Dan Shaughnessy
Sucks –
Well, I haven’t done a non-basketball Shaughnessy/Ryan Sucks in almost two months. Figured I was due. And since ‘Ol Danny Boy decided to write about a rather hot prickly topic (like the gonorrhea of topics) in New England today, thought I’d take a stab at it. (Paul Pierce joke)
To the Derision-Mobile!
This Is Getting Dicey
Hiyooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Remember the golden days of Daisuke Matsuzaka?
Nope.
At the beginning, it was a perfect marriage.
Dice did the dishes. We did the driving.
We had Dice-K mania,
Well, at least it’s more treatable than that dang bird flu.
gyroballs,
I
had gyroballs once. That’s the last summer I ever spend in
and the globalization of Red Sox Nation.
Whites and Asians!
The
Red Sox spent $103 million to acquire
The best thing about The Japanese Big Train? He built the tracks!
In his first season with the Sox, Matsuzaka won the third game of a World Series sweep. A year later, he went 18-3.
Fuck, that seems like ten years ago. Stupid World Baseball Classic ruining people’s careers.
Matsuzaka’s
mere presence prompted the Red Sox to open the 2008 season in the Tokyo Dome, a
startling inconvenience that would have been unthinkable had the Sox not
featured
Still pretty unthinkable.
His starts were events –
Bob Ryan’s farts are events. Seismic events.
much like those of Pedro Martínez, circa 1998-2000.
Remember
when we opened the 1999 season in the
All of which makes yesterday’s events particularly annoying and deflating.
Defloying.
Through his words and actions,
and his debilitating nunchuk skills,
Matsuzaka infuriated manager Terry Francona, pitching coach John Farrell, Boston’s owners, and a legion of Sox fans. One year after the Manny Ramirez debacle, Dice-K did his best to get his butt shipped out of town.
Well, at least he’ll be easy to trade with such a reasonable contract..
Matsuzaka,
he of the 1-5 record and the 8.23 ERA, ripped the Red Sox organization. Rehabbing in
No, he basically just said his Japanese training staffs knew his body better than this Sox training staff. And judging by our injury history, I don’t totally disagree with him.
“If
I’m forced to continue to train in this environment, I may no longer be able to
pitch like I did in
“The only reason why I managed to win games during the first and second years was because I used the savings of the shoulder
and the leavings of the colon
I
built up in
Lost all your savings? Sounds like you need the good people down at H&R Block.
At Fenway, the fallout was swift and unusually blunt.
As unusually blunt as Shaughnessy’s rectangular head.
“To hear him say that is disappointing,’’ said Francona, who would rather quit chewing tobacco than criticize a player.
What.
“At times, he’s been his own pitching coach.
John Farrell only speaks fluent Mandarin.
For $102 million, if [Red Sox owner John Henry] came down and asked ‘What’s going on?’ and we said, ‘We’re letting [Daisuke] do it his own way,’ he probably wouldn’t like that very much. I’ve talked to Dice and Masa [translator Masa Hoshino]. I’ve had enough. I think they’ve had enough of me.’’
They won’t speak to me until I quit chewing tobacco.
Tim Wakefield, the senior member of the Sox clubhouse and a pitcher who knows a thing or two about Boston’s training and rehab regimens, rolled his eyes and said, “My philosophy is, I’m an employee and I do what I’m told.’’
Well, Tim, the Japanese are not a people to roll over and be subservient! Oh, wait..
Farrell, ever the John Wayne presence in the coaches corner,
He makes ‘Coby Ellsbury very nervous.
said, “We have a responsibility for the size of the investment. It’s unfortunate that he feels that way. It’s disappointing. This is where two baseball worlds somewhat collide.
Can you ‘somewhat collide’? I’m pretty sure you either collide or you don’t. PICK A SIDE, JOHN WAYNE!
But there has to be some accountability and responsibility on the part of the player. So the disappointment comes from [him] basically airing his dirty laundry.’’
Yeah, get your filthy kimono out of here, Daisuke!
Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino said, “We’re not going to have any comment.
, he commented,
We look forward to Daisuke returning to the mound at Fenway.’’
No need to have anything lost in translation on this one.
Ha! ‘Cause he’s foreign.
The Sox are steamed.
Like delicious steamed egg rolls.
Matsuzaka talked out of turn,
He shall only talk on Wednesdays.
infuriated his bosses and his teammates, and unwittingly took the focus away from Hall of Famer Jim Rice on the night the slugger’s number was retired.
You made a Hall of Famer cry, you awful man!
This has happened before at Fenway. Back in the early 1980s, Sox ownership partner Buddy LeRoux staged his infamous takeover (the LeRoux coup)
Ooh!
on the night the ballclub honored fallen slugger Tony Conigliaro. Like Tony C back in the day, Rice deserved better.
Well, at least he isn’t FUCKING DEAD!
It is reasonable to wonder if Matsuzaka will pitch again for the Sox this season. Or ever. The Sox thought they had an understanding with the stubborn righty, but now all bets are off.
It’s a strange situation.
Sorta like reading a Shaughnessy article with no Buckner references.
The pitcher wants to throw more between outings. He wants to throw 135 pitches when he starts.
THAT IS WHAT JAPANESE PITCHERS DO. THEY ARE ROBOTS. THIS IS NOT UNUSUAL OR STRANGE AT ALL, YOU RED-FACED IRISH HOO-HA!
He
says he had left over strength in his shoulder from his days in
“Savings,” if you will.
but now the strength is gone because of the Sox’ training rules.
The Sox put everything in his checking account. NO MORE SAVINGS!
The Sox are frustrated.
Maybe they should get laid.
They have done everything they can to accommodate Matsuzaka.
They installed a Zen garden in the clubhouse.
They are angry that he puts the World Baseball Classic ahead of the World Series.
What a xenophobic asshole. We should send him back to the Orient with all the other foreigners!
They think he was out of shape when he reported this year.
An Asian getting fat after spending a couple years in
And fans think the righty is making lame excuses by blaming his ineffectiveness on the club’s training regimen.
Again, didn’t say anything about his crappy season. Just said he’d be recovering quicker if he was rehabbing like they do in his home country.
Nobody wants to hear it.
We’re too busy quitting chewing tobacco and consoling a saddened Jim Rice. Leave your complaints to yourself, Dice!
Teammates won’t say much, but they applaud Farrell and Francona’s gameplan. The message is clear. Dice-K is all alone on this one.
Good idea to make a generally lonely person (Asian guy on an American baseball team) feel more lonely. That’ll solve everything.
Since
Day 1, Matsuzaka has been a hired gun in the
Read: Asian guys on American baseball clubs. See: Every other Asian baseball player in the Major Leagues EVER!
They’re a quiet people. And professional American baseball players are some of the biggest/loudest assholes in the world. There’s always been a distance between the two.
Now this hundred-million dollar arranged marriage is on the rocks and this might be a case of irreconcilable differences.
Do we get to keep the kid (Okajima)?
Dan Shaughnessy
is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. 
~~~
Another in a long of line of bummer Shaughnessy columns.
I can’t figure out why sportswriters can’t figure out that Japanese ballplayers can’t figure out how to be “one of the guys.” It’s just harder for them. Culture shock and all that. Ichiro is one of the few exceptions, maybe the only one.
Dice-K won’t be traded because nobody’s gonna take on that ridiculous contract. He should be back in a month or so, and hopefully that shoulder will be healed. If not, we shut him down and pray he’s better next year.
Besides, we don’t need him. We’re trading for Doc Halladay on Friday anyway..