Category Archives: Sports

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.

With the Bruins set to participate in the 2011 Stanton’s Cup Finale tonight, it seems like an appropriate time to extol the virtues of effectively admonishing idiotic bandwagon fans who are watching the team for the first time…as opposed to people like us, who began watching the B’s like two months earlier.

Geez, this kid gets AROUND...

As was the case with our mid-2000s Red Sox fan brethren, the resentment is justifiable and well-founded. Use these helpful tips to foil any party-crashers who are clearly at your local pub solely because they believe being shitfaced before the conclusion of the second quarter of a hockey match won’t be frowned upon like it is in the middle of January—a time when you and I can proudly say the team was already “firmly on our radar.”

-Memorize the roster from the relevant team’s previous flirtation with a championship…or buy a smartphone in which you can look up these facts on Wikipedia at a moment’s notice while pretending to urinate in the bathroom. When you are exiting the pisser, make sure it is not obvious you have been consulting your mobile device as your buddies will be highly suspicious of your sudden revelation that you were Reggie Lemelin’s biggest fan. If you sense your cover may be blown, quickly call attention to the fact that one of your pals never even bothered to check out the rack on that 40-year-old broad in the makeshift low-cut Andy Moog jersey.

-Go on the offensive. Like baseball, hockey is filled with a bunch of obscure, confusing rules that can quickly separate the hardcore fans from the latch-ons. A preemptive strike by which you challenge others’ understanding of key concepts such as “four checking” (an attack formation named after Bobby Orr) and “more men than is legally allowable on the ice at one time” (a rule the NHL just added two years ago) will help silence the true imposters before they can even think of questioning your commitment and understanding of the sport.

-Question others’ level of heartbreak following a crushing postseason collapse. Back before the Sox won it all, the gold standard for misery was either 1986 or 2003, depending on one’s age. Boston baseball fans who can’t work themselves up into a lather of tears over the discussion of those fateful collapses quickly prove themselves unworthy. For the Bruins, last year’s epic playoff failure against the Philadelphia Flyers provides a relevant litmus test for hardcore fans trying to weed out fair-weather fans. Make sure you never sway in your position that, although you were crushed, you always Believed with a capital Bruins logo “B” even after the team blew both a 3-0 series lead…and a 3-0 Game 7 lead. Remind people that you had your own “Believe” towels printed last summer well after everyone had already moved on to soccer.

-When necessary, bring into question the offending party’s sexual orientation in analyzing why they had not become fans sooner than last week. This tactic will wound the ego deeply and your position will be immediately bolstered by their unplanned defense of their manhood or womanhood. He (or she, as it were) will likely forget there is even a game going on altogether and you can be sure other patrons will take note of their misguided attention. Note that this technique can be transferred into any number of different situations in life in which you seek a quick resolution to an argument.

-Reference random games from the regular season. For example, if the Bruins fall behind despite outplaying the Canucks in the early going, have a list of games from the regular season in which the flow was frustratingly similar. This signals your clear devotion to the team from the very beginning of it all. No, the games referenced do not have to actually resemble the current game. But the newcomers won’t have the conviction to call you out on it. If they do, just point at the back of your jersey and tell them Ray Bourque wants you to “suck it.”

-Long outwardly for the good old days. Don’t be shy about vocalizing your displeasure at having to bump elbows with “fans” who don’t exhibit the proper level of hate for French Canadians. Adopt the stance that your deceased relatives would have never tolerated the level of sportsmanship that rules the sport of hockey these days and that all Canadian hockey players, other than the Canadian hockey players presently on the Bruins, are a bunch of fairies.

Our Stanford Cup Prediction: Bruins in 7…in a shootout.

The original Disorderlies film garnered rave reviews when it was released nearly 25 years ago.

Advancing Hollywood’s undying mission to remake and ruin every classic movie made during the 1980s, three New York Yankees pitchers will reportedly star in a remake of the 1987 film The Disorderlies, starring the lovable, overweight rap-singing trio The Fat Boys.

According to one executive producer, who requested anonymity, CC Sabathia, Bartolo Colon and Joba Chamberlain are expected to be awarded the leading roles. However, some say casting directors believe they have some decisions to make regarding Phil Hughes and Freddy Garcia.

“These guys were all pretty hilarious during auditions,” said the source. “We put Derek Jeter in a wheelchair to mimic Ralph Bellamy’s role as the old man and they were just having an absolute ball rolling him around the field. That team is loaded with talent.”

The script is expected to closely honor the movie’s original premise in which an over-privileged, nepotistic heir to a billionaire’s fortune aims to speed up the process of an old man’s advancing death by hiring three overweight, incompetent orderlies with a penchant for rapping.

Like the original Fat Boys trio of Markie*, Buffy and Kool, the Yankees’ Sabathia, Colon and Chamberlain will engage haplessly in considerable fish-out-of-water hijinks and presumably a considerable amount of sweaty, Dominoes pizza-fueled hilarity.

*NOTE: Markie passed away in 1995, when Sabathia was just a svelte 230-pound sophomore in high school.

Yankees team owner Hank Steinbrenner has not officially approved the deal that would make the three Yankees immediate stars of the silver screen.

However, producers are not worried.

“This is still America, isn’t it? I don’t see how Hank Steinbrenner could legally justify blocking any of his players from capitalizing on their obvious stardom.”

Both Sabathia and Colon are reportedly working hard to perfect their “beat-boxing” technique: creating percussion sounds and rhythmic beats using only their mouths.

The catchy mouth-turned-drum machine chorus to the Fat Boys’ rendition of the Beatles hit “Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Baby You’re a Rich Man” could be clearly heard from outside a closed door near the Yankees’ clubhouse earlier this week.

Because most of the picture takes place in southern Florida, the movie could begin filming as soon as next month, with a summer release date and uncut DVD/Blu-ray editions in retail stores for the 2011 holiday season.