Who am I kidding? There's no such thing as "former" here. Once Fenway Scum, always Fenway Scum!
10. Calvin Schiraldi. Only one reason: He couldn't get one more out in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. I would love to be able to tell Met fans about the Curse of Amos Otis. I have to settle for the Curse of Kevin Mitchell.
9. Jason Varitek. Be a man: If you're going to fight with someone, take your mask off, you fucking coward. He called for Captain Cornrows, Bronson Arroyo, to purposely hit Alex Rodriguez, and then, when A-Rod dared to say, "Fuck you" to Arroyo, Varitek left his mask on and shoved his catcher's mitt into A-Rod's face. Sort of like it was a purse. (See #7.)
This is the Captain of the Red Sox. Do you think former Yankee catcher and Captain Thurman Munson would have done that? Nope.
8. Kevin Youkilis. It's not just the wagging of his rear end. It's that he gets all huffy when somebody hits him, but says not a word when one of his fellow Sox does it, and they do it so much more. (See #s 1 & 4.) Youk, if you can't stand the heat, get the fuck out of the kitchen.
He has become such a symbol of the Sox, one Yankee Fan writes a blog with the title "Fack Youk: Come for the Vulgarity, Stay for the Analysis." Good blog, great title.
7. Bill Lee. Until the 1999 season gave the rivalry the kickstart into the venom it still "enjoys," no Red Sock ever hated the Yankees more. Remember that 1976 brawl? Graig Nettles supposedly threw Lee and separated his shoulder. (His left, his throwing shoulder.) And when Lee yelled back, Nettles sucker-punched him. Either one was wrong, but then, Lee was a sucker.
He said, "The Yankees fight like hookers swinging their purses." Uh, Spaceman, 2 questions. First, how would you know how hookers fight? Second, if that's how they fight, how come you lost?
I'd call him a dope, but then, this is the guy who admitted sprinkling marijuana on his pancakes. Went to the University of Southern California, which also produced Tom Seaver, a pitcher who was righthanded, literate, evenhanded, classy, and didn't get into trouble. Perhaps not Lee's exact opposite, but close enough.
6. Jonathan Papelbon. He wasn't there in 2004 -- Keith Foulke, not offensive enough to make this list, was the Sox closer then -- but he was the closer in 2007, and in the leadup to the 2008 All-Star Game at the old Yankee Stadium, he thought his World Series success meant that he should be the American League's closer for the ASG, not Mariano Rivera of the Yankees. This is why Yankee Fans call him Papelbum.
He is so typical of the Sox fandom: He has an alligator mouth and a hummingbird ass. Sox fans will tell you that there's one team that seems to have Rivera's number, and it's the Sox. Well, there's one team that seems to have Papelbon's number, and that's the Yankees. It must be each side's familiarity with another.
Prediction: Six games left between the teams, and Papelbon blows a save in at least one of them. Of course, in about half the saves he blows, the Sox manage to win in extra innings anyway, but let's put a stop to that.
5. David Ortiz. There are actually 4 Red Sox I dislike more than Big Sloppy? Yes, even though he turned out to be a big fat hypocrite on the steroid issue. In fact, since the Red Sox "won" 2 World Series thanks more to him than to any other person, you can make a good case that nobody in baseball benefited more from steroids than he did.
4. Josh Beckett. If all he'd done was help the Marlins -- aided as they were by Ivan Rodriguez's steroid use -- beat the Yankees in the 2003 World Series, I could've ignored him thereafter. But he became a Red Sock, and turned into Super Punk. A rather whiny punk, at that.
3. Manny Ramirez. Yes, it's the steroid cheating when he was good enough to not. Yes, it's the long bombs he hit off the Yankees in both Cleveland and Boston. Yes, it's the mud on the helmet -- although Jorge Posada, a real man, does that, too. Yes, it's the whole "Manny Being Manny" idiot savant act.
But after 2008, even Sox fans saw what a low character he is. You must be one, to be shoving old men around when they work for the same team that you do. (See #1.)
2. Curt Schilling. He pitched well. He showed courage. He came through in big situations. And he donates to the charity fighting ALS, a.k.a. Lou Gehrig's Disease.
None of which changes what his manager with the Phillies, Jim Fregosi, said about him: That he loves TV cameras so much Fregosi called him Red Light Curt. And Ed Wade, then the Phils' GM, said, "One day out of five, he's a horse. The other four, he's a horse's ass."
And that was before he hurt the Yankees with the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2001 World Series. Let alone when he decided to make himself the face of Sox fans' hatred for the Yankees. And the face of the distant minority of New Englanders who still haven't figured out that conservatism doesn't work.
Yes, he gives to charity. So did Al Capone.
You gotta be a pretty low-down bastard to make Curt Schilling Number 2 -- other definitions of that term aside. Which leads me to...
1. Pedro Martinez. He pitched much of his career with 3 teams: The Red Sox, the Mets, and, early on, the Los Angeles Dodgers. That alone would make him a candidate for the athletes I dislike the most. But Pedro wasn't just any athlete.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Fortunately, the iceberg finally appears to have been sunk. Domo origato, Hideki Matsui.
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