The Moment We've All Been Waiting For -- Chris Sale Makes His Red Sox Debut Tonight At Fenway Park
As a Red Sox fan, I did not think that we’d see this day. I really didn’t. As long as Chris Sale’s name was involved in trade rumors, I knew that the Red Sox would always be mentioned as a potential landing spot due to what was once a ridiculously stocked farm system and an aggressive President of Baseball Operations. However, I never thought they’d be the team that actually pulled the trigger on a deal. But they did, and he’s here.
I don’t know about you, but I’m going to do my best to appreciate the fuck out of these next three years. When David Price came to Boston last year, I said he was the most decorated pitcher to put on a Red Sox uniform since Pedro Martinez. But Sale? He’s the most must-see pitcher to put on a Red Sox uniform since Pedro Martinez. When Pedro got here, I was nine years old. By the time he left Boston for Queens, I was a junior in high school, and was still young and naive enough to think that his reign in Boston would last forever. Unfortunately for all of us, it didn’t.
There’s no doubt that I absorbed every single second of it though, but I feel like I didn’t quite appreciate it as much as I should have in the moment. You don’t really appreciate that stuff completely until after the fact. I grew up with arguably the greatest pitcher of all-time paving his path to Cooperstown in my backyard. At the time, how could I ever grasp that I’d be watching the greatest pitcher I’d ever see with my own two eyes that early in my life? Now, before people freak out — no, I don’t think that Sale is as good as Pedro Martinez. He’s not. Nobody is. But is he the closest thing that we’ve had since Pedro left? I have to believe that’s true.
As great as guys like Jon Lester, Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling were in Boston, their starts weren’t getting circled on calendars throughout New England during their time here. All due respect to them, but the terms Lester Day, Beckett Day and Schilling Day never existed. But today? Today’s Sale Day. And five days from now, that’ll be Sale Day again. Five days after that? Sale Day. This guy’s the real motherfuckin’ deal, and he didn’t come to Boston for a haircut. The man wants a ring, and this three-year window with the Red Sox, which will span three prime years of his career, is the best shot that he’s ever had at one. And he knows it.
Happy Chris Sale Day, everyone.