An ode to sports radio

Oh no! The sky is falling! The Red Sox can't win! The Yankees can't lose! The Not-Devil Rays just swept the powerhouse Royals! Quick, Theo, make some moves! Before the world ends and we're stuck rooting for whichever team emerges from the NL Central!

Ahem.

Anyway, as we were saying, just because this Red Sox team is on track to win something like 99 games* doesn't mean they're not obviously horrible, flawed, and in need of a massive overhaul. We're here to provide some helpful tips for the front office. That is, if they're brave enough to take it.First of all, while watching the ESPN game tonight, we noticed that the Mets' starting pitcher just went down with a Doug Mirabelli baserunning injury. And they're still starting Alex Cora at shortstop. So, we thought, why not offer them something in a "Brad Penny plus Julio Lugo" package? The Mets don't have much in their farm system--Omar Minaya** said something about a flood. Or was that a drought? Oh, wait, it's a slavish adherence to Bud Selig's inane slotting system!--but, seriously, we don't expect much in exchange for those two. Send us a lower level prospect for Penny, and we'll send Lugo's full salary with him. Sure, it'll mean giving up on our dream of pretending Julio Lugo never actually existed, but we're willing to make that sacrifice.

Of course, that's not nearly enough. That's just housekeeping.

Next up, Theo needs to give the Blue Jays a call and offer the entire farm system for Roy Halladay. Clay Buchholz, Michael Bowden, Dan Bard, Lars Anderson, and Casey Kelly not enough? Offer up Yamaico Navarro and Josh Reddick! Throw in Anthony Rizzo! Sure, the system's going to be pretty barren at the end of the day, but we'll have Roy Halladay. He'll pitch complete games every other day, saving both the bullpen and the rest of the starting rotation. Which'll be helpful because the step three involves calling the Indians to offer up Jon Lester, Justin Masterson, Manny Delcarmen, and the rest of the farm system (crazy Star Wars uniforms and all) for Victor Martinez.

Oh, and get Hanley Ramirez back. Sure, it'll involve trading the rest of the team--minus our shiny new pitcher and C/DH/1B, of course-- with a pile of gold bars big enough to pay Jonathan Papelbon as much crazy money as his little heart desires, but it'll be worth it. Just picture it: a team entirely made up of Roy Halladay, Victor Martinez, and Hanley Ramirez.**** Unbeatable!

Of course, trading the future away for today doesn't work if our division rivals continue to do nothing but win, so Theo's going to have to invest in a bit of sabotage as well. Send someone into New Yankee to set up a giant fan that'll blow in from the infamous right field porch; hell, use Javier Lopez to do it. He can even wear that old gorilla suit Theo's got lying around in his closet as a disguise, and it'll be a way for him to earn his salary for the year. Javy should then fly south to disable all the cowbells in the Tampa Bay area; while he's there, he can also switch out Joe Maddon's glasses for ones with the wrong prescription. He'll spend all his time dealing with headaches and blurred vision instead of being the genius manager everyone tells us he is.

Luckily, the Red Sox don't have to travel to the west coast for the rest of the season, so we don't have to make up those subliminal messages for the team in attempt to convince them that they're on the east coast when they're really not. We're still working on the tapes that'll convince them that they're on natural grass under a beautiful summer sky when they're actually in domes, though.


*Yes, we are too lazy to look up the actual number. But, suffice it to say, it's high 90s. Trust us.

**Look, we know this is a Red Sox blog, but we feel compelled to point out that we could do a better job GMing the Mets than Minaya, armed only with a fondness for catchers and a beat up copy of Moneyball. This is perhaps a sign that Omar Minaya is very bad at his job.

**** And some guys from the Newark Bears. Apparently it's against the rules to field a team of only three players.