Monday, August 22, 2005
Well, it looks like this is the end of the line for Mark Bellhorn. He's been designated for assignment, and with Tony Graffanino playing as well as he is, plus the ever-present possibility of picking up a good dead sea lamprey on the cheap to fill the position, it seems highly unlikely that Bellhorn will remain on the team.
Much like DLowe, it seems best to let him go, fondly remembering the postseason heroics but breathing a small sigh of relief over the fact that his dead weight will no longer be dragging the roster down into the briny deep. Of course, unlike DLowe Bellhorn has not, so far as I know, married some woman only to cheat gratuitously on her, but you know what I mean.
So, we'll miss you, Bellhorn. We'll miss your complete and utter lack of expression, the stoically turned double plays, the way you remained entirely unrattled by something so mundane as an opposing player charging at you and sliding in spikes up. We'll miss your high socks, and we'll miss making fun of all the creepy women who obsessed over you for no readily discernible reason.
We'll always remember that homerun in the ALCS, clanging off the foul pole, making that fantastic rattling gong sound that meant it was fair, not foul. I don't think I've ever seen another homerun like that, where the sound was what MADE it a homerun... until it clanged into the pole, it was just a ball flying through the air, possibly foul, possibly fair. It was only when it sent that noise rolling through the park that it ceased to be just a fly ball and became instead a back-breaking (for the Yankees) homerun. That's not something that Red Sox fans will be forgetting in a hurry.
We'll miss the on base percentage, maybe, but we won't miss the strikeouts, and we won't miss the giant levitating cow that is the hole in his strikezone.
Good luck wherever you end up, Bellhorn.
Oh yeah, and Mike Timlin is moving over to the closer's role, with Curt returning to the rotation. We can only hope the boys upstairs know what they're doing with this one. If I was Christian this would be a good time for me to cross myself and gaze supplicatingly up at the heavens. Since I'm not, I'll just have to settle for muttering, "Oy vey," and going to harass Theo about why he hasn't picked us up "a nice Jewish boy for the bullpen".
11:53 AM
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