A Few Bad Apples Spoiled the Season

It’s been a few weeks since the end of the regular season, one in which the Red Sox completely falters and etched their name as one of the worst collapses in baseball history.  But things haven’t settled down any surrounding the Red Sox, in fact it’s been the exact opposite.  There has been all kinds of finger pointing from everyone involved in the team, including the players and as a result manager Terry Francona left Boston and now GM Theo Epstein is packing his bags to depart for Chicago.

Management appears to be getting off relatively clean on all this and Francona and Epstein certainly don’t need to take all the blame for the fall.  At the end of the day it’s the players who need to be held accountable, plain and simple.

Now we are hearing reports of an already tarnished clubhouse was a whole lot worse.

In a report in the Boston Globe, it highlighted three players as culprits for leading the charge to a dysfunctional clubhouse.  Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and John Lackey were all named by multiple sources within the Red Sox that they were eating chicken, drinking beer and playing video games during games.  This is just the tip of the iceberg according to the rumors that are rampantly swirling around this club.

But the question is, where was the leadership on this club?  According to these same sources in the Globe article, Varitek was not the leader everyone has made him out to be, in fact he was the exact opposite.  Wakefield appeared to be more interested in his personal milestones than correcting some behaviors and helping this team win.

Dustin Pedroia recently went on the radio and basically swept everything under the rug.  He abided by the “code” and while he didn’t deny a bunch of the speculation, he did his best to remind everyone that he loves his teammates and loves to play baseball.  Yes, we know that Dustin.  In fairness to Pedey, he’s not going to be the one to stand up to Beckett of Lackey, based on his size.  I’m sure he tried to rally the guys, but by the sounds of it, the clubhouse was too far gone.

Then there is the whole Jacoby Ellsbury segment.  It’s come out that he felt alienated this season based on his teammates comments and snickering over last season when Ellsbury only played 18 games due to injury.  The best player on your team is alienated because he had fractured ribs?  Give me a break.

This club is a mess, noone is arguing that.  You had three or four guys spoiling the season for this team.  It’s hard to fathom that three of your starting pitchers were the worst ones.  Where’s the support for their teammates during the games? Talk about selfish teammates, if you can call them that.

A major shakeup isn’t needed in Boston, but a few players need to go.  Which ones?  Watch for an upcoming series titled “Offseason Changes”.  I’ll discuss and highlight individual players on who’s time is up in Boston.

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