Red Sox Spring Training Preview: It's Time to Load the Schmucks!

It's time for that great Red Sox tradition: the loading of the schmucks!

By Spy Baseball Correspondent Sisyphus
with Jenny Herk in Ft. Myers, Florida

It's a Boston tradition as old as flipping off drivers trying to merge ahead of you on the Pike.

In the depths of winter, thousands of Red Sox fans line up in the cold on Jersey St. to participate in the Loading of the Schmucks.

Every year, the Spy's ace baseball columnist Shill Shamelessly hitchhikes down to Sox Spring Training to bring true Sox believers his peerless insights into the Olde Towne Team gained from his decades of baseball experience and close relationships with Sox insiders.– Ed.

Sox fans, take it from ol' Shill! This is the year! Better line up for Series tickets now, because this is a team of destiny

Sure you'll hear a lot of complaining from the usual Grumpy Gusses complaining about the Red Sox failing to sign any of the top-tier free agents. It would have been the easy, popular thing to do to open up John Henry's bank vault and shell out for an impact pitcher like Yoshinobu Yamamoto or Jordan Montgomery.

But the Red Sox supremo is too smart for that.  The fact that Montgomery hasn't gotten the contract he wanted proves how clever John Henry is.

Henry and his brain trust instead shrewdly invested in All-Star reliever Liam Hendriks.  No doubt he'll be ready to go by August, when the Sox are contending for a pennant, and he'll be fully recovered from both Tommy John surgery and a serious form of cancer.  Brains, not bucks – that's the Red Sox story.

And I don't want to hear a lot of whining about how the Sox let Justin Turner get away for short money. Just because Turner was the second most productive hitter in the lineup (.800 OPS, 23 home runs, and 96 RBIs) doesn't mean he was worth the $13 million those silly Blue Jays paid for him.

You've got to remember that the Red Sox are a small-market franchise.  You can't expect them to compete with New York and Los Angeles for expensive talent they way they did before 2019.

If they blow all of John Henry's hard-earned jack on overpriced players, how can you expect them to pay for that great cold cut buffet for all hungry baseball writers, including all the ice-cold 'Gansetts you can drink (or, in ol' Shill's case, stick into his backpack for later consumption at the Palmetto Bug RV Park)?

So here's a shout-out to the 2024 Red Sox and their genius front office.  If I was in the duck boat business, I'd be planning ahead for a busy November!

This winter, as past, the Red Sox are trying to stir up interest in their last-place team by celebrating the loading up of the loyal Red Sox schmucks who travel to Spring Training in Ft. Myers to celebrate the hopeful start of yet another futile Sox season.

Such cynicism, a requirement of membership in Red Sox Nation in the previous century, has returned in full force in recent years as the team that won four World Series championships in 14 years has descended back into the dull mediocrity that Sox fans enjoyed in the days of Frank Malzone and Dick Stuart.

The difference is that now the Red Sox are charging the highest prices in baseball to watch one of its worst teams.  At least when Dalton Jones played, you could watch the game from the bleachers for a buck.

Despite the crushing expense of watching the Sox either live or for a mere $30 a month on their captive TV network, Red Sox billionaire supremo John “I am the boss” Henry has decided to throw his nickels around like manhole covers while he expands his empire into crap like a bunch of tossers kicking a ball in Liverpool, wherever the f*** that is.

By the way, nobody gives two wanks about watching English soccer teams run around and do nothing for 90 minutes on Saturday morning.  Nobody, John, no f***in' body.  Am I going too fast for you?

Despite the caliber of play on the field, and the tightfisted owner's refusal to improve his outfit, the loyal schmucks are loaded up and ready for another unexciting season of Red Sox baseball.

“I look forward to going to Ft. Myers every winter and watch the team,” said schmuck Jeremiah T. Burke of Milton.  “Nothing like cashing those disability checks from the State Police and knocking back a few dozen tall cool ones,” said the former State Police Captain who was injured in the line of duty on a wet floor at Dunkin' Donuts.

His wife Kathleen Burke is another loyal schmuck: “It's so much fun to watch the players work out and run, their taut muscled bodies gleaming in the Florida sunshine.  They're so handsome all I want to do is wait outside the locker room – [I think that's enough from Mrs. Burke –Ed.]

But some schmucks believe that this is the year that the Sox can turn it around.  “This is a good young ballclub and I think that Justin Turner can really step up and be a team leader,” remarked James X. Burke of Wakefield.

Informed that the Sox had lost Turner to free agency because ownership was too cheap to pay up for him, Burke exclaimed, “F***in-A!”

The annual loading up of the schmucks has become a key part of the Red Sox marketing plan.  “Without the millions of schmucks who pay hundreds of dollars for tickets, plus another Benjamin's worth of hot dogs and beer-flavored water, we couldn't afford to give the people of Liverpool the sports team that they deserve, ” said Red Sox PR functionary Tiffany Burke.  “Not to mention $30 a month to watch a mediocre team on TV.”

“And this year we're going to have special days for all the loyal schmucks from around New England without whose support the Sox might actually have to pay for a competitive team,” she said.

“In addition to special games honoring our Maine Schmucks, Rhode Island Schmucks, and Connecticut Schmucks, we're going to target specific cities.”  She mentioned that on Pawtucket Schmuck Night, Pawtucket fans will receive a splinter from the wreckage of McCoy Stadium, abandoned by the Sox minor league affiliate when Rhode Island taxpayers refused to build them a new stadium. 

The excitement around the ceremonial loading of the schmucks was heightened this year when Sox brass announced that baseball genius Theo Epstein was coming back to recruit some deep-pocketed schmuck billionaires to buy Henry out [Surely, advise on strategic issues? – Ed.]

To long-time Red Sox Schmuck Anthony DiBurke of Attleboro, Epstein's return heralds a new age of winning baseball in Boston: “Theo's got a great eye for talent and I'm sure he'll bring in players as good as Mookie Betts.  Or better!”

It's not clear that the Red Sox will even manage to get to .500 this year with their weak staring pitching, lack of bullpen depth, and questionable offense. 

But at least we'll all be able to enjoy great Sox traditions like the season-long loading up and subsequent fleecing of the schmucks!

By the way, the equipment truck arrived in Ft. Myers.