http://www.projo.com/redsox/content/sp_bb_sean10_04-10-08_PS9NEV9_v10.38fcc30.html
08:28 AM EDT on Thursday, April 10, 2008
BOSTON - Since taking over stewardship of the Red Sox prior to the 2002 season, the current Red Sox ownership has nicely refurbished and expanded Fenway Park, improved relations with players both past and present, and, not incidentally, won two championships.
In short, John Henry, Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino have accomplished in a half-dozen years what Tom Yawkey could not in more than 50.
Coming as they did in the wake of the embarrassing John Harrington administration, an era marked by benign neglect and rampant nepotism, their arrival helped purge the Sox of their ugly past.
But lately, it would seem, ownership has, as the British like to say, lost the plot.
The latest case in point: Tuesday's Opening Day ceremony.
Ringing the field were flags, representing the numerous countries of mythical Red Sox Nation.
Once a throwaway phrase coined by a Boston sportswriter, "Red Sox Nation" has become an insufferable marketing gimmick, the point of which is to illustrate the team's vast popularity.
Of course, no one beyond Hank Steinbrenner would doubt the team's immense following. The Sox last year outdrew every team in baseball, their TV ratings dwarf those of other clubs and they have become pop cultural touchstones.
Expanding the brand is one thing; relentlessly harping on the team's appeal is quite another.
(It should be pointed out this was not the most egregious co-opting of the Red Sox Nation concept. That came last month when the Henry and Lucchino had Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer swear in broadcaster Jerry Remy as the make-believe president of a nonexistent fan club).
The decision to invite Bill Buckner to throw out the first pitch was similarly misguided, or at the very least, ill-timed.
If the Sox were looking for closure with Buckner, the time to achieve that would have been during the 2005 ceremony, when the Sox were looking to put to rest all the disappointments and close calls that haunted the franchise for decades.
Moreover, the invite wrongfully assumed that Buckner and Red Sox fans still had some unresolved issues to resolve. In point of fact, fans had already offered absolution for his Game Six error on Opening Day of 1990, when Buckner returned for a second stint with the Sox and was welcomed with a long ovation.
To think that Buckner was, until Tuesday, regarded by Sox fans as some sort of villain is to display an ignorance of the very fans they otherwise venerate. Talk about a tin ear.
Things really went off the track, however, in the middle of the eighth inning when the team unveiled a Neil Diamond video. Diamond's "Sweet Caroline," of course, has become the team's unofficial anthem and the idea of having him perform it - rather than use the recorded version - was a natural.
But it became painfully obvious that the chief reason for Diamond's video was to promote a concert date at Fenway later this summer. And when Werner was shown raising his arms and swaying to the music, the thing became laughable.
The Tuesday follies came hard on the heels of the team's decision to auction some of its Green Monster seats to the highest bidders, with only a portion earmarked for charity.
Some will contend that owners are merely taking advantage of supply and demand. But surely, with the highest ticket prices in the game and a consecutive sellout streak that dates back several seasons, the Sox don't need to gouge their loyal fan base.
The club has increased ticket prices every year, though wisely, most of the increases have been focused on the upper-tier seats, targeting the customers who can most afford the boosts.
But the Green Monster auction was something else entirely. Effectively sold out for the season, the move smacked of greed, which is hardly becoming of the group.
It should be made clear that this ownership's tenure has featured far more good than bad. Henry and Co. have spent freely to secure talent, encouraged and financed the search for international talent and treated paying customers with respect.
If the Harrington regime did little more than throw open the doors and count the money, the Henry group has been both accessible and accountable. The fan experience at Fenway, by every measure, has never been more enjoyable and the product on the field never more successful.
Here's hoping that remains the focus, and not the self-aggrandizing, over-the-top displays that have become a little too common of late.
We have a great team and
a great summer of baseball coming up, but please please enough with Red Sox Nation, RemDawg Nation and everything else nation. I just want to get back to
baseball games. Sell during the commercials please but let us have gametime for baseball.
