Red Sox: Handing out turkey awards for Thanksgiving
By Rick McNair
The size of this turkey is two-fold and that means contract and physical appearance. Say goodnight, Pablo Sandoval! The Red Sox finally realized the error – errors are a Panda specialty – of their ways and sent the rotund one out to baseball pasture with $50 Million in severance. The Panda saga now joins the litany of bad contracts, but at least the Red Sox got something back from the Carl Crawford debacle.
Give Sandoval some credit as his first spring training in Boston Sandoval showed up in Florida like it was an audition for Shamu. But that was a Sandoval tradition as he gained and lost weight in an Oprah Winfrey type cycle. Boston will accept fat if the fat can play – this one could not.
The next season it was all over for Sandoval as shoulder surgery sent the Panda into a long recovery hiatus, but the good news was spring of 2017 when Sandoval no longer look like Stay Puff Marshmallow Man. The bad news was Sandoval had left any baseball skills in limbo waiting to be resurrected.
That resurrection was not in the Boston playbook and Sandoval was gone and arrived back at his original home – the San Francisco Giants. Sandoval said all the right things to placate the Giants and the wrong things regarding his Boston experience. The reunion was not a success as Sandoval did little.
The endearing legacy of Sandoval happened on the last day of the season when Panda rocked a walk-off home run to win the final game of the season for the Giants. That also moved the Giants from the first pick to the second pick in the draft.