Empyreal Environs

Step Up to the Mike
The title of this post may give literature, philosophy, or social science majors some bad flashbacks to the postmodernist authors articles they had to wade through. It did me.

Sean McAdam of the Providence Journal reported that Mike Timlin and the Red Sox came to a tentative agreement for him to return for the 2006 season in a deal worth approximately $3.5M. He’ll likely end his career with Boston, especially given Terry Francona’s tendency to overuse him. The Red Sox are most likely going to return the veteran righty to the role of set-up pitcher for Keith Foulke.

Catacorner Conundrum
Kevin Millar and Bill Mueller, the pair whose names confused us when they were signed prior to the 2003 season, both filed for free agency yesterday. My wish would be that Mueller retired with the Red Sox, but such a thing seems unlikely. My other wish is for Millar to retire, but if he does not, I hope that whichever organization picks him up will have the foresight and good judgment to have his access to the media curtailed.

Cars Not Bombs
The Class A affliate of the Red Sox in Greenville, South Carolina has changed its name from the “Bombers ” to the “Greenville Drive. ” I’m not a fan of the abstract nicknames that have been the vogue lately, but I suppose there are only so many savage carnivores and ethnic slurs to go around.

Theodolite: Its Uses and Abuses
No, it’s not the name of a new cult that has sprung up around the Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein. According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fourth edition, a theodolite is “an optical instrument consisting of a small mounted telescope rotatable in horizontal and vertical planes, used to measure angles in surveying, meteorology, and navigation. ” In other words, nothing that will help gauge the progress of the talks between Epstein and the Red Sox, which according to Gordon Edes and Chris Snow, appear to be close to a deal acceptable to all parties. Assistant general manager Josh Byrnes will probably take a job in the arid Arizona Diamondbacks organization and will likely be replaced by current assistant to the general manager Jed Hoyer.

Our Goliath
Prior to Game 4, David Ortiz of the AL and Andruw Jones of the NL accepted their Hank Aaron awards in recognition of their outstanding offensive production this past season. An amazing 89,809 fans voted for the Red Sox designated hitter, which was 42% of the total AL votes. Many baseball writers consider the DH to be less important than position players, the implication being that being a good hitter doesn’t require the same commitment. Ortiz said, “It takes a lot of concentration and a lot of hard work to get to that level. I guess it’s been working the right way for me, and I’m going to want to keep it that way.”