Umpires Squeezing Red Sox, Pitchers Aiming For Players

TARGET: BOSTON RED SOX


For the Boston Red Sox it is going to be a fight this year, literally.
Has anyone noticed the ferocity and malice aimed at Manny Ramirez and Kevin Youkilis and Mike Lowell and David Ortiz and The Boston Red Sox in general?

The "Baseball gods" do play favorites, those "gods" being the businessmen (and possibly business women) behind the scenes sending signals to the umps and to opposing pitchers. Players getting bad calls against them, as well as pitches aimed at vital parts of their body.

It's no coincidence that Google Sports News hardly has The Red Sox on its front page. It's a fact. At 11:10 on Monday night, June 18, 2007, as I write this, even in what is called a "loss" the Sox STILL aren't on the front page of Google Sports. Sure, Curt Schilling pitched poorly, but there were bad calls and the advantage from the umps clearly tilted in Atlanta's favor - and had Francona left Lopez in rather than bringing in the broken Mike Timlin this game could have been won.

On June 18th the umpire called an absolute ball a strike on Kevin Youkilis. How many times have Manny and Ortiz been given strikes when the pitchers have thrown balls?
And when one player has to swing at balls because he knows the ump is going to call them strikes even when they are not, Manny and Ortiz have to follow Youkilis lead.
When pitchers get those kind of skewed calls against the Boston team you know that the Red Sox have a target on their back. Ortiz got thrown out of a ball game

Youkilis was hit by Yankee Mariano Rivera on June 3,2007. The man is in pain and Posada asks the umpire for a ruling! The Yankees won that game 6-5. The Yankees also won against The Mets on Sunday June 17th in a game where Chien-Ming Wang hit
Mets' player Paul Lo Duca on the left elbow. Edgar Gonzalez hits Mike Lowell on the wrist (hey, in 2006 Nomar Garciaparra, ex-Red Sox, was hit three times in a game by the Diamondbacks), LF Manny Ramirez, who was hit on the wrist Friday by a pitch from Arizona's Doug Davis on June 8th.


Be it an A-Rod cheap and dirty slide or being deceptive with the Toronto Blue Jays at the end of May "got it" or gotcha, it all comes down to playing dirty and The Yankees are such sore losers that that's the only way they've gotten back into the race - their backs against the walls they are hardly gentlemen - the richest team in baseball will break the rules so King George's investment (their salaries, mind you) doesn't go all the way south.


So you've got Alex Rodriguez, as one blogger notes, throwing elbows at Dustin Pedroia, cheating on his wife, and not playing fair with the Toronto Blue Jays the night before Mike Lowell, a man who has eaten up the Yankees, getting hit by a pitch. The New York Yankees took out Kevin Youkilis for a few weeks, and he came back with a roar. Red Sox deserved to win it all, and did, a week before the Patriots proved to the world who the best football team in the universe is.


Rodriguez misdeeds:


http://wordpress.com/tag/john-gibbons/feed/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/sports/baseball/31pins.html?ex=1182312000&en=5f65909fa7a0cdc2&ei=5070


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Boston Red Sox's Kevin Youkilis grimaces after getting hit by a pitch by New York Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning of their baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston Sunday, June 3, 2007. The Yankees won, 6-5.



http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/photo?slug=1a57c0c5990a49eabc41edb252574f54.yankees_red_sox_baseball_maea123&prov=ap

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http://fantasybaseball.usatoday.com/content/player_news.asp?sport=MLB&id=3588&line=209006







FROM DAN SHAUGHNESSY:

DanBambino@
Date: Thu, Jan 3, 2002, 2:44pm
Subject: Re: Speaking for Bledsoe
To: (sent to an older Varulven address)

joe --
i just hope someday i make it to the big-time like yourself. clearly,
you have reached the pinnicle of your profession. always good to be
critiqued by the best. cheers. shaughnessy

(Dan, the correct spelling is "pinnacle", glad to
help a fellow journalist out...)

Dan also phoned my home on 1/3/2002 asking if I "managed the Rolling Stones." No, Dan, only their late
producer, Jimmy Miller.