Are you there, Kevin Millar? It's me, Joe.
Dear Colonel,
First off, congrats on the new title. I'm not calling you Kentucky Fried Kevin anymore, because frankly, it doesn't seem to fit. You're the Colonel until you prove that you aren't, or until you stop doing those ridiculous commercials.
I don't know what you did to produce that monster weekend, but I want you to keep doing it. The league decided that, along with Miggy Tejada, you were Player of the Week. Kudos and salutations. Aside from helping the team--which it did, immensely--your newfound prowess keeps me from disliking you. And myself.
See, Colonel, you were one of my favorite pickups last year, when Theo first took over and snatched you away from the Chunichi Dragons. I wasn't as in to the stats portion of baseball yet, so all I looked at was your batting average--at the time, a respectable .290-something. Your power totals were pretty good, too. Nothing that was going to set the world on fire, but eminently respectable. Besides, considering the trouble we had to go through to get you, I figure there had to be something I wasn't seeing.
Your personality, I guess, was what I had missed. For a very long time, the Sox clubhouse was full of surly, unlikable bastards, guys who were very good at playing very badly and whining about it afterwards. I cringed when Nomar, after John Cumberland had been fired, growled in the dugout that "No one wants to fucking play here". The proof was all around him.
Compared to those guys, you were like a cartoon that could hit a fastball. Everything about your presence on the team had a hint of silliness to it; your penchant for changing haircuts on a whim, your dumb-looking (sorry, buddy, it's true, although if it's dumb and works, it isn't dumb) batting stance, and your willingness, even eagerness to talk to the media. You even seemed to understand and get along with Manny. Manny Ramirez, colonel! He's like a goofy Kim Jong-Il!
I don't know how you did it, but it worked. It didn't hurt that you came up with some clutch hits along the way. I was at the Seattle game when you hit a single off of Mike Cameron's glove that won the game for us in the 10th inning, and I think that was about where the Nation really started to like you.
Which made it worse the next season.
The absolute greatest sin in this town is resting on your laurels, which is exactly what you seemed to do at the beginning of this season. Honestly, your statistics weren't that bad, but your appalling lack of RBIs and shoddy defense made you Pokey Reese, if Pokey Reese was as mobile as Ted Kennedy. On a larger scale, I think, the Nation saw you as emblematic of what was wrong with the team; a lack of clutch hitting and a severe lack of true baseball athleticism.
You were, and still are, a leader, Colonel. What you have to understand is that leaders are symbols. It's nice to be a positive symbol, but once you start to falter, it starts to look very lonely on that podium. That and the wolves start glaring at you from the dark.
The wolves are the media, by the way. They've been giving you a beatdown lately, and some of your quotes seemed to display a lack of fire, or intensity. Complacency, if you will, and we despise complacency. You were turning from the Rally Karaoke Guy into Some Asshole.
That's not fair, but it's what we felt.
Now, Colonel, one of the reasons I love baseball so much is the sense of familiarity that comes with following a team. You guys wear open-faced helmets and are stationary for most of the game, so the camera is able to give us a greater piece of your personality than just about any other team sport. It's easy to recognize habits or ticks in a player you've seen at length hundreds of times in the batter's box. This plus the fact that the game is slow-paced enough that we see your interactions with teammates in the dugout means we start to think of you as our friends. Or enemies (See the New York Yankees, current and former editions).
With that comes a fatal flaw; by seeing a bit of your personality, we start to believe that we know your motivations. This is the grief we've given Nomar for the past five years--accusations that, because we think we know him, that we have determined that he does not care. You got a taste of that, and it powerfully sucks.
The only thing that serves as penance is performance. It's better if it's consistent performance, and it's even better if it's against the Yankees.
Four home runs in three games? Raising your OPS a hundred points in a week? That sounds like a man who's decided to carry a team on his back.
Keep it up. Your penance has been served so far, Colonel, but you're not out of the cave yet. You were a symbol for everything that was wrong with this team, but for a time, you were also a symbol of everything that was right with it.
Care to try? I sure won't mind.
-Joe DeMartino
A Fan
P.S. I would highly reccommend a new director next time you do a commercial for KFC. Seriously. It was way too easy to make jokes about you trying to eat a chicken wing, but dropping it and allowing a run to score from third.
