Tito pisses me off so damn much...

If you take a second & think about those fabled Major League Baseball teams which all fans can recall with fondness, you will find one thing in common with each of them. They all had core group of starters. All of the great teams had an every-day starter for every possition, and then a group of non-starting reserve players who would come in to play off of the bench or fill in for a start on occassion in order to give the actual starter a day off to releax & recooperate.

Take for example the '86 Red Sox. I guarantee any fan can ramble off the names of the starting line-up from that season without a second thought:

• 1B: Bill Buckner
• 2B: Marty Barett
• SS: Spike Owen
• 3B: Wade Boggs
• C: Rich Gedman
• LF: Jim Rice
• CF: Dave Henderson
• RF: Dwight Evans
  

The team normally has reserve players to cover every possition, but as the starters are better qualified or more accomplished players, the reserve players are just that...in reserve. There just in case they are needed. I mean, I was a big fan of Mike Greenwell. He may have played the wall better than most others that have graced the turf in front of the Green Monster , but Jim Rice was better. Therefore, Rice was the starter.

All throughout sports, from little league to college, kids strive to be the better player at whichever possition they play, in whatever sport they participate in, because of that one simple rule. The better players get to start the games & end-up getting more playing time.

But apparently Terry Francona (aka: "Tito")knows better than everyone else throughout history. Tito likes to platoon his players. So rather than having the core, stable defense behind the pitcher, Tito alternates players every game. He has done so for the entirty of his tenure as Red Sox Manager. It is a horrible magerial style. Regardless of the team's success over the past few years, he is a horrible manager. He has made some horrible managing decisions since taking the helm (with some more questionable than Grady Little's decision in the deciding game 7 of the 2003 ALCS to not remove Pedro Martínez after seven strong innings, when he began to show signs of tiring...costing us the game & the season)


Can someone please explain to me what Terry Francona is thinking about doing his platooning crap, again, with Youkilis & JT Snow? How can he justify not starting JT Snow, a 15 year (give or take) veteran with 6 gold glove awards & who has been a starting first baseman for his entire career? JT Snow is arguably the best defensive first baseman in the majors & he has played in less than half of the games this season! Didn't Theo Epstein state that he made these infield pick-ups to boost the defense that had been weak in previous years?

Tito did the same damn thing in 2004 after Theo traded for Doug Mientkiewicz, another gold glove winning first baseman who was (at the time) the best defensive first baseman in the American League. Even after his mid-season acquisition, both Kevin Millar & Dave McCarty played in more games than Mientkiewicz.

Sidenote: Thank God that Millar is not on the Red Sox anymore

I don't understand how someone how someone with Snow's resume, who has been starting day in & day out for teams that have been competitive more than the Red Sox have over the past decade (although it pains me to think of the Sox as not being competitive) is not good enough for Tito...and also make you question his managerial capabilities...at least in my eyes.

Tito's problem is that he plays favorites, his favorites, regardless of their abilities, short-comings, or amount of errors made. Take for example, the blundering Mark Belhorn. Quite possibly the worst defensive second baseman to ever dawn a professional uniform. Tito played Belhorn loyally for 128 games at second base. To the contrary, Pokey Reese, yet another gold glove winning player that the club had acquired to strengthen the defense at second base, played in only 34 games.

Maybe Francona just has something against Gold Glove winning players...

And now, some Red Sox trivia for my faithful readers:

Founded: 1899, as the Buffalo franchise in the minor Western League. Moved to Boston when that league became the major American League in 1901.

Team Name: Boston Red Sox (see "Nicknames before Red Sox"below)

Current ownership: John Henry and Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino, who paid $660 million and assumed $400 million in debt, in February 2002. The purchase includes Fenway Park and 82 percent of NESN. The purchase price set a record for a major league baseball franchise.

Current payroll: For 2005, payroll was about $123.5 million, over $80 million less than that of the New York Yankees. For 2004, payroll was about $127 million, $57 million shy of the New York Yankees. In both of these years, the Red Sox had the second-highest total payroll in MLB. (NOTE: The numbers cited are actually the payroll of the team at the start of the each seaons. Payrolls can change due to mid-season personnel changes, including trades, promotion of minor league players, waiver, etc.)

Home ballpark: Fenway Park (April 20, 1912 - Present), Braves Field (1929 - 1932 Sundays, 1915 - 1916 World Series), Huntington Avenue Grounds (1901-1911). Fenway is the oldest ballpark in baseball. The Red Sox ownership group has recently committed to keeping the team at Fenway for years to come; plans are already under way for the first ballpark centennial celebration in MLB history in 2012.

Logo design: Two hanging red socks with white heels and toes, over a white baseball surrounded by the words Boston and Red Sox. The word "Boston" is in navy blue outlined in red, the words "Red Sox" are in red outlined in navy blue, and the entire logo is surrounded by a thick red circle. Recently the team has begun phasing in a new logo that removes the outline, text and baseball, leaving only the pair of red socks.

Theme Song: None officially, but several "unofficial" theme songs exist:

• played after each victory at Fenway Park: "Dirty Water" by The Standells.
• played after "Dirty Water" and for rallies during a game: The Dropkick Murphys' 2004 rewrite of "Tessie." The original "Tessie" was a Broadway tune, which Boston fans adopted during the 1903 World Series and sang regularly until 1916.

Championships and Pennants:

Playoff appearances (18): 1903, 1904, 1912, 1915, 1916, 1918, 1946, 1967, 1975, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005