After Two Whole Days of Blog, ESPN Editors STILL Not Paying Attention

Mr. Gammons was in prime form on Saturday. Let's go right to the excerpts:

He was the footnote to last winter's business, a sidebar to Daisuke Matsuzaka, at less than five percent of the cost.

First of all, to be perfectly fair, let's get the good out of the way here. I actually like the phrase "winter's business" to sum up a team's (or league's?) offseason activity. It's succinct and conveys the right tone and image. If we're going to bash his lousy metaphors, we have to praise the good ones. Speaking of bad metaphors, though... "sidebar"? As a lawyer, my immediate reaction was: what does a conference with the judge out of the jury's earshot possibly have to do with Japanese pitchers? Another context in which I'd heard the words used was when my firm's tech guys referred to the bar on the side of my Microsoft Outlook window-- also inapplicable. I figured that Peter had already used up "footnote" and he couldn't think of a similar metaphor, so he just made something up. As a measure of due diligence though, I looked up "sidebar" on dictionary.com, and learned a new a meaning, number 4: "a subordinate or incidental issue, remark, activity, etc." So Peter, you got me. You dug a little deep there with that obscure meaning, but you were right. Damn you. Of course, rather than redundantly mix metaphors, Gammons could have just written: "He was a footnote to last winter's business, bought at less than five percent of Daisuke Matsuzaka's cost." But now I'm just nitpicking, I guess. Let's just move on to the next sentence, before I start feeling too guilty...

It was suggested during the winter that he was signed to make sushi runs to Oishi or lobster taco runs to Lineage for his pitching coach, yet here, two games from winning the World Series, Hideki Okajima is proving to be, arguably, the best free agent of the 2007 season.

Ah, here we have some classic annoying Peter Gammons habits. First is the ambiguous "It is" subject-predicate that refers to nothing, coupled here with the passive voice. (Although usually it comes in the form of "It's about...," a Gammons classic that is surprisingly absent from this article.) Who suggested this? That's a secret, I guess. Although I take it that the first half of this sentence is a (lame) joke, so the answer would be nobody. Second is the name- and reference-dropping, especially Boston-related reference-dropping. Yes, Peter, we know, you got your start in Boston and you really, really know a lot about Boston. I'm sure all your Masshole readers are nodding and going "oh yeah, that's some WICKED AWESOME LOBSTAH!" But do you have to list runs to TWO different Boston restaurants?

Next, we have the extra phrases thrown in for no apparent reason other than to make the sentence longer and more confusing; here, not just the extra restaurant run, but "for his pitching coach." The joke is done, why throw this in? What difference does it make whom the runs are for?

Also, "here, two games from winning the World Series": where is "here"? I guess it's in Colorado, but the blog entry doesn't have a byline. The more appropriate adverb would seemingly be "now."

My last quibble on this sentence regards the phrase "best free agent." This seems slightly off -- wasn't he the best free agent signing? Or the best free agent signed in the 2007 season? After all, once he's "proving to be" the best, he's no longer a free agent. Now, this sentence is NOT an example of where we have no idea what Peter is saying, but these problems are distracting and force us perhaps to read the sentence twice or thrice before we understand it. It just makes for clumsy, stumbly reading.

Speaking of which...

Jon Deeble and Craig Shipley didn't recommend the 31-year old left-hander on a whim, because given the scarcity of reliable left-handed relievers in baseball played anywhere, his 11-year record of durability and reliability and stuff (681 strikeouts in 642 innings) for the Yomiuri Giants and Nippon Ham Fighters were enough in the eyes of two of Boston's best and hardest-working evaluators. But this? All-Star? A postseason run of 9 2/3 scoreless innings to get to closer/Riverdancer Jonathan Papelbon?

The first sentence of this paragraph is one of those Gammons sentences that should come with a road map. Try reading it, and you get lost. What is the reason introduced by the "because" and what is "given"? This would be partly solved by inserting the missing comma after "because," but it's still a mess. Also, it took me several readings to figure out, for instance, that "Jon Deeble" and "Craig Shipley" (more name-dropping from Gammons) probably are "two of Boston's best and hardest-working evaluators." Why not just stick that description in a clause right after the names, which Gammons' readers are overwhelmingly likely not to have heard before? Finally, Gammons puts the bulk of what he wants to say here in a super-long subordinate clause (and in another subordinate clause within that), a classic no-no.

The last sentence in this paragraph is also awkward. The run of 9 2/3 scoreless innings was not "to get to closer/Riverdancer Jonathan Papelbon." His role generally, in each of his outings, is to get to Papelbon, but the streak is his own. And the fact that his innings are "to get to" Papelbon is irrelevant in this context. Also, I read this blog entry for the first time yesterday, and I am 99% sure that the word "Riverdancer" was not originally in there. In other words, Gammons (or someone) did edit his article... to add yet another reference to yet another piece of Red Sox asininity. I can picture Gammons eating a lobster taco and suddenly slapping his forehead, exclaiming, "Oh man! I put in Papelbon's name without referencing his priceless, hilarious dancing antics!" God, I hate the Red Sox (more on this below).

Anyway, back to the Gammonsness:

[some quotes and not-good-but-not-horrible writing]

Francona and Farrell have a lot to do with this, as Okajima and Papelbon are throwing better in October than at any time during the season. They preserved Papelbon. They saw Okajima start to wear down at the end of July (hence the deal for Eric Gagne), and when he tired and had a 7.26 ERA after Aug. 10 they sat him down for 12 days in September to rest and rejuvenate his shoulder. As the rest given to Josh Beckett during the season might have cost him the Cy Young but gained him historic October stature, so the way Papelbon and Okajima were handled is a significant part of their 17 1/3 innings of postseason shutout relief. Mix in the ever-dependable Mike Timlin, and what has evolved into Boston's bullpen troika has thrown 21 2/3 innings this October with 10 hits, 20 strikeouts and no runs.

