One must feel for Coco Crisp. After slumping in last season's playoffs, the Boston center fielder spent most of the World Series on the bench, ceding his spot in the lineup and fielding duties to darling wonderkid Jacoby Ellsbury. (If you remember, part of the time on the bench he spent talking about Taco Bell with Royce Clayton. Cool!)
So as spring training gets underway here, one would expect a bit of a healthy battle for center between Crisp and Ellsbury. Well, you'd only be half right on that assumption. Because Crisp doesn't think he's going to get a fair shake. And if so and he's on the bench to start the season, he'd rather be shipped elsewhere.
"Honestly, I think so because I want to play," Crisp said before his spring training workout. "I wouldn't be happy sitting on the bench."
He's not even certain he'll get an equal chance in the competition for the job. Manager Terry Francona said Wednesday it would be.
"I'm not sure," Crisp said calmly when asked if the battle for the job with the prized prospect will be fair. "I'm not sure how everything's going to break down. I'm really unsure of a lot of things this year."
This is a bit of a tickler for the Red Sox. On the one hand, Crisp still has value at 28 years of age -- there's a team or two in Chicago in need of a leadoff hitter at the moment -- so if they decided to trade him, they might be able to pick up a few prospects or another bullpen arm. But trade him and have the largely unproven, small sample size Ellsbury falter and they might be kicking themselves.
Although, this is a team from Boston. As of late, nothing bad seems to happen to them.
I've always secretly suspected that Fox has been slowly trying to destroy baseball telecasts since they took over the playoff broadcasts a few years ago. Their lead broadcast team of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver is full of trite cliches and hollow statements that never offer any actual insight. Their radar gun bursts into flames. The in-game graphics beep and sing like crazy for no particular reason. Sometimes there are robots. And yet, I put up with all of it. Until now.
Starting with last night's "unscripted" conversation between Royce Clayton and Coco Crisp about the free taco giveaway (you can call it unscripted all you want, but why else would ROYCE CLAYTON be mic'd up?) I think Buck and McCarver have talked more about the free tacos than baseball. They replayed the conversation tonight, they celebrated in the booth when Jacoby Ellsbury stole a base, they played ANOTHER conversation between Clayton and Ellsbury with Clayton urging Ellsbury to steal a base for America, and they interviewed Taco Bell's creepy COO. His empty eyes bored a hole into the camera and my Fox-addled soul. Not only that, Jub-Jub asked the Stepford-COO about giving away "Millions of dollars of free tacos." Try tens of thousands of dollars of free tacos, maybe.
Maybe I could forgive all this if it happened last night, but this is a one-run game with Colorado desperately playing to avoid a two-game deficit against a fantastic Red Sox team. Veteran Curt Schilling and rookie Ubaldo Jiminez pitched their hearts out. This game has everything anyone watching could possibly want. And yet, Fox gives us tacos. I feel like I'm going to be sick, which, incidentally, is usually how I feel after I eat Taco Bell. Ugh.
In case you were curious, that was 100%, entirely completely spontaneous. Darren Rovell noted how it seemed to be staged, but a Fox spokeman quickly responded to let him know that it wasn't. From SportsBiz:
He said that the conversation between the two players about the Taco Bell promotion was not rehearsed or set up by the network and McCarver's "shameless" reference might have been referring to the fact that the network chose to take that sound, not that they put the players up to it.
Just so you know. Don't you feel better now? Televised sports aren't completely commercialized, it's all an illusion.
Just a few weeks ago, 2007 was looking like a bust for Royce Clayton. He started off the season as the Blue Jays' starting shortstop, then lost his everyday gig to John McDonald, and had to languish on the bench until eventually getting released by Toronto.
But how quickly things change. Clayton got snapped up by the Red Sox, who signed the veteran to a minor-league deal with the intention of calling him up in September. So Clayton will soon find himself in the thick of a pennant race, playing for the team with baseball's best record.
"It's a great opportunity," he said. "You suit up every year with hopes of getting to the playoffs, eventually a World Series to bring home a ring. Obviously, they are the best team in baseball right now, and this is a good opportunity for me to be a part of it and hopefully I can contribute."
Before agreeing to sign with the Sox, Clayton had one small request: He wanted to be home for his son's first day of school. Sox GM Theo Epstein obliged.
