July

By Eric Wilbur

December 28, 2006

3 minutes to read

Just months after he claimed he was embarrassed to see his name on a TV news crawl along with updates on the 2004 tsunami, Kansas City Royals first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz returned to Boston in July, promising to “open old wounds” in his quest to call the World Series ball his own.

Mientkiewicz, of course, started spouting off before his return, claiming that he had a “speech planned out . . . the person who wrote [Bill ] Clinton’s acceptance speech in the White House helped me write it.” He promised, he said, that a “Red Sox CEO would get blasted [for what] he put me through.”

“I just want to be remembered as a small piece [of the championship], not someone that stole a baseball. It’s not even the Red Sox. It’s just one person,” Mientkiewicz said in his mostly forgettable speech, claiming Lucchino “continually did the unprofessional thing. Everyone outside of Mr. Lucchino has been phenomenal.
“This could have been cleared up behind closed doors,” he said, but, “I’m not going to [be] bullied around. … Jabs from someone that never put on spikes, I’m not going to accept it.”
Meanwhile, Keith Foulke continued to entertain and madden at the same time by insisting once again that the ball was his.
“If you were to take it to a panel or a court of unbiased people and you went down a list of team and players and people that deserve certain things, [like] the ball, I think maybe Mr. Mientkiewicz may be down the totem pole a bit, but that’s just me,” Foulke said. “Of course I think I deserve the ball…I think I did some pretty good things to deserve that thing. But maybe I’m wrong.”
We can only wonder what Year 3 of Ball-gate will bring. Maybe Julio Lugo will somehow figure out how to put in a claim, just to join in all the fun.
In other news:

Taylor Hicks drives 95 percent of New England bonkers with his ubiquitous Ford (“I get what I want…”) ad. A few months later, the suicide rate spikes when John Mellencamp responds with his own omnipresent song pushing Chevys. In a related story, Fox signs a new seven-year deal to carry Major League Baseball. And what’s worse, it’s December already, and as far as we know, the names Tim McCarver and Thom Brennaman are still employed.

It was bound to happen: The Lowell Spinners become “The Mike Lowell Spinners” for one day, on July 29.

From the Sarasota Herald-Tribune:

At a Saturday community meeting to discuss the potential of a new stadium for the Cincinnati Reds, city officials spent 90 minutes going over the impacts of having spring training in Florida.
Afterward, a silver-haired lady said the city had neglected to talk about an important benefit.
“One of the impacts that you didn’t mention are the girls that date the ballplayers,” said Carole Nikla, 75, to laughs of the 30-person crowd at City Hall.
Later, Nikla said that she was serious. She dated two Boston Red Sox players in 1950.

Well, sure, there’s that too.

The Yankees acquire Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle prior to the July 31 trading deadline. The Red Sox do nothing, Theo Epstein insisting the team would not risk the future of the club. The Yankees go on to win the East, while the Red Sox suffer a downward spiral and end up in third. Epstein faces more dubious fans entering a season than ever before.

Adam Wade presented us with the creepy “Ode to Hazel Mae.”