Red Sox' Lester: Chicken wasn't why they choked
SOME PEOPLE blame their problems on alcohol. Not Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester. He says Boston's season-ending demise was all on the team, bombing its last 27 games of the season.
SOME PEOPLE blame their problems on alcohol.
Not Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester. He says Boston's season-ending demise was all on the team, bombing its last 27 games of the season.
It wasn't the beer being swigged in the clubhouse by starting pitchers on days off during a few games . . . or the fried chicken.
"There's a perception out there that we were up there getting hammered, and that wasn't the case," Lester told the Boston Globe. "Most of the times it was one beer, a beer. It was like having a Coke, in terms of how it affected you mentally or physically. I know how it looks to people and it probably looks bad . . . we probably ordered chicken from Popeye's like once a month. That happened. But that's not the reason we lost."
It was also said that the Red Sox weren't physically conditioned enough to handle the rigors of September baseball, a month in which they went 7-20 and had to hope for a loss from rival Tampa Bay on the last day of the regular season to make the playoffs. Well, Tampa won and the Boston squandered a season in which for a time it held the best record in baseball.
"Consider us a unit when it comes to these accusations," Lester said. "We either fall together or rise above it all together whether they like it or not. Things got magnified because we lost, and sources started telling people what happened, which has me upset, because if you're going to say something, be a man to put your name to it . . . Are there things I regret? Sure there are. But nothing happened that had me unprepared to pitch."
Except perhaps the beer and the fried chicken and . . .
Remember when
What was supposed to be a celebration turned into a baton-wielding nightmare? On this day in 1977, New York police clubbed a sea of fans who charged the field at Yankee Stadium after the Yanks, led by Reggie Jackson, won the World Series by defeating the Dodgers, 8-4, in Game 6. Footage shows Jackson running through the crowd like a linebacker, laying the smack down on multiple fans during a mad dash to the clubhouse.