He Was a Nice Guy, Kept to Himself...

(photo from Boston.com)

Tim Wakefield is way too nice a guy to put up with this bullshit. "This bullshit" meaning, of course, "no run support." It's likely he also puts up with whatever other crap this team throws at him with a good-natured eye roll and a shake of the head. The hot foot, the Ben Gay in the jock strap, the inexplicable tendency for Manny to refer to him as "Sparky." It's likely Wake just shrugs it all off.

But now we're taking advantage of his good nature. We're trading away his personal catcher. We're signing him to a lifetime deal so we can have him ready whenever we want him. We're probably sticking him with the KFC bill when Kevin Millar is in town. And we're flat out refusing to score runs for him.

Come on, guys. This isn't nice. It's not right to take advantage of the good guys. The guys who'll pitch nine innings and TAKE A LOSS without so much as wishing out loud that their teammates had managed to scrape together just two runs. And I'll tell you what else. It's also not safe. Because the nice ones are the ones with the greatest chance of snapping.

How many times have you heard the phrase, "He was such a nice, quiet guy. Kept to himself. Didn't cause any trouble," about the recently discovered serial killer with fifteen severed heads in his freezer? I'm just sayin', Postal Workers were nice too before they started getting all "disgruntled."

The man hunts with Mike Timlin.

Here's the deal: maybe we should stop testing him. Because I do believe that Tim Wakefield will cut a bitch.