the designated hittee

apparently, in addition to an under-achieving and over-paid shortstop, the red sox front office also feels compelled each year now to feature a surgically repaired designated hittee among their pitching staff. as classically as john smoltz and brad penny and paul byrd tried to define the position in 2009, you have to like our chances to build on their past example and achieve new heights of hittability in 2010--the boston red sox are now the proud owners of the professional baseball contract of one boof (nee john paul, though boof had his first names legally changed, and you know i wouldn't make this stuff up) bonser, for the expense of the proverbial player to be named later.

for those of you who don't regularly play fantasy baseball and hence don't honestly come by these useless knowings in the course of their daily lives, let me share with you the great (great as in large) news that boof literally embodies the full corpulent spirit of brad penny at his corpulent brad penny-est, combined with the perennial pitching futility of paul byrd--boof followed up his rookie season era of 5.10 with a sophomore effort of 6.16.

of course, i could be wrong, and maybe boof stuck with that austerity diet the twins had him on while he was throwing apart his pitching shoulder, but i'm thinking now that both curt schilling and brad penny are off the roster, and since its been so many years since rich "el guapo" garces has graced the clubhouse, that there also needed to be somebody to fill those oversized shoes, to go with the oversized opponents' batting average.

i'm thinking, in vegas somewhere, somebody already has the line on how many leadoff homers curtis granderson is going to hit at fenway this year...