Gresh: Lucchino, Red Sox Prove Their Ignorance By Blaming The Media
On Thursday night in Baltimore, Red Sox president/CEO Larry Lucchino spoke, blaming the "jaded and cynical media" for much of the team's issues. On Friday, Andy Gresh opened Gresh & Zo with a passionate rant about the Red Sox. It is transcribed below.
Welcome to all of the problems in Red Sox Nation, Boston. Welcome to all the problems with the Boston Red Sox, if you're to listen to Moe, Larry and Curly, the people who run that organization.
The root of all evil for the Boston Red Sox lies right here, in sports radio hosts. We're the devil. We're the reason they're losing. I'm jacked up today. I'm insanely pissed off at the assertion and the notion that -- and Rich Shertenlieb just said it walking out of the room -- I guess there's 38,000 media members who are sitting in the seats at Fenway Park whenever Josh Beckett sucks and he gets booed. I guess it's just a bunch of media members who are, oh I don't know, leaking information to other media members to get the facts wrong about every situation with the Red Sox. I guess it's just us bastard media people who are leading you sheep Red Sox fans down the road of a lack of enlightenment.
It's almost as if we're preachers, and we're standing atop the bully pulpit and there's a big Yankee logo underneath us. And we are leading you to rise up against the Red Sox! And we are leading you to all the false truths! And we are leading you down the road of lack of righteousness in rooting for the Red Sox!
That's what they want all of the sycophants and everybody to believe, right? Just, we're the bastards, we're the A-holes, we're the root of all evil.
It's a joke. It's all wrong. It's all wrong. You know why? Because it was "just another meeting." This was a part of the "seasonal maintenance" that the Boston Red Sox have done every year.
Tom Werner said in 10 years of these kinds of meetings, they've never had information get out like this.
Why don't we just start right there? How about this: Has anybody asked the Boston Red Sox (the ownership who made a big deal that they came in from Denver to go to Baltimore yesterday to be there for their team) if these meetings have been around since Terry Francona, when was the last one they had before the big one in New York? When was it? When did they have these meetings that they say they have every couple of months during the season where the owners sit down with "team leaders"?
Afterwards you had Ben Cherington, coming out after the meeting. If Ben Cherington comes out afterwards and says "We didn't go on the run we expected after the meeting," then I guess that's different from the normal meetings you would have to just kind of take the temperature of the team, right?
They come after a bitchfest. And you know what? If all of us here at The Sports Hub, if Toucher & Rich, and us, and Felger & Mazz, if everyone had an issue here at The Sports Hub, our boss would either be standing in here right now to listen to everybody or we would go in the conference room, and they would figure out a way to get something on the air, and everybody would go into the conference room, and it would be the Frank Costanza Festivus "Airing of Grievances."
That's more what it was like. John Henry came to New York. He got the pole out of the crawlspace, he set it up in the middle of the room, and everybody had the airing of grievances.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the way these meetings have been positioned since Terry Francona was here, it's more "take the temperature," not "let's get an issue on the table and figure it out." Did the general manager come away from those other maintenance meetings saying, "Well, we didn't go on the run we expected after that meeting"?
So what are they? Are they just maintenance meetings? Or did that one have a little bit of a different kind of tone to it?
And they put the pole back in the crawlspace and they thought, "15-5, here it comes! Here comes the run!" And what happened? Turded out.
One other point about the owners coming to Baltimore ... the owners showing up yesterday is like a guy on a diet. "Honey! Hey, honey! I'm eating a salad! Look how good I'm doing, honey! Ooh, I'm eating a salad in front of you!"
Meanwhile, you're hitting the drive-thru and you're getting two Whoppers with extra cheese and you're eating those while driving the car on the way home because she can't see you. That's what it's like. "Hey! Looky! Fans! We're here!" That's what it's like. It's like a guy on a diet. He's making sure that when he goes to the gas station, he's throwing away all the fast food bags so when she looks at the car, she doesn't yell at you, and you make sure you eat that salad in front of you to keep up the facade that you're doing a good job.
When Larry Lucchino says, "We have to remember the jaded, cynical media does not speak for ... they don't necessarily capture the voice of the fan base." Do you know why it doesn't capture the voice of the fan base? Because you've changed it. You've changed it into a bunch of pink hat-wearing, Kumbaya/Sweet Caroline-singing, brick-buying dopes who go, "Oh, strike three!" like the owner does when he's in there on NESN. That's what you've got.
You've changed the fan base into the people who will walk up to you and go, "Oh, Larry, you do such a good job, let me get you a nice pat on the bum because you're trying hard, the ballpark looks great, we know you're spending money, we believe in you."
No, Larry Lucchino. The fact of the matter is that as much as you stand there and you try to insult not only what we do, which is talk about the real stuff going on with this team, you try to insult the people who listen to sports radio in this city who call up and complain and who want their voices heard and who want you to know they're not happy. But those are the people you're not used to hearing from. You're used to making the references of someone who works for the Rockies organization who's from Worcester, who comes to you and gives you a hug and says, "Oh, I still love my Red Sox, even though I live in Colorado." Those are the people who you view as the fans.
In fact, I wrote it down: We want you to care, but don't care too much that you're going to complain.
Well, you know what? The people who call this radio show, and Toucher & Rich, and Felger & Mazz, and D.A. ... they're the people who care and they care a lot. Because they might just might actually log on to RedSox.com and maybe buy a jersey for their kid. Or they might go buy some Fenway Franks when they finally get a seat to plunk their ass in Fenway Park. But you know what? Those are the people that you don't hear from anymore, because instead it is the pink hat, B-loving, oh-my-god-Jacoby-Ellsbury-is-so-hot fan base that you're used to bending over for because they bow down and they kiss your ass.
Those days are gone. Welcome to the way it used to be. Welcome to accountability and people who do care. And if you want to denigrate how it's done, the form in which it's done, and the people who are sending the message, then you really are that ignorant, and you don't get it.
