- Jason O. Watson
- Beantown is in a snit over Jon Lester.
The way sports are set up, there’s got to be a winner and a loser. Back in the golden era of the NHL, a lot of those games ended in ties—a sentimental nod, I thought, by the cluster of six cities surrounding the Great Lakes to the war once fought in those precincts. The War of 1812 ended in a draw and then in the “world’s longest undefended border”—thus fulfilling a biblical prophecy I’d never heard of until five minutes ago when I googled “longest undefended border.”
Given their separate circumstances, both teams might have done the smart thing. But zero-sum is just as alive in the press box as it is on the playing field. First a snarky cartoon from Boston sports station WEEI FM showed up in my email, letting me know Beantown was in a snit. Then I read Dan Shaughnessy’s take in the Boston Globe on what he called the “Lester debacle.” Negotiations with Lester were “botched,” “bungled,” and “ham-handed,” wrote Shaughnessy. He said the Sox bargained in bad faith because Lester’s 30 and they didn’t want to sign him to an expensive long-term deal in the first place.
