"White Devils" and "Blowhards"

Gordon Edes has an interesting piece today in the Boston Globe about Seth Mnookin's new book, Feeding the Monster. The book details the inner workings of the Red Sox front office since it was taken over by Henry, Lucchino and Werner.

Here are a few of the juicier snippets:

Manny Rami­rez asked Henry to be traded on the first day he met the new owner in spring training, 2002: ``Look, man, you gotta get me out of here," Rami­rez told Henry. ``I hate the pressure. I hate the manager [Joe Kerrigan, at the time]."

Other Rami­rez tidbits: stat analyst Bill James did a study in the 2003 season in which Rami­rez was cited for half of the 60 instances in which Sox players did not hustle, and this spring, after the Sox did not trade him yet again after he'd asked to be dealt, Rami­rez directed a rant at the owners in which he referred to them as ``[expletive] white devils."

White devils?

During the 2005 season, as the Sox struggled without Pedro Marti­nez, Lucchino walked around Fenway Park humming the tune to Simon and Garfunkel's song, ``Mrs. Robinson," changing the lyrics of the song to: ``Where have you gone, Pedro Marti­nez, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Ooooh ooooh oooh.

Epstein last year complained about veteran players who ``become blowhards" and talk excessively to the media, a comment that seemed directed at Kevin Millar.

Kevin Millar a blowhard?

Henry, who felt "pure rage" toward manager Grady Little when he left in Marti­nez to pitch the eighth inning of Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series against the Yankees, was unhappy with the manager all season. ``Henry had taken to joking that if the Red Sox did not win the World Series and he was tapped to star in one of the iconic `I'm going to Disney World,' commercials, he would instead announce to the world, `I'm going to fire Grady Little.' "

Feeding the Monster also reveals that Dan Shaughnessy's October 30th article criticizing Theo Epstein led directly to Theo's resignation (is anyone surprised?) although there was an existing rift between Epstein and Lucchino well before the article was written. Anyway, Mnookin's book hits bookshelves on July 11 and it should be a good read.

P.S. How exactly is "Mnookin" pronounced?

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