This monstrosity originally ran in Essense of Baseball on Sept. 26, 2011.

Sometimes we all make mistakes. In the case of Bill Simmons, he makes them publicly and repeatedly since he refuses to embrace the art of editing. Whether he’s waxing poetic about hockey games that never happened, players who don’t exist, or attempting to weave some weird pop culture notions into sports, Bill Simmons just can’t seem to stop typing. So today, I present to you… a rant about the Boston Red Sox, written in the stylings of everyone’s favorite fairweather fan, Bill Simmons. Note: The Real Bill Simmons was not harmed in the creation of this story. 

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I want to keep the first game of the double header the Red Sox and Yanks played on Sunday in the doubleheader on the front panel of my TV forever. I think it has to have earned coveted “save until I delete” status on my TiVo, because it’s exactly everything I’ve been saying about this Red Sox team, and that’s this Red Sox team doesn’t know how to win as a team. It’s obvious. They don’t know.

How did the Patriots do it when they won their first Super Bowl in 2000? They did it because that Patriots team was a team. This Red Sox team doesn’t have what it takes, what all great teams have when they play as a team. They know how to play as a team. It’s that simple, it really is. It’s like when my buddy House went to see Warrant and Poison play a double bill at the Worcester Centrum in college and we were drunk on Bud Lites and Marlboro Reds. Warrant came on first and really tried to sell it and convince the audience taht they were a real arena rock band, but when Poison came on, with Bret Michales running around stage and their guitarist all coked out, it was pretty clear that this Poison team knew how to take it to the next level with their show. It’s the same thing. They knew how to play as a team. You have to play as a team.

I remember watching that Patriots team in the Rose Bowl from my seat in the luxury box while my dad watched with me in the luxury box, and it was obvious that that Patriots team knew how to play like a team. John Lackey definitely doesn’t, and his signing definitely reeks like I said it would. Theo got played like a drunken slut at the craps table in Vegas when the only guy that wants here is there dirnking Sam Adams because he just got divorced like some kind of sad broke loser.

(Imagine if you had parlayed the Rays, Angels and Red Sox as a three-team teaser with the Blue Jays on the side. It’d be like hitting on 17 in blackjack at that one table with the newlyweds and the drunk townie who wants to let it ride one last time. You know he wants it, he’s counting cards and he’s doing everything by the book. The newlyweds are just there for the free drinks and are playign tthe token chips they got at the hotel because they upgraded to the villa, and then you’re there with your buddies who are too distracted because they just saw some fat girl in the corner wearing a Tony Romo jersey. It’s obvious that she’s only wearing it because she can’t afford to wear a better jersey, and that’s just sad. Yup. OK, back to the column.)

It’s like when you have a burrito in the microwave after a long night of striking out at the bar, where you were stuck playing wingman while your buddy House was nailing one co-ed after another, smoking Marlboro Reds by the dozen and now all you want after running through all that is to have a burrito from the microwave. And when you put it in and it’s in there for the first 15 seconds, you think that this is going to be the best burrito ever. But it’s not the best burrito ever, it never delivers the way it’s supposed to. And that’s because it’s your fault for cooking it too fast and trying to eat it all in three bites, with the ends blazing hot and the middle ice cold. What you should’ve done was to cook the burrito in the toaster oven, let it get warm slowly and then eat it in sensible bites while Donna from the Real Housewives goes crazy over her latest botched botox. The Red Sox are like that burrito that was cooked too quickly, and Theo Epstein needs to let his next burrito cook more slowly, because this Red Sox team is like that burrito.

I have a picture of Dustin Pedroia up in my office next to a signed pictuere of Larry Bird that I bought off eBay for $500 back a few months taht I just got, and it’s going to have to come down. I mean, even besides those great Patriots teams of the 90s and the great Celtics teams of the 70s and 80s when I used to sit on my dad’s lap at the Garden and watch them play and the crowd and fans were loud enough that we actually WILLED the team to beat the Lakers, I didn’t care that my dad had been divorced because I had Basketball Jesus and Red and Kevin McHale’s armpits.

(And what is with Dustin Pedroia’s hair anyway? How did he go bald before 30? It’s impossible without steriouds. And look at him anyway, he’s always angry and kind of tweaked out, he’s probably on steroids. Yeah, how else does a 4’7” midget hit 20 home runs and dropkick David Ortiz, anyway? He really needs to get on Rogaine or something. I have hair, and people who don’t scare me. OK, back to the column.)

It all goes back to the Bruins team of this past summer, when I ended my NHL widow phase and banged on the glass while Patrick Bergen scored against Vancouver at home in Game 5 of that series. Bergen, Chara and Marchland knew what it toook to play as a team angainst the team of that Canucks team with Luongo, who looks way too much like the guy John Tuturo played in Mr. Deeds. Ever seen that, the creepy way he’s obsessed with Adam Sandler’s feet wihile Winona Ryder is taking a break from shoplifting long enough to pretend to be interested in Sandler? Luongo was like John Tuturo in Mr. Deeds. He was obsessed with the BRuins’ team’s feet. And that was Sandler’s feet.

This Red Sox team is a lot like taht John Tuturo team. Until they’re able to man up like Josh when he had to climb the rope over the wall in the Real World/Road Rules Challenge IV, they won’t go anywhere as a team.

Yup.

(You can read more pieces about baseball by Nick Tavares on his site, Saves and Shutouts. I promise, his real stuff is better than this)