1) Ron Jackson and Dave Wallace won't be with the Sox next year. I understand about Wallace, but Jackson's departure confuses me. The offense was better than I had expected this year (Youk, Gonzales, Lowell), and Ortiz loves the guy and gives him a lot of credit for his success. Anyway, Jackson wrote a very classy letter (to the fans, players etc), printed here. Though his postscript, "P.S.: I want to make sure Tom Brady knows that, although I'm no longer with the Red Sox, I'll always be his personal hitting coach and he can come take BP with me any time," sounds a little...uh...weird.
2) The federal prosecutor in the mlb steroids case has announced that the LA Times report, saying that Grimsley fingered Clemens, Pettite, Gibbons, Tejada, and Roberts, contains "significant inaccuracies." Which is good...but the prosecutor's never done this before. Can we therefore assume that whenever a leaked report comes out, we can tell whether it's true based on whether the prosecutor denies it.
(Also, who the hell is leaking false information?)
This LA Times report reeks of one guy's word against the others. We'll see. It's time now for the Tigers to get their claws out and make a Yankee dream perish, right in front of our eyes. Please! Take care guys...love ya!!!
ReplyDeleteNot sure exactly what to thing about Papa Jack. That does seem a bit odd.
ReplyDeleteWRT the prosecutor and the leaked info, I have to question the denial. I’m sure no one wants to get into a he said she said, but what does he mean by significant inaccuracies. If all of those players have not been named, he could have (and probably should have) come out and said “none of the players mentioned in the LA Times was named in any affidavit.”) But he did not, so that leads me to believe that some of them were and he could not come out and say Gibbons and Roberts were not named. I have read mixed reports about whether (and to what extent) it was the names that were inaccurate.
Your question about prosecutors denying leaks is a good one. And from that I will extrapolate a bit further. One of two things has to happen fairly shortly. Either the Times prints a retraction on some or all of the names. Or those players sue the paper for libel. Of course that is assuming they have not used steroids, HGH, or whatever PEI of choice. Its that simple. Bonds never did it. In fact, he went through the charade of suing the Chronicle, not for libel, but for not honoring sealed grand jury testimony. The thing that I have seen popping up is Grimsley’s lawyers saying the Pettitte and Clemens never in a million years used illegal drugs. Hmm. Illegal drugs, huh? Illegal according to whom?
We love you too Peter.
Yeah, I guess if we're going to look at lawyerly language, we have his lawyer saying
ReplyDelete"As to all five players named, Jason did not attribute steroid use to any of them. There was no mention of Roberts or Gibbons at all. ... The agents didn't even mention Roberts or Gibbons."
Interesting about Roberts and Gibbons. Therefore we can assume Tejada, Pettite and Clemens were all at least mentioned. And as for the first sentence, HGH isn't a steroid... (is it illegal?)
Was Mark Foley in this post?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Papa Jack shouldn't be blamed for the lack of offense. Remember they were scoring a ton of runs UNTIL the injuries came on...not his fault. Varitek, Nixon, Pena, and Manny were all out a significant amount of time. You will not score a lot of runs with Cora, Pedroia, and Kapler in your lineup on a daily basis...Not his fault.
Now with the pitching. Dave Wallace wasn't even there for the first half of the season (more or less) due to the hip replacement. It was Al Nipper. The second half of the season (much of it) Varitek wasn't there.
Dave Wallace got the bum's rush...boooo
And to harken back to another post about Theo's account of this season...I agree with X...crap is what it is...
Seanez sucked, Tavarez was not good out of the pen. Some guys were pressed into duty, but that is because he didn't go out and try to get anyone proven (EVEN though he knew Foulke was done very early on, and that Papelbon was going to stay in the pen).
He should have, at that point, been looking for a starter and/or a closer. But THE OFFENSE (see my comments above on Papa Jack) held the team in first for a long time.
So...looking forward. Ortiz is a monster and will produce again next year. However, Theo must be thinking that he needs to add another MAJOR bat to this lineup because Manny will miss time next year, and Ortiz's heart could act up again (in fact Theo should count on one OR both of these happening).
We'll see...
Go Grady Little!!!!