Schilling's arrival in Boston represents a full career circle for the one-time Boston minor leaguer. Back in 1988, a 21-year-old Schilling was traded to the Baltimore Orioles along with Brady Anderson for right-handed starter Mike Boddicker. Eerily similar to the Sox trade of Jeff Bagwell for Larry Anderson during the 1990 playoff chase, the Schilling trade is one that has haunted Boston for 15 years. At the time, however, nobody questioned it. Boddicker was a great addition to the Red Sox pitching staff, while Schilling did not mature until 1992, his first season with the Phillies.
Maybe Jorge De la Rosa, Brandon Lyon and Casey Fossum will turn into the next Zito-Mulder-Hudson combination and the Red Sox will look like idiots once again, but for the present moment, this looks like a great deal. Just last year, people balked at trading Fossum for Bartolo Colon, but now after Fossum's apparent fall from super-sensation to mediocre fifth starter, the Sox look like geniuses. Schilling is the premier power pitcher in the Major Leagues. He is as dominant as anyone, has fantastic control, and knows what it takes to win. Not only is he a leader on the field, but he is known to be great in the community as well. And besides being a great pitcher, he is the type of person that the Red Sox owners want to represent their organization.
Now, speaking of representing the Red Sox organization, let me babble for a minute about these A-Rod rumors. Can you imagine if the Red Sox trade Manny for A-Rod? It may sound ridiculous, but apparently, it's not out of the question. Think of it like this:
1. Not many teams are willing to take on a $26-million-dollar annual salary. Basically the only teams even remotely able to add that much money to their payroll are the Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox. The Mets are clearly uninterested and Derek Jeter does not want the spotlight taken away from him. That leaves the Red Sox as the only option.
2. The Red Sox have been trying to get rid of Manny Ramirez for months. Despite being one of the best hitters in baseball, he is not the type of person the Red Sox' new owners want to build their organization around. He is just not marketable enough to bring in the kind of revenue the Red Sox organization needs.
3. The salaries are manageable. Tom Hicks, the Rangers' owner, wants to cut his payroll, but he also does not want to look like an idiot and trade away A-Rod for nothing. By making this trade, Hicks saves himself about $8 million this year and about $100 million over the next seven years, while replacing A-Rod with another superstar.
Think about it people, it could happen! Red Sox magic!
Tamed Tiger
Those wedding bells you heard over Thanksgiving break belong to none other than Tiger Woods. Woods recently proposed to his Swedish sweetie, Elin Nordegren, while playing in the Presidents Cup in South Africa. Nordegren, a blond bombshell whose mother is Sweden's Migration Minister, has been dating Woods for about two years and is Woods' third public girlfriend since his fame began.
Let's hope Tiger's marriage works out slightly better than those of other superstar athlete/celebrities like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Jeff Gordon and Shawn Kemp. Woods seems, from the public eye, to have his head on relatively straight. He did attend Stanford, he is extremely intelligent and he has not done anything to jeopardize his legacy thus far. Wow, did I just say that Woods has a legacy? I need to remember that he's only 27 years old!
Already considered one of the greatest golfers of all time, many critics are wondering how this marriage will affect his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 Major titles. Woods has always had an unrivaled drive and dedication to become the greatest golfer in history, but one can only imagine that marriage will detract from that pursuit. I'm sure Nordegren realizes what she is getting herself into, but does she realize how deep into it she'll be?
Golf is unlike other major sports where a distraction to one player on a team will hardly make a difference because teammates can easily pick up the slack. For Woods, golf has not only been his profession for the past seven years, it has been his life for the past 27. While a basketball player may have three games a week and practice for three hours a day, golfers spend entire days outside practicing and spend entire weekends competing in tournaments. In addition, Woods is not the type of person who will take time away from his practice schedule in order accommodate non-golf activities. The minute it is clear that Woods' golf game is suffering because of his marriage, the marriage could unravel. I'm not trying to advise professional athletes to disregard their personal lives for their sports, I'm just warning Nordegren to be aware that she is marrying arguably the most famous, powerful and devoted professional athlete in the United States, and possibly the world.
Wait, I'm not sure how Shawn Kemp got on to that earlier list of athletes with marital difficulties. I must have confused that list with the list of athletes who have more than seven illegitimate children from more than five different mothers. Sorry about the mix-up, Shawn!