At Monday's Winter Classic, John Henry appeared as the hockey team he owns was playing the Boston Bruins at the ballpark he owns. It is difficult to know if Henry is as delusional about his public perception as some billionaires are. You would think every billionaire would care. Four World Series winners is the only thing he has to offer. It has to be a part of him that thinks that he would have gotten a lot of love from Boston.
I am not sure if that would be overestimating or severely underestimating the Boston faithful, it depends on what you think of Boston as a whole. It wasn't that Henry was making an official appearance, but he was there and it didn't go well.
It makes sense. Henry was the one who ordered a downsizing of the Red Sox payroll and roster, a call for a team that is supposed to be one of the three biggest monsters in baseball. Baseball has become what it has become. Mookie Betts was traded, and a few other lower level players either moved or not re-signed before they were going to make serious money. Henry had decided to cash in his chips and just let the money come in.
Red Sox fans let him know that they didn't like it. We don't know if that was a factor in the RedSox stumping up the money to keep Rafael Devers around. FSG has operated the ball club for a long time. It's more than Betts will ever be paid, but instead of looking in the past in anger, the fans probably just want to soak in an actual hometown star being kept around for once.
Under normal circumstances, any team should never let go of Devers. He isn't going to have to move positionally for a long time, he's a premier hitter who is only 26. It used to be in the "figure it out later" folder that you could see how keeping Bogaerts around long term might have presented a problem when he can't play short anymore.
Even though Boston has a couple of prospects who could take up roles in the upcoming season, they would have been pissing up a rope even if they had been allowed to leave. They had to put the money somewhere because there weren't a lot of other players making serious bank.
It feels like the modicum for a team that finished last and is still very much looking up at other teams. They have lost some people, like J.D. Martinez, but only recently replaced them. There isn't much of a move forward. Henry can take some solace in the fact that he has a 78-win team that doesn't look like it has improved.
He might not want to be booed while walking the dog.
Can't really make sense of it.
The U.S. Soccer team didn't give any answers when they met the press yesterday, hiding behind the "ongoing investigation" obstacle. This all seemed to land on them, so that isn't really that big of a deal.
The shame is that she didn't get to tell her own story, and she should have been the only one doing so The Reynas took that from her in order to bitch about how their son was treated at a tournament where winning mattered more than anything else. It is curious that the close friends they chose to vent to were employees of US Soccer. Their son was forgiven by both his coach and teammates, and all of it was a stretch from their side. This was a response to something. It only provides solace to parents who shouldn't need it and it doesn't do anything for their son either. That is the story of youth sports a lot of the time. It shouldn't be limited to the bottom level.
One wonders if this kind of thing won't happen to the NWSL in the future.
This isn't the first time the league has lost a young talent to Europe, and with their salary caps and roster rules, it's starting to feel like a trend The top league in the world can't be called NWSL. Will the way it stays at the top be changed? Is it possible? It's worth watching over time.
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