Call of the Green Monster

Red Sox Tell Manny He's Been Traded

The news came as sheer, unbridled joy to Manny Ramirez.  Last night, the Red Sox, fearing perhaps a season-long Manny disruption, finally gave the star right-fielder the news he had been waiting for and told him he had been traded.  However, all is not what it might seem.
           “We had some intern from our front office call him and tell him he’d been traded,” Theo Epstein explained to Call of the Green Monster.  Ramirez, according to sources, began dancing around in celebration.  When he finally asked where he had been traded, he was told he had been dealt to the Boston Red Sox.  After a brief moment of hesitation followed by a quizzical look, Manny again erupted into a celebratory dance.  “I’m going to Boston!  I’m going to Boston!” he sang.  “I’m outta this hell-hole I been in for all these years!  Boston, here I come, baby.”
           Epstein feels relieved that the matter is at least temporarily settled, and expressed little surprise that Manny would fall for the ruse.  “When we strategized on this, we realized that during the season, Manny rarely has even the slightest clue what city he’s in,” Epstein explained.  “Whenever we tried to pinpoint him on what his problems were with the city of Boston, he seemed perplexed.  We came to suspect that Manny’s continual gripes about playing in Boston were just part of his personality, and that if he didn’t complain about this, he’d find something else to complain about—in any city.  So far the plan his working.”
           “All my injuries are suddenly healed, man,” Ramirez exclaimed, as the celebration continued.  “I am ready to play. I think Boston’s the place where they got that bathroom out in right field.  What more could you want!”
bill@callofthegreenmonster.com

Red Sox Will Use Robot to Catch Tim Wakefield

The Josh Bard experience with Tim Wakefield was a disaster, and led to the Sox trading a valuable catcher simply because he could not handle the treacherous knuckleball.  Even bringing back the familiar Doug Mirabelli caused problems, as his abilities behind the plate and at-bat faded badly.  Perhaps Mirabelli’s demons finally caught up with him.  This year, the team that forever thinks outside the batter’s box has come up with a startling innovation that will challenge the very foundation of baseball.  The team announced yesterday that a robot will catch Wakefield this season, becoming the first non-human ever to play professional baseball (although some baseball historians contend that Randy Johnson holds that honor).
           “Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce Hal-XO39,” said a beaming Theo Epstein at the press conference yesterday.  “Hal-XO39 has been specially programmed to flawlessly catch a knuckleball.  He can’t can’t hit worth a lick—but he’s not far behind Mirabelli in that regard.  We couldn’t be prouder.”
           Tim Wakefield said that he has enjoyed getting to know Hal-XO39, and even had the robot spend a week with him and his family in Florida.  “It was great, we’re becoming buddies,” Wakefield said.  “The only problem was the damn thing was beeping so loud at night we couldn’t sleep.  So we just unplugged him and everything was fine.   He’s also programmed to say, ‘My, what an attractive woman,’ every time he sees a female, which drove my wife crazy after a while.  But we’ll work these things out.”
           The Red Sox then provided a demonstration of Hal-XO39’s amazing abilities, and, as predicted, he had no troubles handling Wakefield’s famously fluttering offerings.  The only problem came late in the press conference when an excited Larry Lucchino spilled water on Hal-XO39, causing short-circuiting and smoke to rise.  Epstein cursed Lucchino and a brief slap-fight ensued before the two were separated.
           “Just a slight mishap, folks,” Epstein said, as Hal-XO39 repeated ‘I hate the Yankees’ over and over again.  “We’ll get him back to the laboratory and he’ll be ready for Spring Training.”
bill@callofthegreenmonster.com

Tickets Sales Slow for Proposed “Be Nice to ARod Day” at Yankee Stadium

Last year, it was non-stop torment for Alex Rodriguez.  Booed relentlessly by Yankees fans at nearly every at-bat, the lightly mascaraed purse-clutching third baseman seemed to wear down and play some of his worst baseball ever.  While this was a source of never-ending delight to Red Sox fans, Yankees officials have realized that if the world’s most famous slapper is ever to thrive in pinstripes, they must take action.
           “Simply put,” said Brian Cashman yesterday, “fans need to be nice to Alex.”  And what better way to jump-start that effort than to initiate “Be Nice to ARod Day” at Yankee Stadium.  In order to entice fans to be nice to ARod, stadium officials will give each fan a coupon that can be redeemed after the game that gives fans either a weapon or a bottle of liquor.
           “Since most Yankees fans are inherently violent and heavy drinkers, we figured this will be a great incentive for them to come to the game,” a Yankees official said off the record.  “They only get the reward if the day is a success.  Of course, we don’t give them the reward until after the game.  Otherwise, we’d risk mass carnage.”
           Ticket sales, however, remain very slow.  A recent surge in sales revealed that ARod himself bought thousands of tickets.  Cashman talked him into returning them.  “I know the ballpark would have been mostly empty if I bought all the tickets,” ARod sniffled.  “But at least those dastardly fans would leave me alone for a day.”
bill@callofthegreenmonster.com

John Henry Finally Ends World Series Tour

He has shown the World Series trophy of 2004 to citizens in every town in Massachusetts, and every state in New England.  When that wasn’t enough, Mr. Henry, against the advice of Larry Lucchino and surrogate son Theo Epstein, continued on a personal World Series tour, traveling to remote areas of the United States, and finally, in desperation, to countries throughout the world, making sure that every living human being had seen the trophy, and had had the opportunity to try on his ring.  Henry called the experience “spiritually cleansing.”  Others called it embarrassing.  During the holidays, friends and family, concerned about his obsession, urged Henry to give up the tour.
           “He was really becoming a basket case,” Lucchino told Call of the Green Monster, on the condition of anonymity.  “He’s had to get a new ring on at least 10 occasions that I know of, because he keeps showing it to people who end up running off with it.”  Some thought that because two teams have now won a World Series since the Sox won, it would dawn on Henry that the glorious moment had passed.  “But it never did,” Lucchino said.  “He was holding victory parties every night, he just couldn’t let go.”
           Now in the early stages of a deprogramming process, Henry is beginning to come to grips with the fact that 2004 World Series championship is a one-year honor.  “I’m beginning to find myself again,” Henry said, from a tent in Northern Mongolia, surrounded by natives who were fighting over possession of yet another ring—worth 200 times the average lifetime earnings of a Mongolian.  “But, ah, that was a glorious time, and still lives forever in my mind.  We'll always be the champions, always.”
   
bill@callofthegreenmonster.com