The spring is usually a big time for questions for any major league team, and while the deep Red Sox currently seem to have fewer glaring problems to solve than in some years, there’s always room in my world for uncertainty. Hence, the first installment of the Five Questions feature:
- Will Nick Green make the team? The little-known infielder, who has played sparingly in the majors, is tearing it up this spring, but he is blocked by the reigning MVP at second and by the publicized battle between Julio Lugo and Jed Lowrie at shortstop. Having a hot streak in spring is one thing, but showing the genuine pop that Green showed by hitting what Adam Kilgore at the Boston Globe termed “a monster home run to center field” the other day is another. Since Green can also play third base, the answer to this first question might reside in the answer to the second, which is . . .
- Will Mike Lowell be able to return to full strength? The third baseman makes his return to the lineup today, in a DH role. With Manny Ramirez gone from the lineup, Lowell’s slugging from the right side seems more necessary than it’s ever been in his time with the team, but the specter of him hobbling around gray-faced with pain at the end of last season has this fan wondering if he’ll be able to come all the way back.
- Will the Red Sox make a midseason trade for Joe Mauer? This idea, investigated with customary aplomb by Evan Brunell at Firebrand of the American League, was the juiciest of the ruminations that arise during the spring, that time when all things seem possible. A trade for a perennial batting champion contender at a position currently manned by probably the weakest offensive performer in the starting nine, of course, seems to be tailor-made for dreamers. What could be more perfect? At the Twins page here on Baseball Digest.com, however, Parker Hagemen points out that Mauer is currently struggling with a nagging injury, evidence that even the dreams that seem the most perfect carry a nagging element of uncertainty. A trade to get Mauer would cost a ton in terms of talent, and then what happens if Mauer comes up lame? That’s the problem for many-for-one trades: all your eggs go into one basket, so you better be pretty confident in the basket.
- Will I ever attain enlightenment? I’m currently reading a great book about Allen Ginsberg’s trip in the early 1960s to India, A Blue Hand. The Beat poet’s journey blazed a trail for many counterculture westerners to travel, literally or figuratively, to the east in search of nirvana. A generation removed from these meditating, acid-ingesting, chanting hippies, I inherited this desire for some sort of exotic, bliss-soaked opening into total consciousness, and when I was younger believed, or at least hoped, it would happen to me. I still meditate most every day, but I’m just a middle-aged guy sitting there, the dumb thoughts in my brain gradually quieting a little until it’s time to get up and go to work and hope on the way I don’t get run over by a bus. So what ever happened to enlightenment?
- Will Kevin Youkilis become the first Jew to win the American League MVP since Al Rosen? Today is Purim, a happy cacophony of a Jewish holiday, so I find myself thinking about the Bosox sole remaining Yid. (They used to have others, most notably Gabe Kapler, to make this half-Jew Red Sox fan proud.) Youk is currently tearing it up for the USA in the World Baseball Classic, evidence that he seems primed for a rock-solid year to match last year’s production, which made him arguably as worthy, especially considering his ability to shuttle back and forth between first and third base, an MVP candidate as Dustin Pedroia.
Topics: Allen Ginsberg, Joe Mauer, Kevin Youkilis, Mike Lowell, Nick Green
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Great to see you blogging Sox! I hope Youk wins the MVP, for purely selfish storytelling reasons. I met him in 2005, and he was an incredibly down to earth guy. It’d be awesome to say I met Kevin Youkilis, MVP AND World Series Champion
Thanks for checking in, redsoxeveryday. That’s great to hear that Youk was a good guy in person.