July 31st

The day before August is crucial for two reasons. First, it's Harry Potter's birthday (Happy Birthday H-Man!). Second, and more relevant, it's the MLB trading deadline. It's a time teams mortgage their future in hopes of cementing the present forever by bringing home a World Series Title.

The Boston Red Sox always seem to be a player come the trading deadline. Here's my personal break down of their last five trade deadlines:

2002- Acquired Cliff Floyd from the Montreal Expos for two pitchers who were never significant. At the time, the Expos were owned by Major League Baseball prior to moving them to Washington. This trade was good cause it pissed off George Steinbrenner, who did his best Al Davis impression and ranted about how the whole league was against him and was trying to fix it so the Red Sox would win. Floyd didn't really do much for the Sox, and the team missed the playoffs. But hey, I'm in favor of anything that pisses off Steinbrenner.

2003- Acquired Scott Williamson from the Reds for some irrelevant. Acquired Jeff Suppan from the Pirates for Freddy Sanchez. Willamson was pretty irrelevant himself for a while, but pulled it together and became their closer come playoff time. Good deal. The Suppan trade seemed stupid at first. Suppan was originally a Red Sox and supposed to be the next Roger Clemens, and he stunk so they let the Diamondbacks have him as a welcome to the MLB present. Then all of a sudden they trade their top prospect for him? Plus, Suppan got beat so bad the team didn't include him on the ALDS roster, and didn't let him pitch in the ALCS. Then factor in that Sanchez is a perennial All Star and the defending NL batting Champ. This deal's looking bad. HOWEVER, Suppan helped the team win the World Series in 2004. As a pitcher for the Cardinals, he was on third base and the Sox were winning 2-0 or something like that, and had the infield back. A ground ball was hit to the right side, and Suppan took off for home. The Red Sox saw this, and conceeded the run and threw to first. But, for some reason, Suppan stopped between third and home. Ortiz was ready to throw the ball around the horn, but saw Suppan literally inbetween third and home just standing there. Ortiz pumpfaked and Suppan broke for third. Ortiz threw the ball to third and picked off Suppan. I'm pretty sure Jeff did that to make up for being a bust as a prospect and a bust as a deadline pickup the year before. Therefore, this trade goes from awful to mediocre.

2004- In a 4 team deal, the Sox gave up Nomar Garciapara and a minor leaguer, acquired Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz. This was a good deal cause Nomar was hurt the whole year and on the downside and the team needed defensive help bad. Cabrera turned out to be a scrappy little guy and is currently my favorite MLB shortstop. Gotta love the scrappy little guys. Plus, Mientkiewicz kept the ball from the final out of the 2004 World Series, and refused to give it to the Red Sox when the team asked nicely. They appealled to the Commissioners Office. MLB said they didn't care who kept the ball, so the Red Sox actually sued him for it. All offseason, we got to talk about some stupid ball, and where it was, and what would happen if Mientkiewicz gave them a substitute fake ball. It was a jolly good time and even made the front page of the New York times. I really wish he blew it up. Imagine how many hits that would have gotten on YouTube? When Mientiewicz still wouldn't give it too them or post a video of it exploding after a month or two, they traded him and began talking publicly about a new team policy for ownership of the balls of final outs of series clinching games. Only the Red Sox... As my Uncle Michael pointed out, not once did we hear anything about what happened any of Vinatieri's Super Bowl winning field goals.

The Red Sox also acquired Dave Roberts for some no name. Take away game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, this trade is a footnote. THE trade involved Nomar. Roberts barely played. The one regular season highlight involving him at Fenway Park was before the trade when he was a Dodger and hit a line drive ten feet up in the air that Pokey Reese somehow caught. He never had a year plus long dispute with the team over a baseball (it just sounds so funny when you put it like that...). However, you can't take away game 4. The Stolen Base made this trade the greatest trade in Red Sox history.

2005-Acquired Tony Graffino for two no names. Graffino played well till game 2 of the ALDS, when, as everyone in US Cellular Field was kind enough to remind me, he made a huge error with two outs which was followed by a grand slam. The Red Sox lost the game and were swept. Graffino is extremely lucky this happened AFTER 2004. Otherwise he probably would have been shot. Several times.

2006- The Red Sox do nothing, everyone gets injured, the team gets swept in a five game series against the Yankees in Fenway (I was so frustrated after game 4 that I honestly took a baseball bat and beat living daylights out of the lawn in my backyard), and falls out of playoff contention. This was the worst and most disappointing trading deadline ever. I was so excited coming back from work on the L wondering who the team was gonna pick up for their post season run. I hope they don't make the same mistake in 2007.