Red Sox Retrospect 2010: Pain & Agony

No matter how much sunshine I try to flood over the 2010 season, it doesn't light some of the deepest shadows that clung relentlessly to the Red Sox. Like cat hair on black pants--you try to brush it away, but no matter what you do, you always find another cat hair...and another.

It started with the injuries, right out of the gate, and went from frustrating to worrisome to downright ludicrous. It got to the point that even on off-days, we would find new names on the DL. And not even with mundane reports of sore hamstrings & tweaked obliques. Really bizarre stuff like not one but *two* players out with broken feet, not one but *two* guys out with torn tendons in their thumbs, multiple sets of broken ribs. It just would not let up. It made 2006's Curse of the Gimpy Crow seem like child's play, as 2010's crew not only dropped but didn't get back up again.

On top of the injuries, we dealt with drama (are Ellsbury's ribs *really* THAT broken?), curious inability to pitch effectively (namely Mr Beckett and Mr Lackey--and I'm looking at you both and your big fat contracts, and let's not be having this same discussion a year from now, hmmm?), nothing even remotely close to consistency in the world of Tim Wakefield (both out of his hand and in what the team asked of him on seemingly a daily basis: he's a starter, no wait a reliever, oops we need a starter, can you pitch some mop-up today actually?), another controversial start to the season for Papi, and the smoking crater of a bullpen that made my stomach ache just seeing the phone hanging on the dugout wall in the background, doubly so on nights I knew it wouldn't be Atch or Bard who got up from the bench to warm).

How was that for a run-on sentence? It's like I'm Joe Morgan, only slightly less hung up on talking about myself.

And through it all, the albatross hanging over all the entire season was the terror of waking up some morning to learn Mike Lowell had been traded to the Royals for a six-piece Chicken McNuggets and a program from the 1987 season. Or even worse, to the Yankees, and I wish I were kidding. The thing is, I knew we would be saying goodbye to my favorite player. He was very clear on the fact that this would be his final season. I just wanted, more than anything, to see him go out still "ours." And it seemed Theo was hell-bent on preventing this from happening, if it was his last act on Earth. (I'm still fairly convinced that Theo has a personal mission to torment me by finding out who my favorite player is & then batting him around like a cat with a half-mangled bug, my sanity being the bug in question.) The constant turmoil kept me from fully relishing the last days of Mikey as a Red Sock, which had been high on my wishlist for 2010.

For every high, there was a low. For every triumph, a cleat in the gut. You couldn't turn your face to the sun without catching sight of clouds gathering on the horizon. Or, you know, imminent doom. My hope? Following each of the most painful seasons we've been handed in recent history (2003, 2006) came a season filled with the kind of joy you can't fully capture in words. They say no pain, no gain. So it stands to reason, 2011 is going to bring a brand of awesome that leaves me reeling with delight, right?