farewell, julio
Ok, I’m not gonna lie. I always cringed a little bit when balls were hit in Julio Lugo’s direction. On some days, perhaps after a beer or two, I even cursed his name and shook my fist at the television. My mom and I often lamented about what a shitty shortstop he was. She liked to remind me of an interview he did after the Red Sox won the 2007 world series, when according to her, he said, “This makes me the best shortstop in baseball!” She’d say, “Best shortstop, my ass!”
Fast forward to yesterday when she was watching NESN and they announced Julio Lugo was being designated for assignment and she heard some of these comments from Theo Epstein:
“A sunk cost is a sunk cost. We’re sorry it didn’t work out better with Julio, obviously. But keeping him on the team wasn’t going to change that. Sometimes the best organizations admit their mistakes and they move on. And that’s what we’re doing here.
“This was one of the free agent signings that doesn’t work out. We were paying for past performance, not current performance. That’s the true definition of a mistake, and, as the decision-maker, that’s on me. We’ll just move on and be a better organization having gone through it, and we’ll make better decisions going forward.’’
Ouch.
I walk into the room and she says, “Can you believe they’re treating Julio this way? That is just downright awful!” I had to laugh at her changing her tune on a dime like that, but ultimately I have to agree with her. Did he work out the way the organization and fans expected? No, obviously not. But, I’m pretty sure he was trying and ultimately, I would rather have a guy try hard and suck, than act like a dumbass like Manny and succeed. Mmmm, that doesn’t sound right does it? Well, can’t we just have a happy medium? Oh well, either way, I think once you kick a guy off the team and run him out of town, it really isn’t necessary to flip the duck boat in reverse and back up over his carcass a few times. A little harsh Theo. A little harsh.
Related news:
- Boston.com: Seeing error of ways, Sox designate Lugo
- MLB.com: Lugo does not make trip to Toronto
