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Somebody today mentioned that the back of today's NY Post had almost nothing about the WS with the exception of a tag line about how many more WS the Spanks have won to date. Pretty lame when you consider what the recent history has been. What is going to be in the next addition of the Post? "Yea and we got Babe Ruth too....So there!!! Jeez you would expect even the Post to have a tiny bit more class than going back to the old saw about total WS won. I guess not.

As somebody already posted, Seattle would likely be trying to make a play for Ells in a big way....They would love to bring him up to the Pacific Northwest for a bunch of years and do the whole face of the franchise bit. I am totally convinced that the Sox will make a major play for Ells and will even offer serious numbers even with JBJ waiting in the wings. At the same time I think the odds are pretty slim that they even end up the second highest bidder for him. Not sure the the enhanced chance at more rings will mean much to Ells when compared to getting paid. He has two. How many guys play an entire career and never even get the chance.

The thing I don't like about these questions is that we don't know what Farrell said to Lackey and Ross. Lackey walked him. Suppose Farrell said "fine you can pitch to him but I either want him out or walked". Puts another man on base but would have taken the chance of a bomb pretty much off the table unless Lackey made the kind of mistake a ML pitcher even tiring should not make if so instructed. It is pretty interesting that during the regular season as Workman was moved closer to the end of the game and high leverage situations, he did not fair so well. Maybe he just ran out of regular season. He surely did better in the post season with much more pressure on him to succeed. I think Farrell was wise to keep the number of pitches Taz was throwing down in the post season as he definitely faded late in the regular season.

During the WS broadcasters were suggesting the Ells family was saying they think Boston is he best place for him and have been telling him that. Frankly I think in his case that is the same thing as saying that if Boston were to match the highest offer he gets he would stay. I think that is about as close to a hometown discount as Ells is going to give....not forcing the Sox to beat the highest offer he gets. That is still sounding like the way long green to me. I guess we will know when we know.

It would have happened playoffs or no. Sox had no choice but to exercise. Not to would have been incredibly foolish.

This is exactly why I suggested this is the wrong time to give up on WMB. At least ya' gotta' give yourself the opportunity to get back full value for him if you decide you don't want him...giving up on him and getting nothing for him only to see him hitting 25 bombs for somebody else would be a very bad deal indeed.

I just don't think Pedey would have stepped over Tek which is part of the problem with putting a C on a guy's shirt. I never thought that worked for a baseball team. By 2012 all that was gone and you could depend on the natural club leaders coming forward. However, V made it an impossible position to be in and the V of 2012 was not the V of the Mets days. V had lost a ton off his FB. The world of V was far more important to him than anything including maintaining a manager's job. I do not think anybody in their right mind will offer V an MLB managers job again which says buckets for how good or bad a hire that was in 2012. It was a horrendous hire. The days of a manager being able to play head games with his players and speak in tongues like that and expect it to be the player's responsibility to "understand" what the f*** he is talking about are long long gone.

Does not matter what Cherrington was thinking....unbelievable....never mind...this is going to turn into another of those world famous Talksox circle-jerks and those are just too stupid and time consuming.

Oh OK so Cherrington knew he was building a WS champ...and Larry the CEO and President did not know what the intentions and goals of the club were. Sure...go ahead live in your fantasy world. Just because they eventually did go on to win a championship does not mean that was the realistic target for the 2013 season nor even a goal outside of the usual blather that we get from all baseball organizations all the way down to the Minnesota Twins and Houston Astros. In the first place, Sox Management clearly would have known the biggest challenges they were facing for the 2013 season were attendance, ratings, perception and image and reversing those trends, headed the wrong way for the first time in decades make much more sense as the 2013 goals of the Red Sox organization. The heads of the Red Sox organization literally said the words as far as perception and image goes headed into the 2013 season. A championship is no more than a possibility for any club in the first place. You cannot say Larry was wrong just because they did go in and win the championship and anything a CEO and President says about his own organization is always much more than opinion. Why do you think the stock market moves every time John Chambers opens his big mouth. Do you really think investors think John is just offering us his opinion on what his own company is doing?

Since Lucchino would have been in the room when decisions were being made, he would not have been offering his opinion. We don't get to be in those meetings so WE offer opinions.

