From Danny Knobler on CBSSports.com:
Happy Crawford says of Boston: ‘They love it when you’re miserable’
He takes responsibility for his poor on-field performance during his Red Sox career, which ended abruptly, first with the Tommy John surgery that is still slowing him this spring, then with the trade to the Dodgers that finally sent him to Southern California.
He should already have been there, should have been anywhere but Boston. But he took the money and went to Boston, into the hands of the media he now blames for making him miserable.
“That smile turned upside down quick,” Crawford said. “I think they want to see that in Boston. They love it when you’re miserable.
“Burying people in the media, they think that makes a person play better. That media was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
and later:
“I get it, I didn’t perform,” he said. “I got the money. I didn’t perform. I gave them every reason.”
But Crawford felt the Boston media jumped on every reason he gave them to criticize him.
“I took so much of a beating in Boston, I don’t think anything could bother me anymore,” he said. “They can say what they want — that I’m the worst free agent ever — and it won’t get to me. But it bothered me the whole time there.
Crawford might be right, but he was probably better off just not saying anything.
