For Rangers Fans

The Red Sox will be playing host to the Texas Rangers this weekend as something of an amuse bouche before the Yankees come to town. I thought my readers who are Rangers fans (and I know there are a few of you) would enjoy this gem from today's offering from Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy:

The Rangers are leading the West and the Sox will get a look at them at Fenway this weekend. But it's hard to take Texas seriously. The Rangers are the only team in major league baseball to never win a playoff series. They will tank. Sooner or later. Always do.

Now, I do take the Rangers seriously. They have a very good young ballclub. For the first time, well, maybe ever, they have pitching to go along with hitting. And I need the Red Sox to win eacch of the three series the teams play this year -- never mind a possible playoff matchup -- if only not to hear it from my students (yes, Cannon and Jeremy, I'm thinking of you in particular).

Sox-Dodgers?

Dan Shaughnessy thinks a Red Sox-Dodgers World Series matchup "has to happen." I can live with that, though Manny would scare the hell out of me every time he came to the plate.

The End of the Manny Era

Is Manny Ramirez on his way out in Boston? Dan Shaughnessy says defnitely, and that was before this weekend's nonsense, which has caused Shaughnessy to be even more barbed.

I hate to see the Manny era end this way. And it clearly is ending. But if he can lead the Red Sox to another title, I think all Sox fans will look back fondly on his tenure in a Sox uniform.

Larry Whiteside, RIP

Longtime Boston Globe baseball scribe Larry Whiteside passed away yesterday. He was 69. Dan Shaughnessy has a touching tribute to a first-rate baseball beat-man who also was a vital influence for a generation of African American sportswriters. I grew up reading Larry Whiteside's work on the Red Sox during the Golden Age of the Globe sports section when it was so far and away the best in America that there was no viable second place. Just off the top of my head I can recall that the paper had Whiteside, Peter Gammons, Nick Cafardo, Dan Shaughnessy when he had his fastball, Will McDonough, Ron Borges, Peter May, Jackie MacMullen, Bob Ryan, Bud Collins, Kevin Paul DuPont, Leigh Montville, Joe Giuliotti, Ray Fitzgerald, and Clif Keane writing regularly. I'm sure I'm missing several others who had national reputations. Some of them still write for the Globe, but I'm not sure that any American newspaper will ever be able to have that sort of staff again. Whiteside came from another era. He will be sorely missed.

Dan Shaughnessy: Optimist (?!)

Last night's Sox loss to the Yanks in the Bronx was a desultory affair, but Dan Shaughnessy of The Boston Globe is still uncharacteristically optimistic that the Sox are going to run away with the AL East. Too many years of being forged in the crucible of being a Sox fan prevents me from such blithe positivity, and if the Yanks pull another one out tonight the old panic may start to flutter, but the Curly Headed Boyfriend has a point -- historically this sort of lead holds up, and the parallels with 1978 simply are not applicable. Still, I hope the Sox can jump out to an early lead for Tavarez tonight. No sense worrying us needlessly, after all.