Boston

162 Games Played

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A major league baseball season consists of 162 games. 81 games played at home and 81 games played on the road.

To play in all 162 games, a player has to be better than merely good. This player has to be a proven linchpin to his team’s success. You want this bad man in your lineup every goddamn day. You need this soldier in your lineup every day.

To these 162 men of iron, posting up is what they do. They show up at the ballpark every day knowing their name is going to be in the lineup. There are no days off. Days off are for chumps — not champs. These guys are heroes – not zeros.

For the 2025 season, only six players showed up every day, laced up their spikes and hunkered down at home plate to take their hacks. Six. (One of the six actually played in 163 games.) These guys didn’t take a night off because they went on a bender in South Beach and ended the night at Tootsie’s. They didn’t see Tarik Skubal scheduled as the next day’s starter and ask for the day off. These guys buckled up and showed out.

Here are 2025’s Iron Men:

  1. Rafael Devers (163 Games Played)
  2. Pete Alonso
  3. Elly De La Cruz
  4. Matt Olson
  5. Brett Rooker
  6. Kyle Schwarber

You might be asking yourself, how did Rafael Devers play in 163 games? After being traded from the Boston Red Sox to the San Francisco Giants, on June 15th, Devers picked up an extra game.

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Devers Aside: When the Chief Baseball Officer (Who makes up these titles in baseball? Is this a Tom Werner production?) of the Boston Red Sox, Craig Breslow, realized his relationship with Rafael Devers had cratered to the point of a JLo marriage counseling session, Devers was shipped to San Francisco for the mercurial flamethrowing reliever/failed starter Jordan Hicks, starting pitcher Kyle Harrison, minor league outfielder James Tibbs III since moved to the Dodgers for the rental of Tormund Giantsbane wannabe Dustin May, and minor league pitcher Jose Bello.

Before Devers’ plane could leave town, he was hit with the usual crap of not being a good teammate, he was lazy — out of shape. The guy only played in 163 games. 1-6-3!

And if Devers’ replacement at third base, Alex Bregman, decides that he’s not a Dunkin’ type of guy — the Red Sox will again be looking to fill a void at third base. I’ll allow Alex Bregman’s uber agent Scott Boras to explain how that works:

“In Boston, we learned a lot about Bregman in ‘25,” Boras said at last week’s GM Meetings in Las Vegas. “Because in Boston prior to ’25 they had a lot of lineup donut holes and certainly prior to ’25, Boston has been kind of a club that has dunkin’ well below the playoff line. So I think it was a bad roast in Beantown. Give the owners credit in ’25. They went out, spent some Starbucks to bring in a Bregman blend that led them to the playoffs. I’m sure the Boston fans don’t want this to be just a cup of coffee and no one wants a Brexit.”

Who knew that Boras was a former hack ad agency copywriter? Twelve-year-olds come up with better shit on TikTok.

Red Sox/Liverpool FC/Pittsburgh Penguins/RFK Racing/Boston Common Golf fans will revel in their schadenfreude at the fact that Devers was the only 2025 Iron Man not to be named an All-Star.

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All of this is mere artifice to get to my main point, which is; how do the Mets or the Phillies allow Pete Alonso or Kyle Schwarber to depart via free agency? These guys don’t grow on Pedro Martinez’s mango tree in the Dominican Republic?

Quick Elly De La Cruz Hug: But Elly De La Cruz did grow up in the Dominican Republic — not sure he ever sat under Pedro’s mango tree. De La Cruz played 162 games — almost exclusively at shortstop — and is the first Cincinnati Red to play 162 games since Joey Votto in 2017. De La Cruz played through the death of his sister and a nagging quad injury. Stole 37 bags. Absolute stud.

If you haven’t been paying attention at home because you’re mourning the death of Alice Glick, I write this stuff through the perspective of a Mets fan. And maybe this outsized passion and commitment to the Mets sometimes makes folks think I am an agoraphobic loser — not that agoraphobics are losers — but I do watch a lot of Mets games. In a Mets fan survey on The Athletic, one of the questions was: How many Mets games did you watch in 2025? I answered 100. Sounds about right — maybe a little more — but that feels like the number. For the folks who watched 140 or more games, that is sick. Also, it makes me think; is a baseball incel a subset of the larger incel populace?

All of this has been a touch of smoke and mirrors to get to this salient point: The Mets need to re-sign Pete Alonso.

The ability to post up and play every day is undervalued. Staying healthy is a talent and the ability to play through pain and minor dings should not be overlooked.

David Stearns bring back the Polar Bear. Changes are needed. But I’m not sure the right move is to move on from Pete Alonso. Yes, Alonso has defensive shortcomings but when did first base evolve into a defense first position? You want a guy who can bash the ball at first.

When you add it up all six of 2025’s Iron Men bring value to their teams. Can their true value be quantified? Does an opposing pitcher want to see A’s right fielder Brent Rooker step into the box or a guy that has been working the Sacramento and Las Vegas Aviators shuttle? Presence alone can make or break a lineup on a particular day. Pitching to Juan Soto and then having to face Pete Alonso ain’t no walk in the park.

Iron men are valuable. It goes beyond the stats.

(I forgot to give any love to Matt Olson. With all due respect, fuck the Braves.)

Snow Me

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This winter has forced me to confront a disturbing reality that has caused my delicate psyche a crushing blow: Winter in Boston Sucks!

