Jon Lester on beer and fried chicken
by Adam J. Morris on Oct 17, 2011 11:52 AM CDT
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Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe has a piece up in which Jon Lester speaks on the allegations that he, John Lackey, and Josh Beckett were drinking beer, eating fried chicken and playing video games during games:
Lester said the drinking was confined to starting pitchers who weren't in the game that day. "It was a ninth-inning rally beer," he said. "We probably ordered chicken from Popeye's like once a month. That happened. But that's not the reason we lost.
"Most of the times, it was one beer, a beer. It was like having a Coke in terms of how it affected you. I know how it looks to people and it probably looks bad. But we weren't up there just drinking and eating and nobody played video games. We watched the game."
There was also this bit, that jumped out at me:
To be honest, we were doing the same things all season when we had the best record in baseball.
And that, to me, is the crux of the issue. If you are winning, these sorts of things are credited with keeping the team loose, maintaining a good atmosphere, and the like. If you are losing, this sort of stuff gets pointed to as showing the team isn't serious and doesn't care.
If you've got a Buck Showalter-type manager and your team is winning, then his style is seen as beneficial, because he keeps players prepared, on their toes, focused, etc. If a Showalter team is losing, his style is criticized as micro-managing, fostering a bad atmosphere, making players too tight.
Boston's culture in recent years has been much more of the looser type, dating back to 2004 when Kevin Millar dubbed them "idiots" and the players seemingly reveled in that mindset. Did things go too far that way in 2011? Maybe. I don't know.
But I do think it brings to mind what Crash Davis told Nuke LaLoosh about the fungus on his shower shoe...if Nuke won 20 games in The Show, he could let the fungus grow back on his shower shoe, and the press would think he's colorful. Until then, he's just a slob. Similarly, when the Red Sox were winning, all this could be characterized in a positive light. Since they blew a huge lead, it is portrayed as a flaw.
Anyway, the whole thing is worth a read. Check it out.
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Who knew?
Boston could fall so fast, with so much finger pointing, amazing really… and LaLoosh is a great analogy.
"It's incredibly hard." - Ronald Washington
At least they weren't napping in the clubhouse.....
"I never argue with people who say that baseball is boring, because baseball is boring. And then, suddenly, it isn’t. And that’s what makes it great." - Joe Posnanski
by GhostofSteveFoucault on Oct 17, 2011 12:18 PM CDT reply actions
At least they didn't have Naps in the clubhouse...
/Scioscia
by Closure GT on Oct 17, 2011 12:21 PM CDT up reply actions 4 recs
Deron WIlliams on the front page of Yahoo!'s NBA page is sporting
Texas Rangers cap. I like it.
A baseball game is simply a nervous breakdown divided into nine innings.
he'll be with the mavs in 2012-2013...... his mom plays tennis with my friends mother.
williams mom was at a birthday party i was at a few weeks ago.
cs, b.
"God dammit TAG I swear to God if you keep this "It was a close play" shit up all night I will send you cookies made from my own shit" -River Fenix 8/26/2011
"this is a big reason I decided not to convert to Islam now if it was 72 skanks? Different story, my friend" Bob Loblaw 9/2/2011
by I am Neftali Feliz on Oct 17, 2011 12:22 PM CDT up reply actions
that would be amazing
NO This is why i dont come here so much anymore. it has become a destination for certain types which i am not. Love the rangers, not this -- Mark from OC on Arrested Development
Justin Verlander? I piss on Justin Verlander --AJM
Ive always assumed players drank after the games in the clubhouse.. but not before or during.
is this pretty common around baseball? also, i assume several adult beverages are consumed on flights to and from…….
"God dammit TAG I swear to God if you keep this "It was a close play" shit up all night I will send you cookies made from my own shit" -River Fenix 8/26/2011
"this is a big reason I decided not to convert to Islam now if it was 72 skanks? Different story, my friend" Bob Loblaw 9/2/2011
by I am Neftali Feliz on Oct 17, 2011 12:21 PM CDT reply actions
The issue was the starting pitchers were drinking during the game...
and that’s pretty much against the rules. That’s why this was such a scandal in Boston. I saw David Ortiz interviewed about this and he said, it wasn’t anything different from what happened during the World Series years, and was limited to starting pitchers on an off day. Lester just adds to it concerning it being the 9th inning only, and then denies video games.
Keith Hernandez was supposedly traded by Whitey Herzog for playing too much cards in the clubhouse and not working enough on his hitting or fielding. You would think video games could be an issue for some. I wouldn’t know about the flights though.
