Overseas Fans Comment on Drew Saga
Contributing Writer
Spending a few weeks over in the Eastern part of the world this week, the Overseas Fan as decided to conduct some local research into the opinions of his fellow local Overseas Fans.
First the background.
Stephen Drew, the Red Sox shortstop is a free agent after winning the World Series in 2013. His agent is one of the most aggressive, reviled, and famous agents in the game, Scott Boras. To get a feel of how the world thinks of Scott Boras, one can best check with Scott Boras himself. Ross Newhan sat down with him back in 2001 and this is what he got from him, "I get booed in stadiums now, confronted by fans and yelled at by club officials. I'm the whipping boy, the guy who's destroying the game, pushing teams to the limit."
So that is what we can expect from his agent.
After the Red Sox qualifying offer of 14.1 million was rejected they will have to work with teams needing to give up a draft pick to sign Stephen Drew. Another weight on the shoulders of Stephen Drew's chances at a multi-year deal, which seems to be what he is striving for.
After the end of the season we looked at four reasons that had hurt his chances at signing that big deal with the Red Sox.
The winter meetings came and went without any sort of moves around Stephen Drew, but a lot of big names did get locked up.
Then the big hope, the Yankees, rained on his parade followed by the Mets bailing out on him after New Years.
With all of this in mind, we took to the streets to try and put our fingers on the pulse of the Overseas Fans here in Asia.
What are they thinking in regards to the Red Sox shortstop and his agent?
We started with a Japanese gentleman wearing a Red Sox baseball hat walking down the street. When asked about his feelings regarding Stephen Drew, he just bowed repeatedly, smiled, and said, "Hai, hai!" We couldn't get much more out of him until we mentioned Koji Uehara, at which point his face lit up and he tried to high-five us.
We then moved on to corner a Malaysian lady who was very polite. When asked about Stephen Drew and his rejecting the 14.1 million dollar qualifying offer, she exclaimed, "What I could do with 14 dollars!" She then stuck out her hand, so we gave her the money, sending her on her way as a newly minted Red Sox fan for life.
The next person we could get to stop on the busy street and talk to us was a young lady from Taiwan. When asked what she thought of the Stephen Drew saga, she was firm in her opinions, hitting us with her bag and shouting, "BEE LAI FANG WO" before running the other way. We are not sure what that means, but think that she was just so happy that the Red Sox won the World Series this year that she was also trying to high-five us before rushing off.
Well, there you have it Red Sox Nation, the take on the streets here in the Eastern hemisphere.
It seems to boil down to a waiting game between the Red Sox and Scott Boras, but one thing is for sure, Koji Uehara is well known in these parts.
Post a comment or via twitter @ericschabell with your thoughts.
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