Lowe, Red Sox Feud Is Aired
Pitcher Derek Lowe severed any vestige of a connection with the Boston Red Sox this week when comments he made to a reporter prompted team officials to ask him to leave the spring training complex in Fort Myers, Fla., where he had been working out.
Lowe, who signed a four-year, $36-million deal with the Dodgers during the off-season, won the clinching games in all three postseason series, helping the Red Sox to their first World Series championship since 1918.
The team made no effort to re-sign him, however, and he suggested to Boston Herald columnist Howard Bryant that the Red Sox mounted a smear campaign against him by circulating stories about his drinking and late-night activities. The day the comments were published, Red Sox trainer Chris Correnti informed Lowe he had to vacate the premises.
Lowe, who lives in Fort Myers and had permission to work out at the facility, told the Herald that he believed the team’s action was a result of his comments. He is scheduled to report to Dodger camp at Vero Beach on Friday.
“I don’t want to say that [the Red Sox] don’t want controversial people, but they certainly don’t want you to criticize them for anything,” he said.
“The funny thing is, I’m the one getting attention for working out, but there are probably guys from three or four organizations working out here.”
A day earlier, Lowe said that questions about his activities off the field came up during free-agent negotiations with his agent, Scott Boras.
“When we were out in the market, we would have two or three good discussions with a team, and then they would start talking about all this stuff about ‘What’s he like off the field?’ ” he said. “And it was coming from the Red Sox. Even Scott called me one day and said, ‘What were you doing up there?’ ”
Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein said the team did not make negative comments about Lowe after deciding not to re-sign him.
“We actually went out of our way to help the guy,” he said. “After it became clear at the general managers meetings that we weren’t going to be able to come close to signing him, we agreed that we wouldn’t say one word, publicly or privately, about Derek. We actually gave a glowing recommendation to the one team that came to us. We went out of our way not to smear Derek.”