Ride out Lester's contract does not make sense at this point. Surely they will exercise his option. He will be at the peak of his value and there is surely a good possibility that they will be offered an absolute pot of gold for him and might simply find that too appealing to pass up. If the pot of gold does not look like it would be that sweet, then the possibility gets greater that they keep him and would at that point bite the bullet and resign him. At that point sign and trade remains a real possibility as well.

Pedey was there in 2011 and 2012 for sure but he did not have the kind of position within the team yet and the guys that did, like Beckett and even Tek were not doing it any good. I think Pedey had it in 2012 but got set up by V and Youk. He was forced into an ugly spot just as the season was getting going and I think he knew right away that there was no way to "win" either on the field or in the clubhouse given the dynamics surrounding that team. Plus I would bet he was rightly pissed for having been put in that situation. On the other hand, I would be willing to bet the mortgage that complete freaking nut case V was laughing the entire time because he just loved stirring the pot, loved seeing people scramble, frustrated and pissed off and did not even distinguish between just anybody and his own team in that regard. How in the name of all that is holy anybody could have interviewed that man and then with a straight face said, "Boy this is our guy" is completely beyond my comprehension.

Fine you want to credit them for being the pebble. I can buy that...they were the pebble...and that is about where it ends...but that is not the same thing as creating a culture nor even setting the tone to create a culture. Any bunch of knuckleheads that dreams up a ride on Henry's yacht and a set of headphones as a means to try to bond with the players has no clue about creating a positive culture nor even setting the tone for one. In fact, if Cherrington wanted to make a few big market moves, I think they would have allowed him to do so if only because they had screwed up so badly that they simply had no credibility even to themselves at that point. And I am not going to give them that much credit for finally realizing how badly they had screwed up....a five year old could have figured that one out. They might have made BC explain why said big market team move fit with the concept of restoring respectability to the team but beyond that, I think they would have let him have his head. As for this ownership group being superior to what we had in the past, it was not until Harrington, Mrs Yawkey and that whole bunch were finally out that Tom Yawkey, one of the worst owners of all time was not running the team from the grave. You know how long that was before that whole miserable crew was finally outta' here? So I can buy this group being better but anything would be better than anything associated with with Tom Yawkey. Maybe the crook that preceded Yawkey was worse, but not by much.

Completely understood....the point is the players put this championship together or at least were far and way the most important component of having done so. Next I would credit the front office for having constructed the team. Next I would credit Farrell and the coaching staff for giving the players the freedom to meld as a team and for providing assistance and direction where needed. Finally the owners most specifically Henry for coming down out of the clouds and pushing the entire ownership group especially Lucchino off to the side when it came to things baseball to allow the baseball people to handle the baseball team without interference from the business end of the business. and No, I do not accept the notion that the owners had anything to do with character exhibited by the players other than in providing the aforementioned marching orders to Charrington to restore the team's credibility and respectability.

Absolutely...as close to a unanimous vote as it gets I would hope...not to say even Ben had any idea that he was constructing the WS champ while he was doing it. He didn't..he was not even trying to. Does not matter...he still gets exec of the year without question.

