starwarstrashcompactorphobia setting in

this was supposed to be different... i was all set to write this glowing piece about my sterling experience at gillette on sunday night, complete with kudos to the amazing tedy bruschi, tid-bits about the game and the tailgate and enough good-humored jabs at the captain and her 'nanook of the north' get-up worn in relatively mild temperatures, to make even the biggest hater crack a slight grin... but now i'm distracted, like everyone else around these parts is, by theo-gate...

there's no need to rehash the whole bloody saga and all the unseemly details... let me say then that the situation just sucks and the truth is, no matter what you hear on the radio or read in the paper from any of the so-called experts, no one really knows why it happened... i don't even think theo knows for sure, which was made painfully clear at his press conference earlier today, where he and john henry said more without saying anything than anyone i've ever heard around here this side of bill belichick...

this much we know: theo should have been signed up for at least 4-6 years immediately after the team he assembled won boston its first championship in 86 years last october... that the bosses, e.g. larry lucchino, tom werner and henry chose to wait it out of course proved to be a deadly decision - one they will regret, i think, for as long as they are involved in the day-to-day operations of this baseball team... thank god henry, in about the only bit of the press conference that made any sense, admitted that he "blew it"...

but what about theo? does he realize what he's actually doing? i'm not trying to suggest that he thinks he's bigger than the team and that this will come back to bite him in the ass someday, although it certainly might... what i mean is, how could he wait until the last possible second to make such a decision? he claims that his "affection for the red sox does not end (today)," and said that "he will remain on the job for several days... to ensure a smooth and stable transition"... hey, thanks, man... surely, the fan base that is paying the highest average ticket price in baseball will look on those words fondly while ownership scurries around with egg on its collective face trying to find someone willing to be the yes-man theo wasn't going to be and the team sits in a state of complete flux while its free agents (damon) get offers from elsewhere and its stars who want to be traded (manny, wells) chalk up another reason to get the shit out of this black cauldron...

man, the euphoria from last fall feels like it happened before the dinosaurs... look, the bottom line, i think anyway, is that both sides shit the bed here: the sox by waiting, low-balling and leaking what should have been iron-clad, entrusted information to the press, and theo himself, through his timing and by being so vague in his rationale (not that it's his responsibility to tell us anything) as to seem simply impetuous... anyone who wants to blame shaughnessy for his silly column on sunday - a piece that couldn't have come at a worse time but a) had to be written because of the source material it included, and b) was simply a case of the the writer being the messenger and was hardly the reason for theo's decision - can do so, but that's the short-sighted, quick-trigger reaction... at the end of the day, the fault lies at the feet of all the principals involved... take sides if you wish, but don't forget that either one could have stopped this nonsense dead in its tracks well before the breaking point was reached...

ok, i'm going to breathe deeply, promise myself i will keep my theo-gate reading and listening to a minimum from this point forward and begin to prepare for friday's picks column, which will include all that this one does not... until then, lates...