The Futility Infielder

The Grim Forksman

The Great Fork is now stuck in the rump of the Red Sox; they are done. And in a spectacular charred-beyond-recognition fashion that I never, in my pinstriped dreams, could have forseen. Not only have the Sox imploded after a three-game sweep in Fenway at the hands of the Yankees, but they've turned their season into a Beantown equivalent of the Bronx Zoo Redux that would make George Steinbrenner blush.

To recap the recent events:

• On August 16, Sox GM Dan Duqette fired manager Jimy Williams, a move that was a foregone conclusion since Duqette's numerous clashes with Williams dating back to last season. At the time, the Sox were 65-53, twelve games over .500, five games in back of the Yankees in the AL East race, and two games behind Oakland in the Wild Card chase. Williams had kept his team in contention despite missing superstar Nomar Garciaparra for the first four months of the season and Pedro Martinez for the past two months.

• Pitching coach Joe Kerrigan, who dragged countless pitchers off of the scrap heap (David Cone, Hideo Nomo, Brett Saberhagen, Rod Beck) and made the Red Sox staff into one of the best-performing units in the league, was named manager to replace Williams despite never having managed at any level before. Kerrigan, who served under Duquette in Montreal as well, was the Duke's second choice after former Expos manager Felipe Alou declined the job due to uncertainties about the team's future ownership. The Sox won six of Kerrigan's first nine games, but then lost five straight going into the Yankees series.

• On Friday night, the Yanks came from behind against the Boston bullpen in the eighth inning to beat the Red Sox 3-1. Roger Clemens, Public Enemy #1, beat them to run his record to 18-1 on the season.

• On Saturday night, the Yanks came from behind against the Boston bullpen again, beating the Sox 2-1 on the strenght of bernie Williams' home run in the ninth inning. Orlando Hernandez earned his first victory of the season, outlasting Pedro Martinez, who was making just his second start after spending two months on the disabled list.

• On Sunday night, the Yanks outlasted David Cone, who channeled his pinstriped glory years in such gutty fashion that Joe Torre wanted to applaud. It took an error by futility infielder Lou Merloni, a well-placed hit by Enrique Wilson, and a near-perfect performance (one strike away) from Mike Mussina to do so. The loss was the Sox's eighth straight. Carl Everett, the Sox Pinch-Psychopath, broke up the perfecto with a two-strike single into the gap. Everett has been slowed for the past two months by what he says is torn cartilege in his knee, but what the Sox medical staff (what wears a stethoscope and sounds like a duck? A Red Sox team doctor--Quack! Quack!) terms as a sprain.

• Following the game, Duquette fired Sox bullpen/acting pitching coach John Cumberland, who'd only been on the job for 18 days since former pitching coach Joe Kerrigan assumed the reins from Williams. This after the Sox staff had given up a total of six runs (five earned) in three games, but had gone 0-3 thanks to their meager offense (Sox hitting coach Rick Down, who apparently expected to be offered the job if Williams were fired, and who was up for multiple managerial posts the past two seasons, is reportedly toast) . According to the fired coach, Duquette used Cumberland's drinking as a reason for his dismissal.

• As word of the firing spread around the clubhouse, Garciaparra--on the DL again for further problems with his damaged wrist--expressed his displeasure with the dysfunctional circus that the team had become. "This is why no one [expletive deleted] wants to play here," he complained openly. Sox outfielder Trot Nixon echoed Nomah's frustration: "We don't have a monkey on our back," he told the Associated Press, "We have a god-damned gorilla."

• Pedro Martinez, concerned over risking his fragile arm for a team that was throwing in the towel, suggested that he be shut down for the year if the Sox fall from contention. Duqette's response, again, was almost surreal: "The team is not going to shut Pedro down. We're paying him a lot of money to pitch. Our fans enjoy seeing Pedro Martinez pitch."

• Examination results disclosed on Tuesday revealed that Martinez has suffered a minor tear of his rotator cuff. Said Martinez, "I think Dan knows as much about medicine as I do, maybe less. That's why I'm surprised he said I'm healthy."

• When Duquette fired Cumberland, he delivered the spin in classic fashion: "I'm not here to assess blame, I'm here to look for solutions." But the Providence Journal's Bill Reynolds, echoing the departed pitching coach's suggestion to look in the mirror, succinctly laid the blame back at the Duke's feet:

"This team is your creation, this whining, overpaid, dysfunctional team that now has lost eight straight games at the worst possible time. This team with a bloated payroll and dissension running through its clubhouse like someone trying to go from first to third on a single up the middle. This team that's now imploded right in front of all our eyes. Your team. The one with the highest payroll in baseball. The one you put together."

By now we're up to the classic body-counts of the Bronx Zoo Yankees--quick, somebody fire Art Fowler! But where the Yankees could use such chaos to motivate themselves and change the team's course, the Red Sox's prospects, with their two superstars injured, seem much less rosy. This is a team which, save for perhaps David Cone--who's forgotten more about winning than Dan Duqette ever will know--has that thousand-yard stare for an aura, with an extra-crispy coating.

With the Sox up for sale and new management an eventuality, Duquette has now cemented his own status as Dead Man Walking. Wouldn't you know it, he made Jimy Williams live out the same fate for the better part fo the season. It's funny how what goes around, comes around.

Technically, the Sox are not dead, not with a four-game series against the Yankees looming this weekend. But they've already torn themselves apart and have proceeded to the postmortem. In retropsect, we should have forseen this. As the New York Daily News' Bill Madden points out, on May 30, Martinez beat the Yanks 3-0, striking out 13 at Fenway. Afterward, Pedro said he was tired of talking about the Yankees and the curse of Babe Ruth. "Why don't we just wake up the Bambino, and maybe I'll drill him in the ass?" asked the world's greatest pitcher.

Since then, the Sox have slipped eight games in the standings to the Yanks, and Martinez hasn't won a single game (he's 0-1 in five starts with a 5.27 ERA ). The Bambino apparently awoke in the form of the Grim Forksman, and now he's firmly stuck it in the Sox's barbecue-reddened asses. Mess with the bull, you get the horns; mess with the Babe, you get the fork.