Lackey: 'That's over the line' by Jared Carrabis
Boston media member oversteps their boundaries, texts John Lackey before his start


When it comes to poking fun at Red Sox starting pitcher John Lackey, I'm guilty as charged.

It comes with the territory of being in the spotlight here in Boston, signing to a big money contract, and largely underperforming. Sure, I'll poke fun at his Kermit the Frog voice, his tendency to breathe heavily with his mouth open, and the expletives that spew from his mouth with each hit, run and loss allowed. That's part of the gig to entertain, which is my job here.

But when those guys step out from between those white lines, I know my boundaries. I understand that they're people just like you and me with lives and families of their own. That's theirs to keep to themselves, and what they do in between those lines is mine to critique and analyze.

With that being said, an unknown member of the Boston media overstepped their boundaries on Sunday. According to Lackey himself, a member of the media, anonymous to him, sent the right-hander a text before his start that he was not happy with.

"Let me tell you the truth," he starts. "Thirty minutes before the game, I got a text message on my cell phone from one of you--somebody in the media, talking about personal stuff, and I shouldn't even have to be standing up here having to deal with this."

Visibly upset, Lackey peered through the members of the media standing in front of his locker, perhaps looking for an admission of guilt on one of their faces.

"I'm sitting here listening to music, and I don't know who got my phone number, but that's over the line."

When an unknown media member asked, "Somebody here?", Lackey responded, "I don't know. We'll find out."

The media attempted to change the subject, but someone came back and asked, "Did you go out distracted because of this text message?"

Clearly agitated, Lackey took a few seconds before responding, "This is unbelievable that I've gotta deal with this."

Though it's unfair to speculate the content of the text message that he received, we do know that Lackey's wife was diagnosed with breast cancer this past season, which led to the pitcher spending most of his winter by her side while she received treatments to battle the disease.

Lackey would not elaborate on what the text message said, and we may never find out, but a member of the media should know better than that to not only ask something personal of Lackey through a text message when clearly he didn't give his number to that individual, but to do it thirty minutes before the most important start of his Red Sox career? Not only is that ridiculous, but it's completely unprofessional.

Personally, I don't care what the text was about. If it was enough to upset Lackey that much, it's clearly something that we don't need to know. If it's not about baseball, then it has no business being discussed here or anywhere else unless Lackey feels comfortable with it, which he obviously does not.

My hope is that this situation is resolved sooner rather than later, preferably behind closed doors where it belongs in the first place.

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Published on September 26, 2011

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