Come Live With Me and Be My Love.

Username: BoSox2010
Headline: Just an Old Baseball Club in Search of a Shortstop.
Vitals: 105 years old, Boston, MA


About Me: First things first, the obligatory: Personal ads are always so hard to fill out. How do you say that last season you were a pretty good baseball club, consisting of (relatively) decent people, who pitched pretty well, scored a lot of runs, and won a lot of games, without sounding like you're full of yourself? And if you succeed in doing that, how do explain why you're once again heading into the holiday season without a reliable shortstop to share it with--without sounding like you're a waste of time? I'm really not a bad ball club to play for. I'm dedicated to winning and playing in the post season. I'm competitive. I have a worshipful (albeit slightly crazy) fan base. I've been burned in the past and am sometimes a little wary to start out but I'm looking forward to taking some chances and seeing who's out there.

About the One I'm Looking For: I smile when I think of you. You might not be overly flashy or sexy but you are competent. You're cool and collected. You're goal oriented and nothing is going to stand in you're way. You're so comfortable in your own skin that you don't have to be the star. You don't make waves or cause a fuss. You've got a pleasant personality and you're interested in something--anything will do.

My Idea of a Perfect First Date: You go one for two with a pair of walks and an RBI. You play passable defense--I'm not asking for anything spectacular--you make the routine plays; maybe turn a double play or two.

My Perception of an Ideal Relationship: I'm not looking for a long term commitment. (My last shortstop left me to go to Toronto because I wasn't ready to commit to him yet.) We'd spend a lot of time together but nothing too serious. We get along. We laugh. I'm comfortable, you're comfortable. And we work together to help each other be better.

What I've Learned From Past Relationships: For the past five years, I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to fill the void left by my last great love. It hasn't been easy. I've been picking up bits and pieces along the way but none have been able to fulfill that role. I've learned that not everyone can play here. And while I thought that I could deal with sub-par defense if it might come with an improved offense, that doesn't seem to be the case. At the same time though, all glove and no bat won't cut it either.

Sound like you? I'd love to hear from you. Ask for Theo.

Must Be David Ortiz Day.

While in the Dominican Republic David Ortiz is championing another cause besides raising funds for pediatric cardiology services, he is also lending his voice to a campaign to end domestic violence.

The radio campaign "Pégale a la Pelota, Jamás a una Mujer" (Hit a ball, Never a woman) is aimed at baseball fans and has ballplayers making comparisons between baseball and abused women. (It probably isn't as awful as that sounds or it plays better in a more chauvinistic culture.)

Says David of women (my translation):

"...so beautiful and I think that we know that we come from a woman and that we should pay them respect. And know that we live for a woman and that she is a rose."

"[A woman] is a flower that decorates the lives of men and that we should only give her caresses."

*Quietly mumbles to herself that he means well and that it's a different culture where he can say things like that. Is also very impressed that she got the accent marks to appear.*

Domestic violence is a serious issue anywhere so good on David for standing up against it.

Como se Dice Big Papi?

This amused me:

David Ortiz is in the middle of an extensive publicity campaign for his golf tournament; Facebook, Twitter, press conference at Fenway, and now a press conference down in the Dominican Republic. Besides the golf tournament, he spoke with Hoy (a Dominican newspaper) about trade rumors and the possibility of playing Dominican Winter ball. Regarding trade rumors he gave the standard answer that they didn't faze him and that he was turning the page on last season. And he didn't so yes or no to playing for the Dominican team Leones del Escogido. (Although here he says that on a scale of one to ten the possibility of him playing is a five--I'd take that as a diplomatic no.)

The part that amused me though was in the comments, where twice he's referred to as Big Daddy. It was just sort of odd.

Also, how the hell does he know Rachel Dratch? (Who is one of the celebrities invited to the tournament.) I just learned that she's from Lexington but it seems like a strange combination.

Like Crocuses or the First Robin.

It's cold and gray and the sun, if it was out, would be disgustingly low in the sky for this time of day. And to top it off, it's going rain later in the week. Not that I'm complaining or anything because soon enough, baseball will be back. Evidence: the Spring Training schedule was released today.

Surprisingly, there are no Yankee games--not really a bad thing.

All Hail Hale.

Over the weekend, Gordon Edes returned to the world of Boston sports writing and every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small, was singing! Can I get a squee? Is that allowed? I've always liked Edes. He writes well and has interesting things to say--two traits not commonly found in tandem in a Boston sportswriter. It was a sad day when he departed leaving us in the easily flustered, overly anxious, Chicken Little-esque hands of Tony Mazz.