Just read that first sentence. What is "this"? Have a lot to do with what? I assumed, based on the way English writing works outside Gammons Land, that "this" referred to what came before, which was some some stuff on Okajima's stats during the entire regular season and how surprising they were. So how is his throwing better in October than at any time during the season (which is, by the way, probably untrue), a reason or explanation of Francona and Farrell's role in Okajima's season stats? This badly written sentence made the entire paragraph confusing, because I was waiting for an explanation of how Francona and Farrell helped Okajima pitch far better during the whole season than anyone could have expected. This never comes. Then, after a couple readings, it became apparent that the first sentence is just ass-backwards. Okajima is throwing well in October because Francona and Farrell have handled him well. This is exactly the opposite of how Gammons confusingly and ambiguously opened the paragraph and a completely different point than the one made by everything written previously. Of course, the rest of the paragraph is also confusing because it features more irrelevant clauses and clumsy sentence structure ("what has evolved into...").

No-hit wonder Clay Buchholz is 23, and as 23-year old Craig Hansen seemingly rediscovered himself at the end of the Pawtucket season and in Arizona and 22-year old Justin Masterson shoots through the system, the Red Sox may have at least three more young power arms at their disposal at some point next season.

How awful is this sentence? "...AND AS Hansen did some stuff at the end of the Pawtucket season AND in Arizona AND Masterson bla bla, finally, the point, the Red Sox have some arms." That's a loose quote, but you get what I'm saying. Also, here's another jarring shift in tenses, from "rediscovered" to "shoots." Then the next sentence reminds us why this blog is called "Edit Peter Gammons:"

They'll also expect that Matsuzaka will be much better with a year's adjustment, as if 15 wins, 204 2/3 innings and 201 strikeouts is Burkettesque.

"They'll" has to be "they," right? They will expect? Why aren't they expecting it yet? Is Gammons just that much smarter than "they" are (we can assume "they" are Boston's brass, although this paragraph started off talking about just Epstein)? This is probably just a typo, but Gammons' writing is FULL of this stuff, why isn't anyone proofreading him? Even excellent writers need proofreading, and Gammons is certainly far from excellent.

OK, it doesn't make sense: the delivery without so much as a peek at catcher Jason Varitek, the pitch he unveiled in a batting cage, the need to pat the bullpen's stuffed parrot before entering every Fenway game.

Here we go again. What's "it"? Again, after reading the whole paragraph, I realize that he's probably referring to what comes afterwards; but he lists three things that "don't make sense" about Okajima and his success, so why the singular? Clearly, this should say, "Okay, so some things about Okajima don't make sense..."

All it does is make the Red Sox winners of 105 games, leave them two victories from their second world championship since 2004 and Hideki Okajima a cult hero.

Here's a weirdly dumb thing that pops up not just in Gammons' writing, but in sports writing in general -- this "all it does is..." construct. Where, outside sports announcing and sports writing, do you see people write or talk like this? I guess it's a sort of cliched sarcasm -- normally we say "all it does..." when it doesn't do much, so sportswriters say it sarcastically when it actually does a LOT. Clever, guys!

Then he finishes off the blog with this anecdote:

How much a cult hero? A young couple from Oregon was telling people at Logan Airport on Thursday morning that the husband's birthday present from his wife was tickets to the last four Red Sox games at Fenway, which turned out to be four wins. "You're the wife of the year," a security agent told her. Then, noticing that she is very much pregnant, asked, "boy or girl?" "A boy," she replied, "to be named Hideki."

Gammons seems to think we should admire this as part of all that warm, fuzzy, and deep love of Red Sox Nation (gag) for their team. But isn't this in fact just weird and a little pathetic? Which brings me to this: one of my main motivations in starting this blog at this point of time is the nauseating level of bandwagon-jumping and media-love associated with the Red Sox currently. And at the center of all this nonsense is Boston man Peter Gammons. The Yankees, of course, also get too much attention, but much of it is (justifiably) negative. With the Red Sox, we are assaulted with all this schmaltzy "Red Sox Nation," "Big Papi," "oh-aren't-they-just-priceless" crap. They're not priceless, they're damn annoying. Manny is an ass, Schilling is a narcissist, and Papelbon is a ham and a douchebag. They're the mini-Yankees, with a nearly-as-bloated payroll and more assholes. For full disclosure, I guess I should mention that I'm an Indians fan. But I dare you, non-Masshole reader, to argue with me.

*edit: In his blog entry, Gammons makes much of the fact that Okajima doesn't look at the catcher before pitching. Fortunately, Fox loves showing us extreme closeups of pitchers, especially Red Sox pitchers, so I looked for this in tonight's game. Okajima looks towards first UNTIL just before he pitches, when he does look towards the plate. This is not remarkable. Many pitchers pitch this way routinely when there is a speedy runner on first. Of course, most of them don't do this with nobody on. But the point is it's not "amazing" that Okajima does this per se; it's just a little odd. Also, two other of Gammons' statements have been somewhat flouted by reality in the last 2 games: 1) Okajima's "piece de resistance" change-up that Gammons fawns over was hammered twice for homers that each put the Rocks within one run of Boston; and 2) Okajima, while still pitching pretty well, is clearly not pitching "better than at any point this season," when around the all-star break he had a microscopic ERA under 1.