Truck Day is Everything That's Wrong With Everything

NESN – 9:09 a.m.: You’d be hard-pressed to find a vehicle that stirs up the type of emotion that the Red Sox’ 18-wheeler does every winter. Excitement, angst, optimism, pessimism, skepticism — you name it, and there’s someone in New England feeling it right now in regards to the Red Sox. Overall, though, if you’re a Red Sox fan, there are plenty of reasons to enter this season with a great deal of hope… this year’s team is undoubtedly more talented, and the guys brought in are going to make this an exciting bunch, as well as one that’ll be very easy to root for. GM Ben Cherington has been extremely busy this offseason, tapping into the open market to nab a number of free agents. However, he has done so with his eyes fixated on the types of players who will not only bring a great deal of talent to the ballpark every day, but who will also play the game with the passion that Sox fans expect game in and game out. The culture change will begin and end with skipper John Farrell. He was the guy Boston wanted all along, and he immediately commands a great deal of respect within the clubhouse. Farrell has also had a busy offseason, as he’s traveled all over the place in order to reconnect — or connect for the first time — with some of the guys.

Believe it or not, there was a time when I actually kind of liked Truck Day.  Not that I was standing of Fenway freezing my nads off and cheering like an idiot while the stupid thing pulled away.  But in the middle of a bleak winter, a part of me felt good knowing baseball weather was on it’s way. And as often as not the Red Sox gave you a reason to look forward to the season.  So Truck Day was a minor, goofy little distraction, like the L Street Brownies doing their New Year’s Day swim or Puxatawny Phil.  A moment on the calendar you thought about for 10 seconds then forgot about.

Leave it though to this ownership to turn Truck Day into… A Tradition.  A smarmy, insufferable Tradition.  Leave it to them to turn a harmless little event into a chance to pander to the worst instincts of the most insipid Pink Hats among us.  For Larry Lucchino to sell cookies. I mean, just read that paragraph. That’s pure press release disguised as a news item.  I know the Sox own NESN.  But they used to be a little bit independent.  Now they’re not even trying to pretend they’re anything other than just the Sox PR department.  Writing is like DNA; everyone’s is different.  And that reads exactly like it came from Larry Lucchino. It’s sounds just like pitch to season ticket holders about “friendly Daniel Nava” and “affable Will Middlebrooks” and “spunky Ryan Kalish” or whatever the hell he wrote.  Just pure unctuousness of the worst kind.  And it’s so typical of this group.  So instead of feeling all this optimism and reason for hope they’re talking about, they’ve just reminded me they did jack squat this winter.  And all we realistically have to look forward to is irrelevance combined with these North-Korean-government-run-press-like reports to convince us everything is super swell, the sellout streak is alive, John & Linda are soulmates and by the way you can still buy a brick.  So they’ve turned a fun little piece of nothing like Truck Day into another cynical chance to sell the fiction.  And instead of enjoying it, I’m hoping the goddamn truck runs runs over all the phonies there to watch it.  And if it does, under “Cause of the Accident,” investigators can write “metaphor.”  @JerryThornton1