Watching the replay of last night’s Sox win, one of the coolest things about that bottom of the eighth explosion was how, as far as I could tell from what the NESN cams were showing, no one was smiling wider after Will Middlebrooks’ home run than Youkbacca himself.
What are you gonna do? Punch the guy in the giblees the minute he storms triumphantly back into the dugout? No. But with all these reports of a “toxic” Red Sox clubhouse and memories of players who weren’t all too keen on giving up their positions to “the new guy” — not to mention that according to newspapers and that guy who sells the racing card at the local rest stop, Youk is being shopped to every team short of the Harlem Globetrotters — it was just a nice thing to see. A reminder that team achievements go before individual accomplishments.
That or maybe Youk was drunk. Or bet the clubhouse kid $500 that Middlebrooks would go yard. I dunno. But it just seemed right.
This quote from Kalish, who was being asked about playing time for the Teen Titans after Crawford and Ellsbury come back, kinda sums everything up nicely:
“Life’s too short to worry about that,” Kalish said. “We’re playing in the big leagues right now. You don’t know how long that’s going to last. Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen.”
Last night, thanks to some gritty, timely, hustle-infused baseball, the clubhouse drama and bullshit and trade rumors got swept aside. Let’s hope that happens a few more times this summer.
