Picked-up pieces while thinking that Florida’s Paul Maurice can coach my team any day . . .
⋅ Feel better, Red Sox fans? Happy that your team gave away the team’s best hitter in exchange for nothing that will help this year, other than $254 million in payroll relief for ownership?
Of course you are. Because you’re convinced Devers was selfish and a bad teammate. Not willing to pick up a glove to help the team. He was fat. He wouldn’t do interviews in English. Even management shill Big Papi said Devers is an ungrateful lout. Oh, and did you hear that Devers was poisoning the clubhouse, telling a good kid such as Kristian Campbell not to work out at first base to help the team?
Devers had to go. That’s what the Red Sox want you to believe.
So he’s gone. To the Giants. For a bag of baseballs. And payroll flexibility (I’m eager to hear when fans are getting their dividend checks from Fenway Sports Group). According to Spotrac, the once, top-spending Boston Red Sox have dropped to 19th in active player payroll.
Sox ownership just pulled off an amazing magic trick. With a lot of help from Devers (in all seriousness, Devers behaved like a baby and was a lousy teammate at the end), folks who run the Red Sox managed to get out from under a contract they hated, move a top talent to the other league, got virtually zero help for 2025, yet generate applause from a lot of you who just wanted to get rid of Devers.
Maybe the Sox should have done this with Manny Ramirez when he was causing all those problems before the Sox won those World Series in 2004 and 2007.
Here’s a sample from my inbox after the deal went down Sunday night:
My take is he was wholly unlikable as a whining $32 million player who refused to play the infield when needed. He’s unlikable so nobody cares . . . A bad apple like him needs to go . . . This is addition by subtraction. Hear Devers created bad vibes in the dugout/clubhouse . . . All my sports fanatic friends and family are celebrating Devers’s exit. We’re so happy to see him go, along with the $250 million he’s owed . . . Do you really want Anthony and Mayer to be in the locker room, listening to Devers sounding off? . . . Most of the times he hits when it doesn’t count that much . . . The franchise established the principle that no one is above the team . . . The Sox have rid themselves of a daily toxic anchor . . . The team is better today . . . Devers is a fat, out-of-shape, cheeks-bulging-with-tobacco, lackadaisical, uncaring slob . . . I never liked this guy, constantly spitting . . . I’m glad he’s gone. His manners were disgusting . . . The Sox unloaded a cancer on the team.
There were dozens more just like these. At times, I felt like I was reading the comments under my own columns.
John Henry (who also owns the Globe), Tom Werner, Sam Kennedy, Craig Breslow, and Co. have to be ecstatic with this fan reaction. They didn’t get this kind of support when they wouldn’t pay Jon Lester, Mookie Betts, or Xander Bogaerts.
Devers delivered for FSG. Bigly.
After the deal went down, we heard from David Ortiz (listed as team “special assistant” at the top of the Red Sox front office directory), who suddenly recalled that Devers never answers his calls and texts, adding, “You employees, go against the check-signer. See if you are going to last two days. I did everything they told me to, and today I’m earning a lifetime salary from the Red Sox . . . “
Wow. Could these be the words of the same guy who asked to be traded by the Sox in 2003, who took his bat to a water cooler when Terry Francona pinch hit for him in Toronto in 2010, who disrupted a Francona press conference to complain about official scoring, who almost harmed his teammates destroying a dugout phone in Baltimore, who just about annually complained about his contract?
The Sox also leaked “new” information that Devers was in Campbell’s ear, telling the kid not to take grounders at first — a report that Alex Cora snuffed out quickly Tuesday in Seattle.
Unlike Papi, Pedro Martinez (also a special assistant on the Red Sox masthead), supported Devers, telling MLB Network, “If you try to sell to me . . . that Raffy is a bad teammate or he is not a team player, you’re lying. You’re going to tell me he’s a bad influence in the clubhouse? He’s not . . . This should have been in the hands of baseball people, not front office people. Not leaking it to the media.“
The Papi and Pedro remarks came after Kennedy and Breslow (who care more about “alignment” than the folks at Direct Tire in Watertown) took questions one day after making the trade.
Remembering that Henry and Werner insisted the Red Sox made a “baseball trade” when Betts was dealt to the Dodgers five years ago, I asked if this was a baseball trade.
Kennedy: “It was a baseball trade because we did what we felt was in the best interest of the Red Sox, on and off the field to win championships and to continue to ferociously and relentlessly pursue a culture that we want everyone in that clubhouse to embody . . . so yeah, it was a baseball trade without question.”
Breslow: “I would echo that. With the quality of the return, we’re going to see how that plays out over the next several years . . . I do think that at the end of the season we’re looking back and we’ve won more games than we otherwise would have won.”
