I’ve noticed the Red Sox’ beards for a while now. Haven’t said much about them because I was waiting to see if there was some higher purpose to them beyond team bonding and image-crafting. Maybe some charitable thing? Maybe solidarity with a friend or fan suffering from some illness? I don’t know. Stuff happens and you don’t want to mock things if there is a deeper story behind it.
Nope. No deeper story. John Tomase of the Boston Herald talked about the beards yesterday, and it’s just about team bonding and image crafting. Jonny Gomes says it like this: “We have the beards. It’s not surprising at all that winning teams have some kind of quirky chemistry.” Then Tomase takes it here:In the wake of 2012’s natural disaster, the Red Sox replaced half their roster. They jettisoned the dour, know-it-all Adrian Gonzalez and the overwhelmed Carl Crawford and imported half a dozen veterans who knew how to win, and who not only weren’t afraid of the pressure of playing in Boston, but wanted to be there.
Thus Gomes.
Who, yes, has been a nice addition. And it’s certainly the case that the Red Sox have been a fantastic team this year thanks in part to all sorts of good moves and good fortune in the form of players getting healthy. Where would this team be without Clay Buchholz and John Lackey? Where would it be without a healthy Dustin Pedroia? How great a pickup has Shane Victorino been? There is all sorts of praise to be thrown around.
But I guess it’s not enough to praise the moves of the front office and the execution of the players and their new manager. We have to go through “get players who know how to win” stuff. But of course Tomase is right. Just look how bad off that Dodgers team is with Gonzalez and Crawford. They’ve infected the whole bunch!
Or maybe winning is about more than one, easily identifiable thing like beards and losing is about more than one easily identifiable thing like “dour, know-it-all” attitudes.
