The Plaque Sox

Maybe they got confused and thought KFC and LDL were new stats.

You have to hand it to the Red Sox PR operation. Not only did they slam pretty much the entire team, they even stole Theo's exit thunder.

Now they can trade anyone, except Pedroia. The AG travel quote, which was pretty harmless really, was mentioned in the Globe piece. Wake's desire to come back and set a team record "raised eyebrows." Since when is that a flaw? Can anyone claim Wakefield doesn't contribute?

It all feels like a bad divorce, with 25 spouses calling each other crazy. A neat detail -- Jason Varitek complained that a reporter called him at home. You new here, Tek? We take our baseball seriously.

Except, we shouldn't. This is a game played for our entertainment. Would someone get mad to discover there was beer on the set of a TV show or a movie? OK, bad example, some people would. I would, if I cared about the movie and it then stunk.

They stunk up the joint, and sunlight, they say, is the best disinfectant. I guess that's the news peg that puts this anonymous griping above the fold on page one, illustrated by a hangdog photo of the already gone Terry Francona. The Francona stuff is the worst, in my opinion -- they imply he's a pill-popping loner. I don't blame the reporter for going with that information, but whoever shared it is just being vicious. What, Tito is now some foreign dictator we've gone sour on?

The manager should get an apology, even if it's true, because it's a private matter. Any normal employer would recognize that and keep quiet. That needs to happen, so we can begin to see the other stuff in its proper perspective.

And that perspective should be to laugh at it. The rest of the country is. Why not us?