Not Without My Butterfield

noooooooooooo

When all that silly business about John Farrell wrapped up, or so it appeared at the time, and dude left for Boston in exchange for a player who might actually be a league average second-basemen -- which I will totally take, thanks -- I could be fairly characterized as not giving the least hoot. Despite two years of rumours that he was the man the Red Sox wanted for the job, I couldn't see what all the fuss was about. There's a ton of stuff we'll never know about any manager, of course, but of the things we can actually see, what did John Farrell do so impressively that anyone should care one way or another whether or not he managed their baseball team? What was so exciting there? Was it the utterly misguided small-ball attempts that characterized his first year, or was it year two with the complete lack of accountability for repeatedly dumb base-running errors from young players that were so egregious that Omar Vizquel yeah that's right notorious clubhouse cancer and hotheaded troublemaker Omar Vizquel went public with his criticisms of the way young players were handled in the clubhouse? 

In short, I was perpetually mildly annoyed at John Farrell. Sort of like I was with Cito, I guess (though I was also very fond of Cito for the sake we call old time's). Mildly annoyed is the way you should be with pretty much every manager in baseball, probably, except for maybe Joe Madden and Terry Francona I guess. But even then, right? 

This was all before news came out today, though, that third-base coach and infield instructor Brian "Butters" Butterfield would be joining Farrell in Boston. And now I am devastated. Butters was awesome. He was the most ludicrously positive person I have ever heard interviewed in any context. He was a miracle worker with infielders. He had a cool nickname. 

Orlando Hudson, the O-Dog of Blue Jays seasons now long passed, credits Butters with turning him into the very fine defensive second baseman he became . Keith Law, asked about Butters on the Baseball Today podcast one time, was like, yeah, Butters is a phenomenal infield instructor, just look what he did with Orlando Hudson (all the while Eric Karabell seemed baffled as to who anyone was talking about when they said "Butters"). Back when I used to go to a ton of games, and they would announce the base coaches in the second inning, my wife would always be like, "WOOOOOOOO BUTTERS!" and then I would be like "lol" and then we would both be like "lol" and if anyone else was with us they'd be like "wtf" and we'd go "lol" again and carry on like that in internet acronyms for ages. 

So long, Butters. A lot of good times, man. I don't know.

KS