First off, congrats on the new title. I'm not calling you Kentucky Fried Kevin anymore, because frankly, it doesn't seem to fit. You're the Colonel until you prove that you aren't, or until you stop doing those ridiculous commercials.
I don't know what you did to produce that monster weekend, but I want you to keep doing it. The league decided that, along with Miggy Tejada, you were Player of the Week. Kudos and salutations. Aside from helping the team--which it did, immensely--your newfound prowess keeps me from disliking you. And myself.
See, Colonel, you were one of my favorite pickups last year, when Theo first took over and snatched you away from the Chunichi Dragons. I wasn't as in to the stats portion of baseball yet, so all I looked at was your batting average--at the time, a respectable .290-something. Your power totals were pretty good, too. Nothing that was going to set the world on fire, but eminently respectable. Besides, considering the trouble we had to go through to get you, I figure there had to be something I wasn't seeing.
Your personality, I guess, was what I had missed. For a very long time, the Sox clubhouse was full of surly, unlikable bastards, guys who were very good at playing very badly and whining about it afterwards. I cringed when Nomar, after John Cumberland had been fired, growled in the dugout that "No one wants to fucking play here". The proof was all around him.
Compared to those guys, you were like a cartoon that could hit a fastball. Everything about your presence on the team had a hint of silliness to it; your penchant for changing haircuts on a whim, your dumb-looking (sorry, buddy, it's true, although if it's dumb and works, it isn't dumb) batting stance, and your willingness, even eagerness to talk to the media. You even seemed to understand and get along with Manny. Manny Ramirez, colonel! He's like a goofy Kim Jong-Il!
I don't know how you did it, but it worked. It didn't hurt that you came up with some clutch hits along the way. I was at the Seattle game when you hit a single off of Mike Cameron's glove that won the game for us in the 10th inning, and I think that was about where the Nation really started to like you.
Which made it worse the next season.
The absolute greatest sin in this town is resting on your laurels, which is exactly what you seemed to do at the beginning of this season. Honestly, your statistics weren't that bad, but your appalling lack of RBIs and shoddy defense made you Pokey Reese, if Pokey Reese was as mobile as Ted Kennedy. On a larger scale, I think, the Nation saw you as emblematic of what was wrong with the team; a lack of clutch hitting and a severe lack of true baseball athleticism.
You were, and still are, a leader, Colonel. What you have to understand is that leaders are symbols. It's nice to be a positive symbol, but once you start to falter, it starts to look very lonely on that podium. That and the wolves start glaring at you from the dark.
The wolves are the media, by the way. They've been giving you a beatdown lately, and some of your quotes seemed to display a lack of fire, or intensity. Complacency, if you will, and we despise complacency. You were turning from the Rally Karaoke Guy into Some Asshole.
That's not fair, but it's what we felt.
Now, Colonel, one of the reasons I love baseball so much is the sense of familiarity that comes with following a team. You guys wear open-faced helmets and are stationary for most of the game, so the camera is able to give us a greater piece of your personality than just about any other team sport. It's easy to recognize habits or ticks in a player you've seen at length hundreds of times in the batter's box. This plus the fact that the game is slow-paced enough that we see your interactions with teammates in the dugout means we start to think of you as our friends. Or enemies (See the New York Yankees, current and former editions).
With that comes a fatal flaw; by seeing a bit of your personality, we start to believe that we know your motivations. This is the grief we've given Nomar for the past five years--accusations that, because we think we know him, that we have determined that he does not care. You got a taste of that, and it powerfully sucks.
The only thing that serves as penance is performance. It's better if it's consistent performance, and it's even better if it's against the Yankees.
Four home runs in three games? Raising your OPS a hundred points in a week? That sounds like a man who's decided to carry a team on his back.
Keep it up. Your penance has been served so far, Colonel, but you're not out of the cave yet. You were a symbol for everything that was wrong with this team, but for a time, you were also a symbol of everything that was right with it.
Care to try? I sure won't mind.
-Joe DeMartino
A Fan
P.S. I would highly reccommend a new director next time you do a commercial for KFC. Seriously. It was way too easy to make jokes about you trying to eat a chicken wing, but dropping it and allowing a run to score from third.
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