Ok, Who Was Asking for Something to Happen?

Things were a little slow in Red Sox nation leading up to Spring Training. The crickets and disinterest were obvious as we all counted down the days until the Truck took off for Florida. I’m guessing that surgery wasn’t what everyone was waiting for to spice up the day.

So, Carl Crawford had wrist surgery. That’s interesting in a couple of ways. It’s interesting that it doesn’t appear that the Sox waited very long. I’m used to a person having an injury, and then waiting months to see if rest and massage will fix it before going under the knife. Going under quickly is either good or bad. Either the Sox finally trust surgery to consider it a quick fix. Let’s get it done now, heal up, and be ready for the season. Of course, the other reason is that the injury was so bad it was obvious right away that surgery was the only option. But, the way this team has been handing out Tommy John surgery like it’s a dinner mint, I’m going to assume that this team has just decided to cut-fix-heal rather than wait it out. Which is fine with me. Sounds like he’ll be back to playing baseball during Spring Training, and miss just a bit of the season. Glad they got it out of the way now.

Of course, it had to happen to Carl Crawford. People seem to dislike Carl Crawford for reasons I can’t quite understand. He seems like a nice guy, and a terrific player. The sort of player that should be beloved in this town. He’s hard working, and fun to watch. But, for whatever reason, that’s not the case. My assumption is that he doesn’t give a very good interview. Usually, when that happens the media makes it their duty to make the player disliked. Take a look at JD Drew and Dice-K. They were both fine players who were oddly vilified by the media and the fans. Coincidentally enough, neither one gave great interviews. But, enough about that. The interesting twist with Carl Crawford and the wrist is that the media has been reporting for some time that Bobby Valentine hadn’t talked to Carl Crawford. It’s was an almost daily non-update. Why hasn’t he talked to Carl? Where was Crawford? Who doesn’t return their manager’s call? Lots of people. It’s the off-season. Some people just like to be left alone. The Sox spent an off-season trying to contact Jonathan Papelbon once, with no success. But, Papelbon gave colorful quotes, so it was OK. With this injury news, the latest idea is that Crawford was avoiding Valentine to hide his wrist injury. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. I know that every time I’m on the phone, someone asks me specifically how my wrist is doing. It would be hard for Crawford to hide a sore wrist over the phone. Or, at dinner. You know Valentine would be staring at him to see how he picked up his cup to drink. Was he favoring it? It was a better idea to just avoid the whole issue.

Of course, that’s nonsense. Crawford wasn’t hiding anything. Sounds like he was very up front with it all. He had the surgery, and he’ll be ready to go and help the team make the playoffs. We need to just leave the guy alone to get ready. We should just be thankful we’re not Tigers fans.

Or Yankees fans.