Labor Day, Schmabor Day

Actually, I had a very productive day off yesterday:

• I Mopped all my floors (well, all the moppable ones; I didn't feel like mopping my rugs).
• I did four loads of laundry.
• I finished writing my essential scripts for this journal. (Pretty much anywhere you see a date or a page title or a link to an entry now, you're seeing something generated by a script. Makes adding new entries much easier...)
• I moved some of my comic books around to give me roughly one more shelf of space for them.
• I did some reading.
• I watched some baseball.
• I paid a stack of bills.

Today it was back to work, after bicycling in the morning. I reached a point of stability in the first half of my big project, and am on to the second half. Actually the first "half" probably accounted for considerably more than half of it, but it's a good conceptual division. It was a good feeling to get some important chunks of it finished and visibly working. Yay!

The Red Sox have fallen almost completely out of both the AL East and the AL Wild Card races (9.5 and 9 games out, respectively). And that's the good news. Recent weeks have seen:

• Pedro Martinez return from the Disabled List, pitch two good games, and then announce that he has a small tear in his rotator cuff.
• Nomar Garciaparra return to the DL with swelling in his surgically repaired wrist.
• Manny Ramirez turn up lame with a pulled hamstring.
• The Red Sox pitching staff almost completely melt down.
• The Red Sox get swept by the New Yank Yorkies in Fenway.
• Pitcher Hideo Nomo reportedly turn down a multi-year contract with the team and announce his intent to "test the free agent market", as the saying goes.
• Discontent swirl around General Manager Dan Duquette, in the form of public player statements and rampant rumors.

What's to be done?

I doubt anything major will happen until after the Sox are sold. After that, I suspect Duquette will be fired. He's largely worn out his welcome with the players and the fans (not to mention the media, who have never cared for him), and I don't think he's the right man for the job anymore. After seven-plus years heading the organization, his legacy appears to be several injured and ineffective players, a big pile of chaff on the roster, and a nearly-barren farm system. Which, come to think of it, is only somewhat better than the organization he inherited.

I think he did a good job for a while, but at this point I think the Sox can do better.

Joe Kerrigan seems clearly not the right manager for this club, as his managing style (if you can call it that) seems haphazard at best. I'd much rather hand the job to third base coach Gene Lamont (who was a decent manager in Pittsburgh), or hire Davey Johnson.

As for the players, well... fortunately much of the dead weight will be off the roster after this season, saving the Sox a ton of money. I'm not sure who they might sign to replace some of them, but clearly we need new options at second base, third base, and DH, not to mention a replenished rotation. That's a tall order. And I can only wish Pedro and Nomar the best, and that their injuries (both of them nasty ones, in the baseball world) don't herald the beginning of the decline of their careers. (That said, I'm optimistic that Nomar will recover, but very scared about Pedro's prospects.)

The 2001 season is a washout, and 2002 doesn't look much better.

The really sad thing is what the Sox lost this year through injury: If Pedro, Nomar, Jason Varitek and Chris Stynes had remained healthy all year, if Frank Castillo had remained healthy, and if Jimy Williams had worked with Tomo Ohka and Paxton Crawford to get past their first slumps, then the Sox might easily have overcome their struggling players and remained in the race. Not a dominant team, but a good one, and perhaps good enough to beat the Yorkies and make it to the postseason.

But that's the way it goes. Now we're just left with "what might have been"s.

Tomorrow I'm off to see another townhouse property. It looks promising. Wish me luck!