They Woke The Sleeping Giant
As for the publicity stunt by the Indians PR department of using an ex-girlfriend of Josh’s to sing the anthem– it spectacularly backfired in their faces. Josh downplayed the whole thing in his postgame press conference, but Jonathan Papelbon was a little more candid about the incident in his postgame lockerroom interview for WBZ- even acknowledging that the guys had discussed the situation between them:
“I think they made a mistake in waking a sleeping giant over here in this clubhouse… You know, I don’t know if they have a bad PR department over there or if they just couldn’t find anybody else to sing the national anthem. I mean it’s kind of ironic that we’re [in the city with the] Rock’n'Roll Hall of Fame, and somebody like Danielle Peck sings the national anthem. I figure you could get somebody better than that.”
“You just don’t do those kinds of things. You wake a sleeping giant? There’s gonna be some consequences and repercussions, that’s for sure.”
Speaking of Josh’s postgame press conference, here’s video of the whole thing- including the F-bomb that went out live on NESN. You would think they would have learned their lesson by now, and never ever put Josh on live, but apparently not. Also: WHY IS IT SUCH EARTH-SHATTERING NEWS THAT JOSH CUSSED ON-AIR? I’ve seen all kinds of people posting the video of Josh, and getting all in a tizzy about him dropping the Fbomb, like it’s some new thing or something. Stop the presses– Josh cussed on live TV! Folks: he does this all the time, it ain’t nothing new. And this isn’t even the worst cuss-fest he’s had on live TV this year! Oh, and this is hopefully better quality than what’s circulating, too – it’s not a video of me filming the TV screen or anything.
“That was Beckett at a live, post-game conference. We have no control over what’s said in the press conference.”
Hilarious.
Also – did Joshie have his sunglasses? I couldn’t tell.
So much for us all being conspiracy theorists — it DID tick them off.
I’m sure there were lots of polite things said about Ms. Peck in the Sox locker room. I can just imagine.
It might be the first time it was national TV…I think most of the other “incidents” were all just on NESN or opposing team’s regional channels
And Papelbon’s “I figure you could get somebody better than that” is hilarious.
so, sasha frere-jones, the music critic for the new yorker, who is a baseball fan (mets), covered this in his blog today:
ttp://www.sashafrerejones.com/2007/10/fancy_meeting_you_here.html
Could you say it’s just “Beckett being Beckett”?
I think we’re going to have adopt that as a new saying.
This was just disrespecting your opponent by pulling this cheap stunt, & (as beckett would say)disrespecting the game by bringing this soap opera aspect to it.
Makes the Indians franchise look, pretty bad to be honest, to stoop to such a level to somehow get under beckett’s skin. first off, nothing is going to get under his skin enough to affect his pitching. Nothing
-but what a low thing to to, you’re up in the series by a lot, so no need to do something so below the belt.
they probablly admitted to themselves that they couldn’t beat beckett on the field, so they’ll do something screwed up like this in the hopes of it somehow affecting his pitching
insensitive, makes cleveland look cheap and low
you don’t piss off an athelte and expect him to shrink in the next game, especially josh beckett. he’ll play better BECAUSE he’s pissed.
putting his personal life out there and making it everyone’s business
i mean this was a highlight on sportscenter that night. fox pulled away from the game -during someone’s at bat- to talk about this.
he pitched so well- but that’s not the story they wanted to talk about, they want to hear about the girl who sang the national anthem. the only soundbite used from his interview was him talking about her. AND there was a fight in this game, it had all the elements required for a soap opera