Keith Foulke

I would dearly love to give this week's award to Rob Dibble, as suggested by faithful reader Jack Davis, based upon Dibble's moronic commentary about Chone Figgins being a more valuable player than David Ortiz. Unfortunately, Dibble made his comments on TV, and no one seems to have written them up so I can link to them, so he'll have to settle for honorable mention this week.

The award instead goes to Keith Foulke, whose season is now officially over. With not one, but two, bum knees going into the last off-season, Foulke decided not to do anything but rest them, despite the requests of the team that he get one or both of them scoped. The disastrous results of that decision have affected the Red Sox all season. Their bullpen is still in disarray, and they are now more likely than not to miss the post-season largely because the bullpen has stunk worse than it did back in the days when it was patrolled by Rich Garces after a night of eating homemade refried beans.

Hurt, ineffective, and short-tempered with the fans. Yup, this year was pretty much the trifecta for Foulke.

Jeffrey Flanagan, Round Three

I may have to rename this award in Flanagan's honor. In it's short existence, this is the third time Flanagan has been named, a record. Some fools are just born to greatness.

This week, he made the inane choice of Mike Sweeney as Royals Player of the Year, apparently unaware that David DeJesus is so far ahead of Sweeney that you could just about fit Mark Teahen's production in the gap between them.

And, in the same column, he labeled Emil Brown as "a fourth outfielder anywhere else", meaning that he believes there are 87 other major league outfielders better than Brown. Apparently he is unaware that Brown's OPS is 33rd among all MLB outfielders with at least 350 plate appearances and 13th among AL outfielders on that list.

Research, Jeff, research. Some people in the newspaper business actually find it helpful. Try it sometime.

Rafael Palmeiro

This was a tough one. I could have gone with The Amazing Sosa, who apparently became the biggest millionaire since Howard Hughes to vanish into thin air.

Or I could have gone with David Wells and his never ending mouth.

Or Mark Buehrle's impersonation of Oliver Stone.

But I settled on Palmeiro because I hadn't given him his just ration of crap for the steroids incident, and now his earplugs and subsequent retreat to Texas give me the opportunity to make amends.So here's to you, Raffy. Damn Fools don't come much bigger.