Is This JD Drew Thought Far From The Truth? I Say NO...Resoundingly!

This is from the ever entertaining Steve Buckley of the Boston Herald. You see, there is no hard Red Sox news, not until after the New Year's holiday. But Mr. Buckley makes a valid point, and uses humor while making it. He starts out talking about the long delay between the initial word that the club and Scott Boras had come to an agreement about JD Drew with a staggeringly high price tag and the subsequent but still yet to come press conference. Here you go, and then I will return with a brief comment....

"But still we have no J.D. Drew press conference.
It’s obvious what has happened here: The Sox called Drew and said something along the lines of, “We’re thrilled that you’re going to play for the Red Sox and would like you to come to Boston and hold up a Sox jersey and tell the media that as a kid growing up in Georgia you always dreamed of playing for the Red Sox, but, um, if you don’t mind, could you, um, send us X-rays of your shoulders, wrists, knees, ankles and elbows?”
What happened next? I can’t help but wonder if the Red Sox, after taking a look at those X-rays, said, “Hey! Who left Johnny Pesky’s medical file in here!?"

Peter here. Well said, Steve...and Johnny Pesky's X-Rays might be an improvement! The point of my bringing up JD Drew yet again is this. For $70 million dollars over WHO CARES how many years, damaged goods are damaged goods. To be avoided at all costs. That $70 mill could be used in so many different ways, all better ways to make the 2007 Boston Red Sox a vastly improved team. So many of the missing pieces have been sculpted to fit into the jig-saw puzzle that is our team, but the center piece, the closer's piece, still remains barren, empty of life. Julian Tavarez will not be able to do it. Theo has said that by the end of spring training, whether from inside or outside the team as it stands now, we WILL have a closer. Without one, one who can be trusted and effective, our promising 6 plus man rotation and our young yet old but "looking good" bullpen remains just a rotation and a bullpen on paper. The starter can be brilliant for 7 or 8 innings, all for nothing if that guy, that elusive keynote player who can shut 'em down for three outs, is not there. A house of cards, with a stiff wind....liable to fall at any moment. We need that shelter from the winds.........and that shelter is a bona fide closer. NOT Julian Tavarez.
Thanks, my readers, on this second to last day of 2006. My year-end thoughts about, well, everything, will come up tomorrow. I might even have to write some of them down on paper before commiting them to blogdom, rather than listen to that little, sometimes smart and sometimes combative voice in my left ear. Until then, enjoy your Saturday. And thanks for reading.......I really appreciate it. But you knew that!