Yea they had a role. They finally figured out that they did not have any idea what the f*** they where doing, put meddlesome Lucchino in a cage and threw away the key and allowed the people in baseball operations to do their jobs. Sure they told Charrington to return the club to respectability. What the hell else were they going to tell him to do? By then they had already dragged it through the mud so much that you could hardly recognize it any longer. They had hand picked...let me repeat that so it sinks in...hand picked Bobby V to manage the team, the equivalent of handing the crown jewels to a loan shark and satisfied themselves with the special of the Fenway week....this week bats, next week bricks...hell maybe we can sell all the bricks replacing each of the real bricks with plastic bricks until the whole f***ing thing just falls down around our ears. That frisbee John Henry had left too much control in the hands of twiddle dee and twiddle dumb, Lucchino and Warner. Lucchino is a meddlesome, micromanager that can't leave anything alone yet will leave the guy he usurped to twist slowy in the wind. Warner? I think I would need a very hot bath after nothing more significant than a handshake. As for Henry himself......a lost child of the sixties and seventies still trying to find Woodstock....probably to buy it. In fact he is probably trying to sail his yacht up Rt 375 to upstate NY. "First mate, pay that toll". By the time Henry finally climbed down off the poop deck to have a look around the old ball yard, all the damage had already been done. Ballplayers and owners have nothing in common, least of all character. Baseball team owners throughout history have been some of the most diabolical creatures known to man, their lack of character generally only surpassed by their stupidity. Charrington did a fantastic job bringing in high character guys on short contracts for long money as a means to wash the scum off the Fenway walls. However even Charrington could not have known that he was mating together enough veterans coming in with much to prove with Red Sox veterans that had lived through the mess of 2012 and had committed themselves to washing their uniforms clean of that stench and youngsters dependent on the vets to get them through the season. The players are far and away most responsible for the 2013 championship and nothing about them flowed from ownership with the exception of ownership for its own reasons of self preservation chartering Charrington with the task of returning the team to respectability. Guys with contracts in baseball can just about do whatever they choose to do. The Sox players themselves chose to play with pride and character, first adopting and then never abandoning an offensive process that in and off itself required self sacrifice for the good of the team. Charrington and Farrell and the coaches did a terrific job but make no mistake about it, the players themselves are the group most responsible for the 2013 championship. If anything Farrell gave the players the freedom to mold themselves into a team in the truest sense of the word...something wing nut V would never have allowed to happen. Hell V would not even tell them when they were going to play, choosing to keep players completely under his control like baby chicks in his nest with their beaks open and their necks stretched hoping for a morsel from mommy.

Whata????? You have got to be kidding me. The character of the players flows from the owners. Who...what character?

I almost forgot about this. They interviewed Pedro about Buch because Pedro threw so hard while being relatively small and eventually hurt his shoulder big time. Pedro said that he had to work incredibly hard to maintain his smallish body such that he could throw. For example he worked two to three hours a day just on his shoulder....just on his shoulder!! Pedro went on to say that he just does not know if the contemporary player is committed enough to the game to work as hard as he worked to stay on the field but he also said that he felt like Buch would make the effort. It sounded like Pedro just did not know if Buch at this point realizes yet how much work it will take.

Well I believe the Sox should do everything in their power to help Buch find a way to pitch complete seasons. That does not mean turning their in house butcher shop, I mean medical staff on him. They should try to help him find somebody that specializes in his kinds of issues and see if they can get him some help. He is under contract for a few years. Since he is under contract I guess your question has something to do with trading him vs having waited for Lackey. The Sox had written protection into the Lackey contract. So waiting for Lackey was not even a decision. Getting Lackey back on the mound was the best way to get their return out of the language they had written into the contract. In addition, Lackey did not have chronic problems. Wore out his arm...had TJ....rehabed....end of story. Really pretty straightforward. This frailty issue has been around long enough for Buch to be chronic I think. He is frail. Hopefully he and his team supporting him and the Sox will find a way to get him past it.

Hate the idea that we have to wait till spring for more Sox baseball but happy as hell for the 2013 team. They really deserved to be WS Champs. Were the best team and the beat all the rest of the best teams.

Buch may need somebody with some real skills dealing with his kinds of issues to help him out. He tried to add pounds one year I guess in an effort to build himself up a bit and the added weight was more than his bone structure could support. At least that is all I could glen from the published reporting. So that backfired on him. Whatever he tries next..it has to be with the assistance of somebody that really knows what he is doing. He is just too much of a talent to just end up a bundle of unfulfilled promises. He did a terrific job battling through those four innings in Game 5. I hope he has taken a lot of encouragement from that.

I guess Ells left wrist and hand were much worse than what we could see under that big wrap. Not sure how much of this was just Ells way of expressing how the wrist and hand felt but apparently he told teammates that they had to win game 6 as he did not feel like he could have played in a game 7.

He can run faster than he was running there. He was not even running. He gave up on the thing as much as anything else but it NOTHING to do with his age.

Apparently, Ells left hand and wrist were much worse than we could tell just from looking although he really was looking kinda' tender at the plate of late. I guess he told teammates that they had to win game 6 because he really did not know if he could have played a game 7.