Keith was traded for extracurricular activities
but they weren’t the kind that were ever condoned in the clubhouse … maybe the strip club, but not the clubhouse
well that blows
"My expectations today are that we're going to be extremely competitive and if we don't win our division, I'll be disappointed." Nolan Ryan
Strongly Agree
When this story first broke, I figured that the pitchers hanging out in the clubhouse was something that had gone on most of the season, not just in Red September. The original story in the Boston Globe smacked of a bitchy, dysfunctional organization full of people eager to stab one another in the back.
they still threw Francona under the bus
I’m not gonna give them a pass for that
NO This is why i dont come here so much anymore. it has become a destination for certain types which i am not. Love the rangers, not this -- Mark from OC on Arrested Development
Justin Verlander? I piss on Justin Verlander --AJM
by shock00 on Oct 17, 2011 12:50 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
They Shouldn't Get A Pass
They shouldn’t get a pass for that. Francona’s the one guy that everyone else took at swipe at and, as far as I can tell, he’s the least culpable of any of them for what happened.
by Mister Naxal on Oct 17, 2011 1:05 PM CDT up reply actions
My bigger concern from various articles was the rumors that they were ignoring their conditioning work.
That their strength coach couldn’t keep them on their plans.
"I became an optimist when I discovered that I wasn't going to win any more games by being anything else." by Earl Weaver
I see an alternative to Rally Boobs ...
The Rally Shiner Bock
by GuyVLewisHOF on Oct 17, 2011 1:37 PM CDT up reply actions
*starts drinking heavily*
"The Angels are like the villain in the movie that isn't dead until he's been stabbed 150 times in the bath tub, yet he still might come back up one more time." - Eric Nadel
He should've just said
“we lost because we couldn’t carry that ass-clown Lackey on our backs anymore, and that dudes amount of suck just infected the entire staff. 80 million for that pile of crap?”
by Whiskey in my Whiskey on Oct 17, 2011 12:37 PM CDT reply actions
Putting Francona's personal business
out on the streets isn’t cool. The rest is subjective.
"Calmer than you are dude"
by Arlington Stadium Legend on Oct 17, 2011 12:55 PM CDT reply actions 1 recs
Same with Ortiz thing
When he barged into Tito’s post game conference bitching about an error costing him an RBI I thought it was funny as did most including all the reporters in the room. Now things like that are revisited and thought to indicate dysfunction.
Football can go to hell. The Rangers aren't ready for football season and neither am I.
Sometimes, it's best just to shut up.
There’s no right answer you can give in that situation and Lester comes off looking a little bad there. Better just to shut up, go home, and get busy with the off season program.
"Ok, post your favorite moment of the Tom Hicks era
Mine is today when he sold the team." - t ball
A lesson for the Rangers here
I live in Boston and see the media frenzy that surrounds the Sox every day. And it’s brutal.
Every day, there’s about 18 hours of broadcast time, and 2 major daily newspapers, and assorted fan/critics dissecting and pop-analyzing everything that (they presume) goes on in the clubhouse. It’s toxic.
I hope that this doesn’t become the culture around the Rangers now that they are officially one of the Big Boys. Just consider the atmosphere around the Cowboys in the Landry era vs. the soap opera circus that is Jerryland. The old Cowboys were a great sports team/organization to watch perform. Now, people follow the soap opera and gossip far more than than game. Maybe that’s what you like. But a lot of fans hate that. And a lot of players hate that.
The Red Sox players live with a culture of resentful know-it-all meatheads trashing them and parsing their personal lives in the press and on the streets whether they’re winning or not. And I can tell you, it makes following that team seem more like being in a dysfunctional relationship than being a fan. And God, I hope we don’t go down that road with our Rangers.
by Van Down By The River on Oct 17, 2011 3:23 PM CDT reply actions
The Rangers will never be big enough locally to warrant that kind of coverage
…and thank goodness for that.
by LiamP on Oct 17, 2011 6:30 PM CDT via mobile up reply actions
Extracurricular shennanigans
The Landry era Cowboys were just as bad as the Jerrah era Cowboys in that department. If not worse.
Northern Virginia's all time world champion Rangers fan of all time and all of Northern Virginia, and the rest of Virginia too. Mayor of Greatestfanville, Virginia.
Adam J Morris, halfassedly pretending to be interested in my thoughts, goals, and overall self esteem since late 2005.
by Brian Thomas on Oct 18, 2011 2:20 PM CDT up reply actions
The Globe is the same paper that ran the hatchet job on Francona.
Journalistic integrity doesn’t run too deep at that place.
"Can the Rangers nail down a title with Derek Holland in Game 6? Not even close ..." -- Randy Galloway, 10/13/11
by CrustytheCowboy on Oct 17, 2011 3:41 PM CDT reply actions
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