Former Red Sox infielder Kevin Youkilis played in the major leagues from 2004-2013 before spending last year in Japan. He announced his retirement last fall and subsequently took a job with Theo Epstein’s Chicago Cubs as a special assistant.
I’ve been waiting for this moment for years, you guys.
Scientists finally did it. I’m sure we’re all aware of the fact that back when Terry Francona was my coach with the Red Sox, he made some incredibly insensitive remarks about my penis length. He didn’t exactly term it that way, but we all know what he meant. He said I wasn’t a Greek god of anything because he’d apparently stole a few glances of my hog while I was in the locker room. Just ignorant.
So yeah yeah yeah, he was obviously kidding around. But that kind of colorful quote is the thing media types run with. I’ve never lived it down.
Until now.
I’ll admit, when I first glanced at the story my heart sank. See, the first article I read off the Internet earlier this week was from some British newspaper in England and numbers like 13 and 11 jumped off the computer screen at me. The pit of my stomach burned with a flurry of feelings I can’t even describe.
I guess my new boss Theo Epstein caught wind that I was moping around the Chicago Cubs’ spring training complex in Mesa (Arizona). All of a sudden I got a little sticky note inside my locker saying he wanted to see me. Now, I’ve seen the movie Major League about 40,000 times so this slip hanging in my locker scared the hell out of me.
I’m glad I didn’t barge into his office and tear the sticky into a thousand little pieces like I planned at first. Theo sat me down and explained something to me in layman’s terms – chiefly, the whole metric system.
Let me just say first off I don’t get Europe – why do they have to reinvent the wheel and fix things that ain’t broken? They can’t just use inches?
But I’m getting off track here.
Theo’s math lesson was a lot confusing and I stopped paying attention after a while, but not before doing a little math with Boy Wonder and figuring something out – Terry shortchanged me and it was time to formally seek his apology.
Now, mind you, I haven’t been a special assistant for the Cubs for very long. Less than a month, counting weekends and some personal time. I’m not really sure I’ve accrued a hell of a lot of vaca.
But Terry Francona’s Indians do their spring training stuff in Goodyear, Arizona – only about 45 minutes west of the Cubs’ facility. So I thought the best course of action would be to steal off for a few hours (it wouldn’t take long – I’d bring a fully printed, professionally bound copy of the penis study and wave it mockingly in Tito’s face). And to be stealth about it, I’d take a rental car and leave my car safely parked at the Cubs’ stadium, hence saving the trouble of having to take a day off yet also maintaining the appearance I was putting in my due time at the office so to speak. For all the Cubs knew, I was teaching my patented upper-hand bat grip slide to a youngster working on his swing timing.
So anyway I got lucky on Wednesday – the Indians were playing the Reds. As a Cincy kid from way back in the day, I figured this was probably a sign that this was my time to strike.
The ride was a breeze – rented a Jeep so that in case things didn’t go well with Terry I could do a little off-roading in the desert somewhere and blow off some of the inevitable steam.
Anyway, I encountered a couple of things of note in the parking lot once I got to Goodyear. The first was some inconsiderate goonball who had taken up two spaces in the garage with a compact car. I wasn’t about to let that go so I ripped a page from the large binder I had with the penis study in it. I figured the thing was so long-winded I could spare a page. I wrote out a long, detailed note to the guy about what a jerk he was to take up a space – what if somebody missed the ballgame looking for a spot because this guy decided he needed two? Et cetera et cetera.
I thought with that minor hurdle out of the way, I’d be able to walk into the Indians locker room and find Tito, show him the evidence about my normal-size member, and drive on back to the Cubs grinning ear to ear for getting the last laugh a decade later.
Unfortunately, I was accosted by several rabid fans in the parking lot. ‘You’re Kevin freaking Youkilis! Hey Kevin, sign me something!’ All these people were just swarming me. I could barely breathe.
The little kids all had hats and gloves and baseballs they wanted signed – lots of Reds fans from Ohio who remember me from my Cincy days. Really flattering and they were all begging me to come out of retirement and whatnot. Told ’em I’d think about it. Can’t say no to kids, you know?
The problem was I couldn’t leave some of the cute ladies who were also fighting for my attention, asking for my autograph. Only none of these girls had anything for me to sign – they didn’t have balls or pennants or my 2004 Red Sox rookie card or any of the typical stuff I expect my true fans to carry on their person. They were real pushy and none of them had a Sharpie either so I couldn’t just sign their breasts or buttocks and be on my way. (Some women like it when I just sign Yoooouk right across the cleavage.)
These chicks were so ill-prepared, but I’ve been turning over a new leaf and mellowing out big time now that I’m retired and married to Tom Brady’s sister. I’m a simple man and don’t want any trouble. So being the people person I am, I ripped some pages from my penis study binder that I had printed for Terry and signed Kevin Youkilis a dozen times and sent them off on their way.
Well, I’m sure you can tell where this is all going, tragically, by now. By the time I made my way to the clubhouse and asked for Terry, I realized basically all of the pages that proved my point about society’s misconceptions about the male hog were gone. The entire meat of the report – missing. Scattered about on car windshields and folded into purses of fickle female fans.
Ugh.
When Tito finally walked out of the clubhouse, he saw me holding the binder and began pointing and laughing hysterically. It was awful. I was in the height of my shame.
I dropped the binder and went after him the same way I did Rick Porcello a few years back. I didn’t care. I was steamed. I was going full bore right at him and was gonna tackle him when out of nowhere my former teammate Mike Aviles cut me off and chipped me off my route. Apparently, he didn’t care much for me during the time we were both in Boston in 2011 and we exchanged some mutual feelings of dislike. I’m glad the other guys there pulled me out of there and restrained me before I completely punked him.
After that, an executive from the Cleveland organization asked me not so politely to leave. What a long lonely walk back to the Jeep. The entire drive back to Mesa, all I could see was that image of Terry Francona pointing and laughing at me. Just a horrible feeling. So bad I forgot to even stop in the desert – I was too depressed for off-roading. Wasn’t up for sighting cacti – I’d dealt with enough pricks for one day. (Specifically, I’d bumped into a cactus grabbing a soda at a gas station and it left some pock-like marks.
So yeah, that’s about it. It’s unfortunate I had to pull a Schilling and take to the Internet. But awareness is important and I’m glad I didn’t back down to his bullying. I guess this beef with Terry Francona talking about my weenie is just going to continue onward into the abyss. So it goes.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to my new role as a special assistant with the Cubs. It’s gonna be like old times – Chicago even signed Manny Ramirez to some sort of a mentor role. I think they probably see the two of us as a good cop (me), bad cop (Manny) kind of dynamic.
Fenway Pastoral 