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.
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