Photo: Michael Dwyer – AP
The Red Sox are flying from Boston to San Francisco to play the beleaguered defending champs. But the AL East are not exactly relaxed themselves. Losing two of three to the Yankees at home will do that to a team, especially when the finale was an exhausting and grinding 9-6 loss, complete with Alex Rodriguez controversies and heroics.
On the plane, pitcher Ryan Dempster thumbs through the SkyMall magazine and stares out the window towards the clouds and land thousands of feet below.
Well… THAT didn’t go as I had planned.
Here I was thinking I was not only going to endear myself to Red Sox fans forever but be the guy that all of baseball kind of gives a little nod of approval to.
“Way to go, Ryan!” “You showed that A-Rod punk.”
Hell, Bronson Arroyo is loved in Boston. Varitek was a hero for fighting Rodriguez and he didn’t even take his mask off!
I was expecting to have a free drink in New England for the rest of my life and a pat on the back from every pitcher A-Rod ever took deep. I was going to be the guy who gave A-Rod an F— You on national TV.
It’s not like people were loving him. It isn’t like I threw a pitch at a kid from the Make a Wish Foundation.
Now I’M the bad guy? Now I’M the rallying point for the YANKEES?
I guess I didn’t think that through, did I?
I guess I didn’t focus on the main reason that I’m being paid for the Red Sox: Get batters out and put us in a position to win the game.
Hell, I had a 2-0 lead and Sabathia looked like crap. Maybe I should have focused on getting the lead off batter out instead of showing how macho I am.
Guys like Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale and Pedro Martinez could pull off throwing at guys. But then again, they were all Hall of Famers and could get the next three guys out.
Maybe I should have taken that into account when I put the lead off man on the inning after my team got me 2 runs.
Hell, I’m now a millionaire and the Red Sox are paying me more money than Gibson and Drysdale ever made. Maybe I should have focused on my job.
And while it felt good hitting him, giving up a homer to him was a real junk punch.
Damn it, they clobbered Sabathia and all I had to do was hold the Yankees to five runs and we would have had the win.
The Yankees would have left town, bickering, suing each other and we would have looked like champs. We could have said “Have fun with your little squabbles. If you want to see the playoffs, we’ll leave tickets for you at Fenway!”
But I really really thought thought this would have made me a fan favorite. Now there is a national story involving A-Rod and he’s the GOOD guy and I’m the villain.
That’s like being the bad guy in a story that involves The Joker!
Serves me right, listening to Lackey mouth off.
Man this is going to be a long flight.
I wonder if Middlebrooks is going to finish his pretzels. I wonder if I should talk to him. I wonder if I should talk to anyone on this team now.
Man, what the hell was I thinking?
Sully Baseball 
Nice article. Clever concept. It was definitely a little curious to see Dempster go after A-Rod. No one had done it yet and I’m actually proud of him for doing so. Maybe it’s because I’m Canadian or maybe it’s because I hate A-Rod, maybe a bit of both. But it is still wrong if the MLB wants to let this go and we will see what they will do. It will be interesting to see how this develops, if the MLB does anything and if the Yankees do anything in the future going into the stretch run. Also, you think you could check out my blog because I would love to hear your thoughts http://chrisross91.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/this-needs-to-stop/