Who you calling a liar?

February 5th was Truck Day, the day when the gear leaves Fenway Park headed for Red Sox Spring Training HQ in Fort Myers, Florida.

Tomorrow, pitchers and catchers report.

Baseball season is just around the corner.

Yawn...

I'm a lifelong baseball fan. I'm a lifelong Red Sox fan. 

But it's exceedingly hard to get excited about the 2024 edition of The Olde Towne Team. 

Ordinarily, by now, I'd have already gotten tickets for a few games. 

This year, it's...well, I was gonna say 'meh' or 'yawn' (again). But my reluctance to purchase tickets is on beyond 'meh,' on beyond 'yawn.' This season, I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore. (At least for now.)

I will no doubt follow matters Red Sox, as I've done since I could read. I will no doubt watch part of most games on NESN, as I've done for years. 

But other than a Noah Kahan concert in July, I have no plans to push through the turnstiles at America's soi-disant "Most Beloved Ballpark" anytime soon.

And I feel kind of bad about this.

I love baseball. I love going to games. But the Red Sox - having yet again raised their already sky-high ticket prices, despite putting what promises to be yet another lackluster, basement-dwelling team on the field - have completely turned me off.

Oh, I'll no doubt break down at some point - a beautiful evening, a lovely afternoon - and see if I can find a deeply discounted ticket on the secondary market. But at present I have no plans to put money directly in the pockets of the greedy, couldn't-care-less owners.

Ptooey!

My displeasure - and that of pretty much every citizen of Red Sox Nation - began when they let Mookie Betts go for not much more than a bag of balls and a used set of spikes. 

Mookie was a once-in-a-generation super star. A homegrown, up through the Red Sox minors talent who is destined for the Hall of Fame. Mookie had all the tools as an athlete, plus had a great personality and was a good-in-the-community kind of guy. Absolutely beloved by the fanbase. But someone who was going to be expensive to keep. 

Not that the Red Sox couldn't afford to keep him. They just chose not to. Choosing, instead, to try to get their payroll costs down.

It didn't help matters that, when LA Dodger Mookie came back to Fenway last summer he said that he had wanted to stay in Boston. This was counter to the word the dastardly Red Sox organization had put out when they made the "trade" - was it really a trade, or just a giveaway? - which was that Mookie wanted out.

Since dealing Mookie in 2020, the Red Sox have given us three divisional last-place finishes - including the last two years - and one season when they managed to eke out a second place finish, but then went nowhere in the playoffs.

Like most reasonably intelligent fans, I do not expect my team to win every year. I'm not looking for the NY Yankees decades-long dynasty. I'm exceedily happy that the Red Sox have won four World Series in this century - something I never thought I'd see. (I never thought I'd live to see one World Series win in my lifetime.) But I do expect the Red Sox to field a competitive team, and not the dull, shoulder-shrugging, terribly boring (or is it boringly terrible?) bunch of colorless nonentities they've been putting out there.

Last fall, Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner - he who, admittedly, helped give us those four glorious World Series wins - said that the team would be going "full throttle" for 2024. 

Unfortunately, what they've done since then looks more like full choke than full throttle. 

Craig Breslow, who was brought in to replace failed (and over--blamed) GM Chaim Bloom, is looking like he may turn into Chaim Bloom 2.0. (It doesn't help that they have the same initials.)

Fans, who were hoping for a lot of Hot Stove League action - great trades, stunning free agent signings - have been exceedingly disappointed. And haven't been quiet about it. 

And fans - including me - have been exceedingly ticked off by recent pronouncements coming out of the powers that be at Jersey Street. 

One such pronouncement came from Tom "Full Throttle" Werner. He was asked at a fan forum why fans should pay one of the highest ticket prices in baseball to see one of the crappiest teams. In response, as reported by local sports talk guy Marc Bertrand, Werner:

...said that the team is selling the “Fenway experience”. ...They said it out loud. They said that they are selling the “Fenway experience”. They’re selling tourists on seeing the ballpark and paying the prices to go to the games. That’s what they’re doing now, they are now fully admitting it. They’re reducing their payroll again. The salary floors go up, the Red Sox payroll goes down, the ticket prices go up, and they admit that they are selling you on a trip to the ballpark. (Source: Sports Hub)

In other words, the Red Sox org doesn't give a damn whose butts are in the seats, as long as there are butts. Actual fans? Who care? A bucket list tourist from god-knows-where who has a trip to an old-timey ballpark on their bucket list? Bring it!

From a business perspective, this makes some sense. But for a fan to hear it said "out loud?" Dagger in the heart!

And I do get that there is a "Fenway experience," because I've been experiencing it since 1960, when I saw my first game there. 

I still get excited when I walk into the ballpark. It's all wrapped up in memories of my father, in nostalgia, in my identity as a New Englander, in my love for baseball. And I'm more than annoyed that they're putting me in a position where I'd feel like a dupe, a dope if I were to spend any money on them this year. (At least until we see if there's any life in the squad they've assembled for 2024. I'm perfectly capable of backtracking, that's for sure. If I have to eat one of my many caps, so be it.)

And my level of annoyance with the Red Sox faux throttle front office went sky high when I read the message from Red Sox President Sam Kennedy. He was responding to a question from sports reporter Chris Curtis, who asked about the team's level of commitment to field a winning team:

"When we have two sucky seasons like we've had, these are natural questions. We have to take them," the executive said. "But I can tell you, as a kid who grew up less than a mile from Fenway Park, if you think for one second that we aren't passionate, committed, dedicated to the Boston Red Sox, you're wrong, you're a liar, and I'll correct you on it, because it's total BS." (Source: Bleacher Report)

Oh, Kennedy - after days of screaming, full throttle feedback - walked it back a bit, saying he could have chosen a better word.

But, damage done (and likely real SK feelings revealed0, and now anyone who questions the Red Sox commitment to winning is a "liar?" WTEF (where E = everlovin')?

Sorry, but the fact that the Red Sox have been keeping their payroll low and acting like a mid-market, low expectation team, as they are regularly accused of doing, suggests that their commitment to winning is kinda sorta tepid. 

Not that big spending turns into the World Series trophy. Just ask the NY "Hey, big spender" Mets. Or the Yankees, for that matter.

Still, the path the Red Sox are on doesn't seem like it's going to produce a winner anytime soon.  

And for Sam Kennedy to flat out say that those of us who dare utter these words are liars...

Who you calling a liar, bub?