And what better way to really get started than to pass on the information that DeMarlo Hale will be named Terry Francona's bench coach in a few days, Tim Bogar will shift over to third, and (Pawtucket manager) Ron Johnson will man first.

The Shoulder Bone's Connected to the Collar Bone (Hopefully).

J. D. Drew has a reputation for being a wimp but an acromioclavicular joint sprain is not a walk in the park and the fact that he could play through such an injury (even with cortisone shots) is impressive--not very smart but still impressive.

The scapula is very much a three dimensional bone and, as such, is difficult to describe; there's a sort of crook (the coracoid process) that goes all the way toward the front of the body and can be felt as a bony bump just under the clavicle and there's the scapular spine that sticks out in the other direction (away from the body) and extends above and beyond the flat part of the scapula.

But the scapula as Africa is a good visual, as it's shaped sort of like Africa. On the left scapula, the glenoid fossa (the socket part of the ball-and-socket joint) would be near Morocco. If you started digging in northern Mali, then you'd be the right area for the coracoid process. But the main feature that we're concerned about is the scapular spine. If it was an African mountain range, then it would start in the Sudan and cut across the continent in a northwesterly direction. At the end of the spine, the bone sort of flattens out and forms a roof above the glenoid process. That section of bone is called the acromion process. The bone you can feel on the back of you shoulder is the acromion process.

The humerus is connected to the rest of the body at the glenoid fossa of the scapula. The scapula's attachment point to the rest of the body is at the clavicle or the acromioclavicular joint (AC joint). It's the scapula's only point of articulation. In the anatomical map, the Middle East doesn't exist.

The shoulder joint is flimsy. Between the two bones (the acromion process and the clavicle) there is a cartilaginous disc. The bones are held in place by the muscular structure--the anterior deltoid in the front and the trapezius muscle in the back--and by ligaments strapping the thing together. The important ligaments (for our purposes) are the acromioclavicular ligament (which connects the acromion process and the clavicle) and the coracoclavicular ligament (which attaches the clavicle to the coracoid process). They form a sort of triangle that stabilizes the joint. But it's not a perfect system and it's relatively easy (through direct impact on the shoulder usually by falling) to irritate the ligaments.

A sprain to the AC joint could be as simple as a stretched acromioclavicular ligament (Grade I) to completely tearing that ligament and the coracoclavicular ligament (Grade III)--this injury leaves the scapula (and, therefore, the humerus) unattached to the main skeleton. (There are three more severe grades of injury but they have to do with how far out of place the clavicle ends up.)

JD sprained his AC joint at the beginning of last season. Because they treated it with a cortisone shot (to reduce the swelling) and a couple of days off, one can assume that it wasn't a severe strain. The pain didn't go away and he got another cortisone shot in September. Obviously, the pain still hasn't gone away as he had surgery on the shoulder last Thursday.

Because AC joint surgery is major surgery (it involves either cutting off the end of the clavicle or, alternately, screwing it in place) and no one seems to think that this is a big deal, chances are this surgery was more of a cleaning than a fixing. Occasionally, patients with Grade II injuries (the acromioclavicular ligament ruptures but the coracoclavicular ligament is only sprained) will experience fraying and tearing of the cartilage between the acromion process and the clavicle. And it develops into an impingement. So they go in arthroscopically and smooth it out the best they can. Recovery from the procedure is maybe eight weeks.

Print the Legend.

I love movies: new movies, old movies, comedies, thrillers, Westerns, dramas, horror flicks, foreign films, blockbusters, little indie films, kids movies. I'll happily watch them all in search of a good story. I love a good story. (Craig Breslow? Good story.) If there is nothing to watch on television, then you can bet that one of the first places I'll stop with the remote is TCM. You can run into some wonderful stories by just leaving TCM on--that's how I saw Bringing Up Baby, an absolute hoot of a movie. [Aside: Incidentally, I get a very Cary Grant vibe from Mike Lowell.]

One of the best story-tellers (and a New England boy to boot) was John Ford. In 1962 he made a movie called The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance about, essentially, truth and the value of it. It's a good movie even if that stupid song does get stuck in my head. The most famous quote from the film is: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." That's where my mind goes after it stops singing about how "He was the greatest of them all."

Josh Beckett, on the other hand, must be a big fan of the movie because his mind doesn't stop there. He goes to Doniphon (John Wayne) telling Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart): "Out here a man settles his own problems." [Context: Jimmy Stewart plays a young Eastern lawyer who goes out West hoping to civilize them via the law and John Wayne plays a rancher who reluctantly helps him out.]

To wit: Available on December 1, you can purchase a t-shirt with the quote from Muze Clothing that will help support the Josh Beckett Foundation.