Old Jersey

Rule #1 of sports media, especially in Boston: in the absence of controversy, make it yourself.

In case you missed it, Monday afternoon was the culmination of the magical ride of the 2004 baseball season, where the Red Sox got their World Series rings in a ceremony before the home opener at Fenway Park. It was a very moving event, complete with the return of Derek Lowe and Dave Roberts, both arguably more important to the team's postseason success than the guy who actually won the World Series MVP award. The rest of the team was dressed up in full uniform, but since both D-Lowe and D-Rob are with other teams this year, they wore Sox jerseys over their street clothes. The team then proceeded to wipe the floor with the Yankees, playing brilliantly in an 8-1 drubbing of their archrivals.

Since reporting good news is boring and is hard to argue about, the local media decided to make an issue out of the fact that two non-Sox players had the unmitigated gall (is gall ever mitigated, or is it always allowed to run around unmitigated? Who's responsible for mitigating it, and why do they do such a poor job?) to wear another team's jersey. Horror of horrors. I, of course, was bellowing at my TV screen, unable to comprehend why anyone would be surprised that Lowe and Roberts wore Sox jerseys to the ceremony. Of all the fabricated issues that the radio and TV media have ever hyperventilated over, this has to be among the silliest.

Even though we're firmly rooted in the days of cheering for laundry, why would anyone begrudge either of these players - fifteen minutes wearing the jersey of the team they had success with last year? I realize that ballplayers can be spoiled, hypersensitive idjits sometimes, but isn't that what everyone is playing for - a ring? For someone to resent a teammate - a new teammate, at that - for changing his clothes as part of a ceremony, seems the pettiest of petty acts to me. Never mind the fact that both players were not in action on Monday (Roberts is on the disabled list, while Lowe had pitched on Sunday and it wasn't the Dodgers' home opener (which was the case for the Mets, part of the reason why Pedro Martinez and Doug Mientkiewicz were no-shows...though there are several others)), never mind that they got the blessings of their managers, never mind that none of their teammates complained before, during or after the fact. That just doesn't make for good, worthwhile yelling at each other - which is apparently what they think we want to watch and listen to.

That sound you're hearing is me whacking my forehead against the screen.