"I appreciate [the Red Sox] accommodating that because it meant a lot to me," said Clayton. "My son may not remember it, but I will. After that, my mind was clear and I was ready to come, get in shape and help the club."
And, coincidentally, guess which team the Sox will be facing during the first few days of September when he's likely to be called into action: Your Toronto Blue Jays.
This off-season, the NL Central could be looking to replace as many as two-thirds of its six general managers. Tim Purpura and Dave Littlefield are definitely in trouble in Houston and Pittsburgh and Walt Jocketty's contract is up in St. Louis. The fourth member of the quartet is Cincy's Wayne Krivsky, who's been rumored to be on the hot seat since new owner Bob Castellini took over the team in the winter. That may not be the case, however, as Castellini talked to the Cincy Enquirer today about his GM:
"No," Castellini said. "He's done a good job. Wayne's a plugger. He keeps at it - a lot of determination."
Castellini has heard the charge that the Reds have no plan.
"I think Wayne is taking a studied approach to it," Castellini said. "We're on the same page."
I will assume that being a "plugger" is a good thing. We all know how the "vote of confidence" works in sports, but the Reds are playing better of late and it strikes me that if Castelini was going to fire Krivsky any time soon, he would've done it already. I'm not saying that he shouldn't be fired (he should, the actually traded for the man in the picture above ... Royce Clayton), but if I had to guess, I'd take Castellini at his word here.
Major League Mongering will look at players rumored to be on the move between now and the July 31st pseudo-trade-deadline.
You know it's going to be a slow trade season when even the Pittsburgh Pirates are having trouble finding trading partners for this year's version of the PNC Park red light special. Still, that's the situation that we seem to find ourselves in with only nine days left until baseball's non-waiver trading deadline. The Pirates are desperately trying to deal shortstop Jack Wilson, and thus far the only team to show any kind of interest seems to be the Toronto Blue Jays.
Why does this need to happen? The Pirates need it to happen because someone in the organization made the mistake of thinking Wilson was a $7 million a year shortstop. Being mostly all glove at this point of his career, the small-market Pirates simply can't afford to spend that kind of money on that kind of player.
I don't know why the Blue Jays would be terribly interested though. I mean, Royce Clayton is old and pretty terrible, but they're ten games back in the wild card race right now and I don't see how giving up anything for Wilson is a very useful move for them. I guess he's a better long-term answer than Clayton or John McDonald are, but he's not the type of player that will help them make up their big deficits in the AL East or Wild Card races.
Despite a trail of injuries to key players that at times has bordered on the surreal, the Blue Jays keep chugging along, winning four straight games and now the sole possessors of second place in the AL East. But all these good vibes aren't affecting Royce Clayton, who's been watching from the bench since losing his starting shortstop gig to back-up guy John McDonald, who's hitting .333 for June.
At 37, the last thing Clayton wants to be doing is collecting moss on the bench, so he's been rather vocal in his campaign to get back in the line-up, taking some not-so-thinly-veiled swipes at McDonald's recent good fortunes, according to Canada.com.
"I've been around a long time, and there's certain things that play themselves out," he said. "There's a track record. Johnny Mac's playing good now, and I would hope that he does continue to play well. But in this game there's a reason why there's everyday players and there's bench players, you know?"
"In my heart of hearts, just being the type of person I am, I don't think there's a better shortstop out there," he said. "Nothing against Johnny Mac, but a career's a career. I've had a career. I've hit .500 for a month. Does that mean I'm a .500 hitter? Absolutely not. At the end of the day, you end up where you're supposed to be. I have absolutely nothing to prove to anybody."
Whether this attitude is part of the reason Clayton's with his sixth team in five seasons is irrelevant. What the man should be doing is chilling out, kicking back, and waiting for McDonald's inevitable trip to the DL.
One must feel for Coco Crisp. After slumping in last season's playoffs, the Boston center fielder spent most of the World Series on the bench, ceding his spot in the lineup and fielding duties to darling wonderkid Jacoby Ellsbury. (If you remember, part of the time on the bench he spent talking about Taco Bell with Royce Clayton. Cool!)
I've always secretly suspected that Fox has been slowly trying to destroy baseball telecasts since they took over the playoff broadcasts a few years ago. Their lead broadcast team of 
Just a few weeks ago, 2007 was looking like a bust for 
This off-season, the NL Central could be looking to replace as many as two-thirds of its six general managers. 
Despite a trail of 
