-The Sky is Falling-

Greech

I meant to write this entry on Sunday night, before the Sox played their opener. I was going to start it with some quote from Field of Dreams. You know, something like “is this heaven?” then I probably would have wrote something terribly corny like “no, its opening day 2007!!”. Then I got sidetracked on Sunday by a combination of Facebook, napping, and stripping wall paper (this actually happened, my dad actually woke me up from the second thing to make me do this third thing). After missing my chance to write it before the game I decided that I would wait until Monday night after the game to write it. At this point I was sure I would be writing something clever about the gutsy performance Schilling put on, proving that he is, without a doubt, still our staff ace. I was going to write how Theo made a huge mistake not signing him for 13 million when he had the chance before the season and how this team was poised to win the AL East for the first time since 1995. Well as I’m sure you all (by ‘all’ I mean the four people who are going to read this) may know by now, things very rarely turn out the way you thought they would.

In case you missed the Red Sox game on Monday night, Schilling pretty much sharted all over the mound at Kauffman Stadium. In case you don’t know what ‘sharted’ means, it’s when you try to fart, but instead you give up five earned runs over four innings to the KANSAS CITY FREAKING ROYALS. I think at this point a counter offer from the Sox of 8 million, Theo’s Sega Genesis system from his sophomore year at Princeton, an endless supply of sunscreen for his kids, and an Ethernet hook up in the dugout and Schilling would jump at it.

Seriously though, you hate to bitch about it because if Schilling had gone out there and pitched 7 innings, let up three earned runs and the Sox had won, we wouldn’t be talking about any of this. He didn’t though, and now you have to be wondering if an off season spent sitting in front of a computer working on his new company, 38Studios, might have gotten in the way of his “off season workouts”. It looks like Schill is carrying some serious extra weight in the mid section, I mean, Schilling has never been a Gabe Kapler type by any means, but did Dunkin Donuts pay him in a lifetime supply of Munchkins and Coffee Coolatas???? It’s like the episode of Seinfeld when Kramer gets a never ending supply of Cafe Lattes and they try to cut him off and he starts screaming at them. Can’t you picture a lady who barely speaks English behind the counter at some Dunkin Donuts in Somerville saying to Schilling “Mr. Curt, I sorry…I have no more glazed Munchkins left…..you have ate them all” and Schilling yelling back “You can't put a limit on my Munchkins, it says so right here. And I don't want to get dirty looks when I come in here. If I want 50 Munchkins, you give me 50 Munchkins. And if I have any problems I'm gonna get my wife Shonda Schilling down here and your gonna be in really big trouble.” The guy has never been in what you would call “great shape” but when he came in this year looking for a contract extension at the age of 40, you figured he would have at least came in weighing what he weighed last year, not tipping the scales at around what David Wells weighed last year.

As usual though, Schilling didn’t make any excuses after his horrid start, and he didn’t need to, he wasn’t the only one on the team who sharted all over the field. Julio Lugo, the new guy at shortstop, started his (probably brief) career with the Sox with three straight K’s. I’m sure that’s exactly what Theo, Bill James, and the rest of the stat crunching dorks working in Fenway’s Basement pictured when they signed him on for 4 years and 36 million. Then there was Dice-K’s Countrymen, Hideki Okajima, who gave up a home run to light hitting Royals catcher John Buck, on his FIRST PITCH EVER in the majors. I don’t care if he helps Dice-K around the locker room and in the clubhouse by talking about where they can get some good Japanese food or about the time him and Dice-k ran that train on one of Ichiro’s groupies in Seattle (this hasn’t happened yet, but I’m just saying…) this guy has got to go. We also found out that Justin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis couldn’t beat Christopher Reeves in a footrace, that Youkilis has apparently forgotten how to shave, that Jason Varitek might never regain the form that made him a two time All Star, and that Manny Ramirez looks more and more like The Predator with each passing day.

So while the Royals are using their day off to throw a parade around the streets of Kansas City after their victory on opening day over the Sox, the Red Sox and Red Sox Nation are forced to wait until Wednesday to get the first win of the much anticipated 2007 season under their belt. I don’t expect to lose many games like this past Wednesday’s to teams like the Royals, but you can expect to win them all either. And, no, the sky isn’t falling, things in Red Sox Nation will be ok….well, as long as D&D doesn’t run out of glazed Munchkins.




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