Francona's Personal Space Issues

Terry Francona (seen above), manager of the Boston Red Sox, has a social disease.  He is unaware of the personal space boundaries that most people like to keep.  Typically, this would be a problem, but this year, the Red Sox have stayed far enough behind the Yankees and Rays, and far enough ahead of the Blue Jays, that Francona is beginning to understand what the boundaries should be.

"It was crazy," Red Sox outfielder J.D. Drew said.  "At the beginning of the season, we'd come in from the field, sit on the bench until we had to get ready to hit, and sometimes, Terry would just sit on our laps.  One time, he even put his arm around me and asked me to tell him a story."

When asked about his take on Francona's uncomfortable familiarity, second baseman Dustin Pedroia just hung his head and cried.

J.D. Drew - Ballplayer, Not Mathematician

J.D. Drew is just your slightly above average outfielder for the Boston Red Sox.  Perhaps my view of Drew is maligned because of the things said about him in Three Nights in August, but I'm not a huge fan.  He has all the talent in the world, but doesn't really work all that hard to play the game.  He relies on talent, makes his money, and that's about it.  However, because of his great talent, he can do things that other players can't necessarily do... like make a really difficult catch in foul territory look easy, even when he doesn't mean to do it.  Let me explain.

In Saturday's game against the Rays, a runner was on third with one out and the batter hit a towering fly ball into foul territory where the visitor's bullpen is located.  In most instances, a fielder might let a difficult foul ball go because the runner on third can tag up and score.  Drew ran over to size up the situation, and ended up catching the ball while falling into the chairs.  The runner tagged from third and scored on the play, tying the game up at 1-1.

It's baseball, so you don't know what would have happened had Drew not caught the ball, but Boston's pitcher was kind of upset because the run ended up scoring, and here's where we get to the relevant part.  Here is an actual quote from Drew following the game:

"It's a question mark," said Drew. "If you let the ball drop and he walks, there's two guys on and the next pitch he hits a two-run homer, it's a difficult situation. But in that part of the game, Clay [Buchholz] is throwing the ball pretty well, he's got a good chance on [a] 3-2 [pitch], but you never know what's going to happen."

You see that part that's in bold and underlined.  Read it again.  That's right, Drew suggested that Buchholz would somehow walk the batter, putting runners on 1st and 3rd, and then allow a two-run homer.  I know that there is a lot of talk of Buchholz for the AL Cy Young this season, but if he can allow a two-run homer with two runners already on base, then he deserves the next three Cy Young awards.

I know that J.D. Drew is a baseball player, not Danica McKellar, but give me a break.