Wednesday Thoughts: Club House Chemistry

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As Hurricane Irene barreled toward Boston in late August, management proposed moving up the Sunday finale of a weekend series against Oakland so the teams could play a day-night doubleheader either Friday, Aug. 26, or Saturday, Aug. 27. The reasoning seemed sound: the teams would avoid a Sunday rainout and the dilemma of finding a mutual makeup date for teams separated by 2,700 miles. But numerous Sox players angrily protested. They returned early that Friday from Texas after a demanding stretch in which they had played 14 of 17 games on the road, with additional stops in Minneapolis, Seattle, and Kansas City. The players accused management of caring more about making money than winning, which marked the first time the team’s top executives sensed serious trouble brewing in the clubhouse. As it turned out, the Sox swept the Saturday doubleheader, but that stormy day marked the beginning of the end for the 2011 team. It was the last time the team would win two games in a row. After getting two days off, the Sox spent the rest of the season playing uninspired, subpar baseball, losing 21 of their final 29 games. Sox owners soon suspected the team’s poor play was related to lingering resentment over the scheduling dispute, sources said. The owners responded by giving all the players $300 headphones and inviting them to enjoy a players-only night on principal owner John W. Henry’s yacht after they returned from a road trip Sept. 11. But the gestures made no difference. The hapless Sox became the laughingstocks of baseball as they went from holding a two-game divisional lead over the Yankees after the Aug. 27 doubleheader – and a nine-game advantage in the wild-card race over the Rays – to finishing a humiliating third in the AL East.

I’m no sports psychologist, but I personally believe that all sports have a major mental component. With the Red Sox and the Pirates, there were clearly defined turning points – it may be coincidental or it may have destroyed whatever mental edge the players needed to win.

these are lazy post-facto explanations

mythmaking exercises looking for answers

I’m about as far from a “team chemistry” guy as it gets, so factor that in if you read my thoughts here…
Chemistry comes from winning and trusting others, if you listen to “experts.” The Red Sox clubhouses have been about as bad at chemistry as any team since the early 2000s when Curt Schilling had public spats with teammates. There is ample evidence that the spanish speakers on the team (Manny and others) never talked with the english speakers (I’ve heard this about the Royals as well). When winning, they passed it off as the “Idiots”, but really it was not a story at all. They were one of the most talented teams in the league, with the money and brains to out-OPS and out-pitch everyone. The Red Sox won two World Series this decade and were dominant nearly every year, despite the constant changing of high-priced personnel. What is the lesson? Chemistry doesn’t matter. Good players make up good teams. High paid players can tend to act with entitlement, as douche-bags, but as long as they perform no one cares. Chemistry is fun to talk about, but it really doesn’t boil down to anything except something to blame or credit for failure or success. This year, it’s the blame that’s getting passed around in Boston.

One thing is for sure. That if the leaders on the team are crap (seemingly Lester, Beckett, Lackey, Varitek, Ortiz, Youkilis) or become crap, then those who push the team to get better will become outcasts.

It also seems that once you get comfortable, you fall apart. Those guys used to be hard working guys that pushed the team to get better all the time, but became anti-work/anti-authority.

I just posted this article as a FanShot. I didn’t scroll down far enough on the Home page.

these old school sports “journalists” who like to talk about clubhouse chemistry are the same ones who tell the statheads that “baseball isn’t played on a spreadsheet!”

Therefore, I’d just like to tell these guys that – BASEBALL ISN'T PLAYED IN A CHEMISTRY LAB!

Something is pretty messed up with beer, fried chicken, and video games leads to BAD clubhouse chemistry. I simply refuse to believe that is possible.

this winter; hmm!

“chemistry”, while playing a role, is unquantifiable…to me the issue is the conditioning of the pitchers…i do believe that their lack of conditioning very well could and probably did lead to their poor performance down the stretch…take their W/L record during the end of the year and compare it to their W/L record up to that point…if you extrapolate that out (crude, i know) the sox end up with a much better record and are safely in the playoffs.

I just caught the David Ortiz interview, and he gave what felt like one of the few honest sports interviews. He said that they were doing it (eating fried chicken and drinking beer) in 2004, they were doing it 2007, and while he didn’t /agree/ with it, didn’t think that was the end-all-be-all cause for their collapse. Of course, I sometimes have a tough time with the nuance of a player’s point when there’s an obvious language difference – but regardless he seemed fairly disinterested in throwing those players under the bus. Last night when I first read through this thread, I was kind of incredulous that some out there would point out that the flagrant extra-curricular activities (and I would have been mostly concerned with the pitcher’s off-day ritual) really should have no effect on the other players, and maybe have minimal effect on their own performance. But I got even more curious – do these guys only do it when all three have off-days? Maybe I don’t really care.

Beckett, Lester, and Lackey just gave opposing fans a lot of material to use when they play on the road. I can see some guy dressing up like Colonel Sanders and taunting them with buckets of fried chicken. Maybe Chik-fil-A could sponser a giveaway night and get the whole crowd to to chant “Eat Mor Chikin” while one of these guys is trying to pitch. Lots of possiblities here…..