My Favorite Mistake

I woke up this morning with an odd feeling; I couldn’t place it. I knew it was a feeling I’ve woken up with before. Immediately it felt a lot like regret, and after four years of college I knew the how to check for the warning signs of a bad late-night decision. A quick walkthrough of my apartment and I realized I was alone BUT there were some empties on the coffee table.

The mystery in the air could be cleared up with one final test: the checking of the cell phone. Who did I call or text last night in the wee hours or morn (Technological patent idea- I wish my phone had a Breathalyzer device on it like DUI offenders get on their cars. Where I must blow less than a .08 to place a call or text). When I got to the inbox, it all made sense:

Received at 1:01am from Brother: I cant breathe right now. Gagne? Whyyy?
Sent at 1:06am to Brother: Did Jon Lester die? Why is Gagne coming in?
Received at 1:13am from Brother: I cant watch this anymore, its not healthy.

And so I was right and wrong. It was a late night mistake, egregious to the very core. It was a familiar mistake, although not the kind I was expecting.

Why was this happening? Terry Francona isn’t stupid; we always talk about how he’s a good coach. Yet Francona brought in Eric Gagne in the 11th inning with guys like Jon Lester, Javier Lopez staying cold in the bullpen. Granted both Lester and Lopez stunk, but they were brought in with inherited runners and against Indians who had momentum up the Wahoo.

Gagne had less chance to succeed than the gawd-awful looking movie The Comebacks. First, he had pitched the night before against the same first two batters he was faced last night. Why would we give them a pitcher they had just seen? Second, he had throw 25 pitches the night before, allowing a hit and walking two. Thirdly, what has he done for us this season? Not much besides allowing runs in 7 of 20 appearances and sporting a 6.75 ERA and a WHIP over 1.8. He sucks, the end.

Meanwhile, I remember the pangs of this mistake in the past. On September 18, the Red Sox, or should I say Eric Gagne, blew a game to Toronto, during the pennant chase. After the game, Francona defended his decision to bring in Gagne (who let up walk, single, walk, walk, double in the loss) over Papelbon by saying that he had to find out if he could trust Gagne in the end of the season. Don’t believe me? Check it out.

So who is to blame? Gagne doesn’t just blow games now, he blows, period. For Francona it’s a "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" situation. I don’t know who is worse.

However I am a solutions-oriented guy so lets finish vomiting, rinse with mouthwash and move on. Besides hoping that momentum hasn’t complete shifted in the series, the Red Sox can only make one logical move. Thanks to a new rule this year, teams can remove a player from its roster and replace him. The caveat is that the replaced player may not return for the next series, if the team moves on. With that said, goodbye Gagne, welcome back Bryan Corey. The easiest way to stop those late night mistakes is making that person impossible to call on, lets remove Gagne from our contacts, from our bullpen.

I Used to Want to Be an Athlete

Now I don’t think it would be so cool. With every age I think there’s a reason that once seemed logical. Looking back, I was dumb, but I was younger and I’m so smart now that it’s really not fair to compare. Today I am really smart, like really smart. I’d say I get about 2 out of every 5 Final Jeopardy answers in a given week (I said smart, not cool).

Here’s the breakdown through the years…

Age 2-5
Bouncy balls were fun. Getting dirty was fun. It didn’t matter if I won or lost, just how I played the game. Every season ends with a pizza party. Basically I was retarded; I was just in the dark. Lets call these the Dark Ages and forget they ever happened.

Age 6-7
I used to want to be on baseball cards; in fact I think I used to only like sports because of baseball cards. How stupid is that? These were overpriced pictures that were mostly boring and if you were lucky, unintentionally funny. Why would I want my picture in the hands of hundreds of other people? I don’t even like seeing my own picture now; I can never smile right. (Maybe because I’m not an athlete)

Age 8-11
Remember when athletes used to be cool? Remember when I didn’t know they were sleezeballs, drunks, egomaniacs, wifebeaters, etc. Maybe it’s one of those things that’s cooler when you’re actually doing it... but its kinda hard to justify the sleezing, drinking, wifebeating, and etcetera-ing… even if I am currently drunk.

Age 12-14
By the age of thirteen I had just won the lottery called a Bar Mitzvah. More euphoric than playing ball was the feeling of having loads of money (enough for boxes of baseball cards). I think was about the time that points per game stat began to take a backseat to contract size. I was 14 in 1998 when the Red Sox stiffed everyone’s favorite player, Mo Vaughn. He went on to sign a 6-year 80million dollar deal with the Angels. Money mattered, trophies didn’t, loyalty didn’t.

Age 15-16
What does any guy think about in these years? I could be very R-rated crude and anatomical but I might get a girlfriend who can read, so I’ll just leave it at "girls." And the jocks always got the girls in high school, and I knew that Wilt Chamberlain was very ‘extracurricular,’ Chris Webber was dating Tyra Banks, and I had seen the SI Swimsuit issue with Phil Mickelson’s wife in a bikini (a watershed moment for any teenager). I was only as far as high school math at this point in my life but according to my calculations, I figured that I could probably turn a lefty lay-up and a 16 foot jump shot into at least a solid 7.

However I never figured out if girls wanted guys who had good bodies and that athletes just happened to have those, or if athletes had good bodies and that’s why women were drawn to them. More recently I have realized that it doesn’t even matter because having a good body is really freaking hard. I like eating fried stuff, and going to the gym is a lot of work. Plus did you know it takes way more than 100 crunches to get 6-pack abs? (What’s up with that?) You realize later in your life that there are plenty of jobs that don’t require rippling arms and pecs… or at least you find a fall back option.

Ages 17-18
This was a weird age. I think I still wanted the money, I think I still wanted the girls. I definitely wanted to be on TV and be famous so I could have the money and the girls. This was an era where my eyes were too big for my stomach. I wanted everything I didn’t have and didn’t want anything I had.
I wanted to move to a big city because I lived in a small town. I didn’t realize the agony of public transportation.
I wanted everyone to know me because sometimes I thought even my friends were calling me by the wrong name. I wanted to be huge and have everyone know everything I do. In actuality, that’s what most athletes hate about being athletes.
I wanted to bypass 4 years of college because I was struggling with 4 years of high school classes. Who knew how much fun college would be besides everyone who has seen Animal House? Old School wasn’t even out back then!! 4 years of lessons like 'you can actually drink beer from a funnel' and 'it’s pretty easy to sleep through fire alarms.'
I wanted to have no curfew because, well, I had one.

And now I’m 23 and I don’t want to be an athlete anymore. I’ve felt this way for a few years now and am satisfied with calling these years the age of enlightenment. There are surely perks to being a professional athlete but these aren’t exclusive to athletes. You can be involved in sports without ever leaving the comforts of your resting heart rate (become a bookie). You can live lavishly without huge ups or leadership skills (become a Congressman). And you can’t buy happiness anyway… unless you’re in Nevada or Montreal. And the biggest lesson may be that any Joe Schmo can score the ladies without sporting tight bodies and accolades of any sort (Just go to any Karaoke night in America and find those drunk girls who are a little too into Kelly Clarkson’s lyrics, and introduce yourself).