged to him because he never shuts up about the songs he listens to on his portable music player device.”

Alfredo Aceves: “I took showers in the clubhouse before and after games. Water conservation is for hippies.”

Jarrod Saltalamacchia: “That’s nothing. I specifically request double plastic bags when I buy stuff at the grocery store.”

Josh Reddick: “I told a couple reporters that I thought J.D. Drew was one of the most caring, hardest working veteran players on the team.”

Darnell McDonald: “I sat through an entire episode of NESN Daily…with the sound ON.”

Daniel Bard: “I got suckered into that Jordan’s Furniture Monster Hit promotion. You try staring at the same sign for four hours every night…”

Matt Albers: “I kept a stack of comic books out in the bullpen for those longer nights when every other reliever had already entered the game. Francona used to always tell me he was ‘saving’ me in case the game went 20-plus innings…None of our games ever went 20-plus innings.”

Lars Anderson: “I could lead you to 10 dead bodies buried in a storage shed near the Mexican border right now if I felt like it. Oh yeah, I also stole some canisters of Double Bubble out of the Fenway clubhouse for my own personal use.”

NOTE: The preceding anecdotes were provided to Fenway Pastoral by a nameless, faceless man who stands to profit monetarily by their legitimacy. Naturally, we scrambled to shed light on these facts as soon as possible. Our work here is clearly done.  

John Lackey – Guinness: Heavy, overrated and a seemingly much more viable option in mid-March than on the Fourth of July.

Josh Beckett – Budweiser Select: Your run-of-the-mill Clydesdale-esque, chest-beating America-red-white-and-blue stalwart who has captured the minds of us New Englanders and our undeniable Puritan roots. If Puritans drank, they would have appreciated this as a high-end lager capable of delivering an entire region to the Promised Land (again). Or at least it’s pretty to think so.

Jon Lester – Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA: An aggressive, acquired taste deserving of its accolades that alternates between being either delightfully intense or unwelcome and bitter, depending on the circumstances. Don’t hang with this brew all nine innings unless you want to wake up with a sore upper body and significant memory loss.

Clay Buchholz – Jeremiah Weed: One of those non-beer concoctions aimed at teenagers who want to hang around friends who drink beer without feeling like an outcast. But, yeah, it gets people drunk and any style points are in the eye of the beholder.

Tim Wakefield – Pabst Blue Ribbon: Sometimes the quality of a beer is transcended by a deference to the past that lets the drinker overlook otherwise important attributes like ‘taste.’ A bar commands a certain respect by merely having Pabst on tap and available for purchase during those (hopefully) rare moments when the time is right.

Andrew Miller – Miller Chill: It works in that backwards kind of way. Like when big fat guys are nicknamed ‘Tiny’ or  ‘Slim.’ Plus, Bud Light Lime is probably more up Kyle Weiland’s alley.

Daisuke Matsuzaka – Olde English 800: You bought it in a moment of weakness because you figured you could use the attention. Now, as your buddies stand there snickering, all you can do is look at it and wonder what in the world you were thinking. Yet even after all that apprehension, you might as well drink it down until the bottom fifth gets warm. No one will think less of you if you just pour that last little bit out on the ground. It’s finished. Maybe buy something a little more practical next time?

Erik Bedard – Merlot: Talk about a headache not worth having…

Fenway Pastoral would have done the same exercise for relievers. But frankly, finding any humor in their situation right now would feel like a few shots of Somerville-produced vodka just rolling around in a weakened, compromised stomach that is just waiting for that pivotal, highly-public moment in which to evacuate its contents.