The State of Sports Dec. 13th

Baseball

-Conspiracy Theory?
Gerry Callahan makes lots of assumptions in his column today (if you can read it...too bad; you need a subscription). He uses an inside source and the facts to manipulate what he wants to hear. Here are a couple of quotes:
-Source quote: "One source close to the Sox front office said yesterday that Henty offered Epstien the position of 'president of baseball operations.' 2.5 weeks ago, derailing Lucchino's external search for a GM and leading to yesterdays bizarre announcement."

-Fact: "When asked about Theo's return Luccino said, 'We'd like to see it happen'"
-Assumption: "Theo is his nemisis now, the guy who ruined a good thing for Larry in Boston. He believes Theo cut him off at the knees five weeks ago, and the pain is still there.

-Fact:"As for Ben & Jed, their names are on the directory"
-Assumption: "They'll be working for theo. The plan now is for Ben & Jed to keep the lines of communications open to Epstien, who will wait"..."When the time is right Theo will return to be the boss of baseball operations"

-Assumption: "But this is the direction Henry has chosesn. he wants Theo back, but doesnt want to hurt Larry's feelings. he wants a new GM, but doesnt know who to promote."

-Fact: "'People right now are speculating about a reduced roled for Larry Lucchino dont know what they're talking about', said Henry in an AP email"
-Assumption: "Of course this is what we saw Luccino in yesterday. He was reduced to telling everyone how much he wanted Theo back and how co-GM's is a wonderful idea and if you just fell off a turnip truck, you might have believed him."

This is a conspiracy theory through and through. If you read the entire transcript of the interview you see that they are just restructuring their front office. I dont see them hiding anything. According to the transcript Jed will be working on contracts, and internal stuff, and Ben will be working on player development. They will share the same office, and basically review thier own decisions as a team, given thier backgrounds within the organization. Rather than have someone learn the new things as the franchise goes through a new transition period and have someone new screw things up, they would rather have the internal experience there. People like Eric Wilbur in his blog yesterday site that it will never work. The co-GM idea is crazy basically, and they will just point the finger around the office if things go wrong.

People think that Theo is returning. Gammons has been hinting it for 1.5 months apparently and now this Gerry Callahan story comes out. What do you want to believe? You want Theo back, because Luccino is the bad guy in all this. The Boss Tweed at the top of the pyramid who is ruthless and uncaring, and doesnt give a shit, just what he wants. And then theres the Lawrence paper column Sunday that reports :
"Overpaying for center fielder Damon is also reportedly a concernt of Epstien and his supporters, who seem to be targeting trades for Jeremy Reed and Clevelands Coco Crisp as a backup plan. Lucchino, meanwhile has been spearheading the Damon negotiations"

If you read this very line on BDD on Sunday evening you went..."Oh my god, theres some kind of problem going on in this office. " Im afraid that could be closer from the truth. If you read any report published by Edes on Extra Bases, you would see that Luccino the whole week has been talking to Boras, Damon's agent. If you put two and two together and realize that the camps are Ben and Jed, who are now the co-GMs support Theo's idea (because they both admitted in the transcript that they still talk to him, and for personal stuff and advice can be implied) which is to trade Clement away for Reed, if they dont sign Damon. This was reported in the Notes section of the Globe today.

There's no conspiracy theory, its just something that people are making up. Theo may return as an advisor to the team. Kind of the same role hes been doing all along. Who wouldnt want his expertise; after all, he did put together a team that won a World Series. I cant wait to read the crazy things people will be writing over the next few days. Just dont believe any of it.

-Edgars comments
Edgar sites that the problem with him making a lot of errors was the infield grass, at Fenway Park. Wow; This is facinating. I mean, in yesterdays Globe is he blaming the grass for his problems in getting the amount of errors he had. I dont believe this for one moment. Here's why:
-We know that Edgar played 1293 Innings at Shortstop this year, which is about 150 games. He made 30 errors to lead the league in any position.
-We also know that Mark Bellhorn played a little more than half the Innings that Edgar played at SS with 712. Bellhorn didnt get it done with the bat for three months, but did well with the glove only making 6 errors in 82 games. Midseason aquisitions to replace Bellhorn, Graffanino and Cora combined for 623 Innings (in 72 games) and made 5 combined errors. At second base in 1335 Innings (more than Renteria's) there were 11 total errors from starters, and the backup second baseman.
-We can also say that it was surprising that Bill Mueller and his backup (Youklis) combined for 154 games and 1348 Innings. Mueller made 10 errors, and Youlkis made none.
-What about average fielding first baseman Kevin Millar and former gold glover winner John Olerund? In 140 games and 1527 Innings Millar had 7 errors and Olerund had 1.
-If you add up all of these numbers the averages go like this (for the other three positions) :
-1410 Innings (compared to 1293 from Edgar) and 10 errors (compared to 30). And all 3 postitions errors added up were 29 errors, if you were counting.

Lets look at these numbers and realize that Edgars statement is a little far fetched. If the infeld grass was really that bad, then we would have seen the same kind of number exposion that we saw from Renteria. But we dont. Even when we average the other positions out with thier main starters. So it really doesnt make any sense. Not only that, but the Sox spent 2 million dollars to replace thier grass in order to put in a new drainage system in November of 2004.

Renteria also sights that he injured himself and that he does not excuse his errors for personal injuries. He played most of the season 50-60%, and not 100 percent, so this explains the bat angle. This may also explain the errors too. We just dont know about it until after the season. Maybe its a lot better that way. Renteria is quoted in todays Globe as saying, "Im not making any excuses. I always say I make errors. The field doesnt make errors." But he sited in yesterdays globe as that being the case. But, we know it certainly doesnt look that way.

Really, after all this Renteria really let us down with his actions, and not his words