I also asked if the Giants’ willingness to assume the entire balance of Devers’s contract was a condition of making the deal. “No,” said Breslow. “We were trying to improve the long- and short-term outlooks. We were trying to provide some additional roster flexibility. And we were trying to make the best baseball trade that we could.“
Sorry, guys. Not buying. I’m not convinced that this was anything other than a salary dump made palatable to Red Sox Nation only because Devers turned the fan base against him.
This was a bad baseball deal, and it may motivate Alex Bregman and Scott Boras to opt out. But it’s great for FSG’s bottom line. “This in no way signifies a waving of the white flag in 2025,” said Breslow.
Swell. One night after those remarks, the Red Sox were shut out on two hits by the Mariners, while Devers went 2 for 5 with an RBI double in his first game with the Giants.
Even though they’re having trouble scoring runs, the Red Sox go into this weekend in San Francisco (“Hello, there, Raffy.”) having won four consecutive series, two games over .500, and very much in the hunt for a phony wild-card spot. The illusion of contention is alive and well in Boston.
But if Devers homers against the Sox, look for WBZ-TV to bring back Bob Lobel, then have him cut to the highlights and ask, “Why can’t we get players like that?”
⋅ Quiz: 1. Name one championship-round MVP (and his team) that came from the losing side in the NBA, the NFL, and MLB; 2. Name five NBA players to lead the postseason in total assists four or more times (answers below).
⋅ Memo to Joe Mazzulla: The Oklahoma City Thunder took only 16 3-pointers and made only three in their 111-104 Game 4 victory over the Indiana Pacers in the NBA Finals.
⋅ Maybe folks who run the WNBA think it’s good for business to allow jealous opponents to rag-doll Caitlin Clark on a regular basis. Tuesday’s episodes (six technicals, three ejections) in the Fever-Sun game in Indianapolis were particularly intense. We saw Connecticut’s Jacy Sheldon poke Clark in the eye, followed by Marina Mabrey blasting Clark to the floor. There were no ejections at that time. The estimable Chris Evert went to X and wrote, “When will these ladies realize, accept, and appreciate Caitlin Clark is the best thing that ever happened to women’s basketball. This is a bad look for the sport, and what’s happened to sportsmanship?’’
⋅ Poor Canada. Another year. Another no Stanley Cup. The last team from Trump’s 51st state to win the Cup was the Canadiens in 1993.
⋅ It saddens me that we won’t get to see Garrett Crochet pitch to Aaron Judge again until August. The duel reminded one of my readers of 21-year-old Dodgers righthander Bob Welch’s dramatic, nine-pitch matchup vs. Reggie Jackson in the 1978 World Series. It was strength against strength, with Welch ultimately fanning Reggie, as Mr. October corkscrewed himself into the batter’s box missing strike three. A few days later, Jackson hit a 900-foot home run off Welch when the Yankees won the Series in Game 6.
⋅ With Devers gone, Tanner Houck — who first pitched for Boston during the no-fans pandemic season of 2020 — becomes the longest-tenured member of the Red Sox. Devers was the last remaining member of the 2018 world champs.
⋅ This space has roughed up Kiké Hernández for his hot doggery through the years, but kudos to the Dodger utilityman for being one of the few professional athletes to publicly speak out against the present administration’s immigration/deportation playbook.” . . . ALL people deserve to be treated with respect, dignity, and human rights,“ Hernandez wrote last weekend on X.
⋅ Had a nice visit with Bob Cousy at his Worcester home earlier this month. The Cooz will be 97 in August, and like the rest of you was surprised that the Celtics bowed out early in the playoffs. Cousy is one of 14 living members of the Holy Cross Class of 1950.
⋅ Friends of ESPN legend Chris Berman celebrated his 70th birthday this past week at The Greatest Bar on Friend Street near the Garden. Those in attendance included Tedy Bruschi, Jim Kelly, Bob Lobel, Adam Schefter, Field Yates, Andrea Kremer, Kenny Mayne, Gary Miller, Max Lane, Alan Miller, and Butch Stearns.
⋅ RIP James Vinick, a Springfield native who died June 10. A passionate supporter of The Jimmy Fund, Vinick dedicated more than 60 years of service to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He commissioned a statue of Dr. Sidney Farber and “Jimmy” that stands outside the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
⋅ Quiz answers: 1. NBA — Jerry West (1969 Lakers, Finals loss to Celtics), NFL — Chuck Howley (1971 Cowboys, Super Bowl loss to Colts), MLB — Bobby Richardson (1960 Yankees, World Series loss to Pirates); 2. Magic Johnson (9), Bob Cousy (7), LeBron James (6), John Stockton (5), Rajon Rondo (4).
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him @dan_shaughnessy.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