Boston Strong has taken a beating from the unrelenting perseverance of Mother Nature, who is engaged in a vulgar display of vanity: the chance to establish a personal record for snowfall. Boston is inches away from achieving an infamous honor that has inflicted pain, Arctic Blast inspired agoraphobia and nerve-racking tests of driving skill manufactured by snow banks that have narrowed already narrow streets.

Simply put, this winter has been the Tough Mudder of winters.

I can personally attest to the punishment absorbed by my body. My hamstrings are constantly sore and my lower back is tighter than the on street parking situation in the North End. Shoveling one prodigious snowfall after another has forced me into a rigorous workout regimen that has forced me to evolve into a squatting, lifting, bend at the knees and not with your back, throw pounds of snow over ten-feet high existing snow mounds and complete all of this with a single shovel.

I am spent. I am a Ronda Rousey MMA opponent. I submit.

I am weak and powerless against this bitch. Every fiber of my being is attuned to the prospect of any and all types of precipitation falling from the haughty skies above New England. I check the weather forecast like a farmer in Iowa. I tend to the driveway as if it was rich soil capable of sprouting a bounteous harvest of asphalt. Salt is a weapon and an ally. Ice, black ice, icicles equal in size to the ivory tusks of an elephant hang with malice from the gutters, and patiently sitting above our heads is a snow-laden roof injected with the performance-enhancing effects of ice.

Israel is worried about Iran with nuclear weapons. I have a fucking shovel, a snow rake and some salt against this beast called Mother Nature. Yes, I have raked snow from the roof – not once – but twice. Raking the snow off the roof has aggravated a shoulder/clavicle injury caused by a feeble attempt to start the snow blower last winter. I yanked the snow blower’s cord and the cord refused to budge, but my shoulder released a searing pain that almost brought me to my knees.

I can’t take it anymore. Shoveling the little bit that fell last night put me into a fugue this morning. I probably didn’t need to shovel the small amount that fell, but my brain and body are on high alert to oppose snow and ice.

Vikings

I have become a Viking warrior. The shovel is my sword and battle axe. My shovel has been awarded a place of honor and respect on the porch. And don’t think of placing your shitty shovel near mine or describe feats of derring-do by your snow blower. You have a guy that plows your driveway – my shovel and I disdain your bourgeois Barcalounger ass.

Okay, the neighbor has used his Bobcat and snow blower to clear out the front of the driveway and sidewalk a few times. My shovel and I do accept help. And we will work for food.

Pumping Iron: Arnold & Franco

If there is a glimmer of light, my upper body could be a stand-in for Franco Columbo’s chiseled frame in Pumping Iron. My traps and pecs have been forged by an icy crucible that would have made weak the members of The Night’s Watch. The abs are another thing, but trust me on the traps and pecs.

 Typing this long my shoulder is rebelling. My back screams for a reputable chiropractor.

The Iceman Cometh.

Making A Left in Massachusetts

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Allstate Corp. (ALL) came out with its annual ranking of automobile accident prone cities, and drivers in Boston and Worcester, Massachusetts, topped the list. Living in Massachusetts, there is no denying that the drivers of Eastern and Central Massachusetts are complete morons. Each day there is something new and aberrant on the road that your driver’s ed teacher never instructed you to do.

Worcester topped the list. In the Woo, on average, a driver can expect a collision every 4.3 years. In Boston, safer and saner heads prevail and motorists can expect a collision every 4.4 years. Worcester and Boston usurped perennial front-runner, Washington, D.C., which had garnered the treasured top spot for six straight years.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a place that NASCAR driver Tony Stewart could call home. This is the land where the evolutionary concept of nature versus nurture has to be examined. Is the root cause of this regional malady a lack of sufficient and competent driver’s education instructors or is there a recalcitrance to Massachusetts drivers that is beyond the realm of reason?

This is a part of the country where Masshole is invoked proudly. Where else do drivers routinely make left turns cutting off oncoming traffic and then give a pandering hand wave to the car that could have t-boned it? Only in Masshole Nation does this happen.

To provide an example, when a Masshole is pulling out of Dunkin’s after receiving an adipose injection of Coolatta or Iced Coffee, our Bay State motorist will plant her car in the lane of oncoming traffic to make a left.That’s right, the proper way to make a left turn out of a parking lot is to block traffic from the nearest lane and then force your way into the other lane. This is standard practice and nothing that is deemed weird or abnormal. The pandering hand wave is usually performed by a woman – who does not care – that she stopped the forward progress of five cars to make a left.

Want to take a left at a red light? If you’re the first car in line, gun your engine because you are expected to beat the car facing you and looking to go straight. Did your driver’s ed teacher instruct you to yield?  Fuck that bullshit. No Masshole worth his Dunk’s keychain is going to abide by that nonsense. Get a slow start off the line and expect a fusillade of car horns rebuking your familiarity with the rules of the road.

Making that lane change – only pussies signal.

The speed limit reads 65 mph. Either rev it up to 75 mph or get off the road.

Respect the bike lane. What is this China?

Purchasing car insurance in Massachusetts can be an expensive proposition, but living in Worcester is sublime. Only a true Masshole can appreciate the bleak, bone-chilling landscape offered by a winter in Worcester. As long as there is a reliable supply of booze, winter in Worcester is a manageable affair.

Winter will test a soul in Worcester or Boston. And maybe that is the underlying reason for the insanity of Massachusetts drivers; they would rather die in a car wreck than go through another soul-crushing winter.