Red Sox Plan To Honor Man They Spent 37 Years Disrespecting
It’s hard to speak poorly of the dead. If for no other reason than because it’s taboo to do so and most people kinda tune you out. You can’t speak poorly of most dead people. Can’t do it. Certainly can’t do it right after they died.
So I won’t speak poorly of former Yankees owner, George M. Steinbrenner III. I’ll speak poorly of his biggest competitors: the Boston Red Sox.
Seven years ago, the Miami Heat retired Michael Jordan’s number during the final game of their regular season. Not the Bulls. Not the Wizards. The Heat. At the time, it was the only number the team had retired – a number of a man that never played for their team, and in fact, did quite a lot of damage to them over the course of the ’90s. It was pitiful then and it remains pitiful now. How can a team that was directly made worse by a competitor, go on and decide to honor them as if the pleasure of getting hammered was all theirs?
The Red Sox sent out a statement yesterday extolling the virtues of the former owner of the only team in baseball able to make the mighty Sawx feel like insignificant little sisters. This part is somewhat understandable, as it was created on behalf of several Red Sox executives who worked with or near Steinbrenner over the past four decades.
But it’s not just a statement coming from Boston. On Thursday, it’ll be a Statement (note the capitalization of the word). From boston.com:
The Red Sox will observe a moment of silence in Steinbrenner’s memory on Thursday, July 15, 2010 at Fenway Park before the club’s matchup against the Texas Rangers at 7:10 p.m.
What? Oh. Wait … what? No!
Many of you will not care about this, not bat an eye or think this decision odd. But it is. For Red Sox fans, it SO is. It’s one thing to be disrespectful of a dead man. For example, I wouldn’t condone a moment of boos in memory of Steinbrenner. But to take a moment to show appreciation for a man whom the Red Sox should not and did not appreciate seems hollow. Hell, the Yankees won’t even be there to hear the nothingness. Boston is having a moment of silence for themselves.
Steinbrenner was a powerful and influential man, perhaps one of the most powerful and influential the game has ever seen. He’s certainly one of the most powerful and influential the modern game has ever seen. And he used his power and influence to bring seven World Series titles to the Red Sox’s closest and most obvious competitor. But – and this is very important – for 30 years, the Red Sox hated him for it. It wasn’t until the last nine years that the Red Sox fully embraced Steinbrenner’s philosophy on winning.
So the question here is – just as it was when they hung No.23 in the Miami Heat rafters – why? Just ’cause? Because Steinbrenner is dead now and he wasn’t on Monday? Why honor a guy who only helped your ball club achieve international fame by embarrassing it over and over on national television? The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry may have started lifetimes ago, but it only started getting competitive a decade ago.
Maybe the moment of silence should be for an era when the Red Sox weren’t as full of it as the Yankees.
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Photo courtesy of Flickr
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