How About Them Sox

and former Sox. What is going on with these guys? First Petty Papi expresses greater concern that all this spoiled chowder might hand Jeter the Mvp than with the fact that, you know, the chowder is spoiled...rotten. Now comes word that Ramirez won't play at all in the Bronx and probably not for the remainder of the season. In boston, that is known as Manny just sitting on his fanny, or if you prefer, Manny just being fanny, i.e. an ass.

Today Jonathan Papelbon announced that he was no longer pitching this year and that when he returned in 2007, it would be as a starter. Don't these kind of statements usually come from someone with greater managerial authority than a rookie player?

Finally, Pedro was yanked after 3 innings of stuffless pitching tonight, and while he claimed he almost lost it in the dugout, my view of the tape showed that he did actually break into tears as Willie Randolph tried to comfort him. Although a great pitcher, Pedro was always a punk, and isn't that the way it is with punks: one day they are breaking baseball's unwritten rule against unprovoked beanballs, the next they are humiliating themselves by breaking that still more fundamental dictum so effectively articulated by Tom Hanks/Jimmy Foxx: THERE'S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL.
Between Papi crying to the press, Manny crying to the trainer and Pedro crying on the bench, the Sox, past and present have become, I don't know, just so fucking abject. They are now too pathetic to hate; but they are also too self-indulgent to pity. So what is it I'm feeling? As feelings about them go, it seems a little bit distant and yet powerfully familiar....ah, yes, that's right, it's contempt.