* We don’t know what the Red Sox-Netflix documentary series is going to produce. There’s every chance that, regardless of the team’s on-field performance in 2024, the series will result in compelling viewing for fans. The all-access aspect, coupled with the fact that the team will not retain “final cut” authority, means we may very well get an unvarnished, behind-the-scenes look at how the team operates on a daily basis. It could be fascinating.
And it’s important to note that the team doesn’t stand to realize any direct financial gain from the project. There were no rights fees involved and neither the Red Sox as an organization nor the players themselves will share in any profits.
But the fact that this project has been in the works for three years now, with the involvement of ownership, the team president, manager and the last two chief baseball officers is prime facie evidence of the misplaced priorities in the organization.
A project such as this is something a team might undertake following a highly successful run. If the Sox had taken this on in, say, 2009, after four trips to the ALCS and two World Series wins in the previous six years, it would have made perfect sense. But to do so in the midst one of the worst stretches in modern franchise history — three losing seasons in the last four; one postseason appearance since 2018 — shows an alarming tone-deafness.
When Red Sox fans complain about misplaced priorities, this is to what they’re referring: more time spent on “growing the brand” and marketing than on fielding a championship-caliber roster. If that same energy and time and resources had been invested in improving the on-field product, there would be far fewer alienated fans.
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* How nice of Rick Pitino to provide us with a guide to dealing with the intricacies of the NIL issue. Pitino has called for a salary cap on how much players can earn per school, because, gosh darn it, these kids are out of control with their demands and it’s ruining the game!
No mention, of course, of a similar cap on coaches, who bounce from one job to the other, lured by bigger salaries and other perks, leaving scandal and vacated wins in their wake. That’s different, you understand. (Pitino has been a head coach at six different schools, each, presumably a better and higher-paying job than the last).
Seriously, the notion that Pitino should serve as college basketball’s moral arbiter is hands down the funniest moment of the week.
* Robert Kraft simply saying that cash spending hasn’t been an issue for the Patriots doesn’t make it true. If we’re holding Red Sox ownership’s feet to the fire when it comes to financial commitment, we should do the same for the Pats.
* Recommended reading: The Big Time: How the 1970s Transformed Sports in America by Michael MacCambridge. MacCambridge, whose earlier books about the NFL and Sports Illustrated are also indispensable, uses Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and other transcendent figures from that decade to place free agency, the growth of sports on TV and Title IX to put the era into proper context. You don’t have to have lived through the 70s to enjoy it, but if you did, it’s an even more rewarding read.
* For all the grief that BBWAA takes for its Hall of Fame voting — some of it admittedly deserved — I’ll take that process over the football Hall of Fame any day. While the vast majority of voters for the baseball Hall of Fame publicly reveal their ballots and reasoning and vote totals are immediately announced, the NFL sends out a press release in the middle of Super Bowl week with no vote totals, no context and no names of the voters. Rodney Harrison missed out this past week, but good luck trying to find out anything more than that. An unlike the football Hall, baseball has no minimum number of players who must to be inducted annually.
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* When Brad Stevens moved from the Celtics sideline to the front office, it seemed like a curious switch. But less than three years later, the job change has worked out brilliantly. Stevens is forever looking for ways to improve the Celts and his work at the deadline this year was no exception.
* And on the topic of shrewd moves by Boston GMs, signing Danton Heinen has been an absolute stroke of genius by Don Sweeney, who landed a solid, two-way player who can play up and own the lineup for little more than the NHL minimum salary.
* it’s bizarre to me that Tom Brady Sr’s. opinions are somehow still newsworthy. Tom Brady the quarterback in 46 years old, is retired from the game and hasn’t played here in four years. And yet, somehow the thoughts of his father, who lives across the country, are important?
* Sixty years ago this weekend, four twenty-somethings from Liverpool showed up on the Ed Sullivan Show and my life has quite literally never been the same.
* Do you know anyone planning to watch the entire Super Bowl pre-game show? If so, consider an intervention.
* Put aside, for a minute, the opportunity to make the team more competitive on the field in 2024. But if the Red Sox had merely signed a couple of veteran free agents to short-term deals, they would have, at the very least, positioned themselves to sell them off for prospects at the trade deadline. Another missed opportunity.
* Heard this week from one MLB executive: “If you were judging solely by position players, the Red Sox farm system might be as good as fifth or sixth (best); if you’re judging by pitching, they’d probably be 29th or 30th.” And if you’re looking for the single biggest reason the Red Sox find themselves in their current mess, there it is.
* You have to chuckle at regional sports networks, who pay significant rights fees to teams to televise their games and become business partners with them, billing post-game one-on-one nterviews with players and coaches as “exclusive,” especially when those same players and coaches are available to the non-paying media minutes later. What’s exclusive about that?
* Prediction: Chiefs 27, Niners 24. But don’t take my word for it.
