Red Sox team bus made last-second stop at Sports Authority in Denver

DENVER, CO — Local citizens at one of Denver’s Sports Authority locations were treated to a surprise visit from the Boston Red Sox Saturday morning, as the team had to make an emergency stop at the store for some equipment purchases.

“Well, here’s the deal,” said Theo Epstein. “We got here on Friday, late, after the last FedEx pickup on the east coast. When we got to the hotel, we realized that Papi [Big Papi, David Ortiz] had forgotten his glove. It’s an honest mistake; after all, he generally plays DH, and hasn’t had occasion to use his glove in several months.

“So, we were going to arrange for Papi to go over to Sports Authority to get a glove this morning, but then someone asked the rest of the team to make sure they had all their stuff. Well, it turns out that Manny Ramirez forgot his glove too. At that point, we just decided to let the whole team stop and get whatever they needed.”

Epstein took full blame for the Ramirez glove-lapse. “That one is on me,” Epstein said. “See, in the first half of the season, Manny forgot his glove twice on road trips. Each time it cost us a fortune to have it flown out to where we were. Do you know how expensive it is to buy a same-day plane ticket from Boston to Seattle over Memorial Day weekend? So we devised a clever little system—we used a safety pin, and clipped Ramirez’s glove to his clothing when he wasn’t using it. It worked great; he didn’t forget his glove once during the entire second half.”

However, Epstein said, because of the added media attention being thrust upon the team with the playoffs in progress, he didn’t want Ramirez to be cast as a laughingstock by the media, so he took back the safety pin. “I thought he was ready,” Epstein said. “I was wrong.”

The Red Sox spent approximately $1,872 in the Sports Authority during their half-hour trip. Aside from new gloves for Ortiz and Ramirez, several other players purchased items. Outfielder J.D. Drew purchased a knee brace; infielder Dustin Pedroia bought $98 worth of form-fitting UnderArmor padded shorts, and closer Jonathan Papelbon bought 37 Rockies National League Champions t-shirts, which he is going to use to make a quilt in the offseason.

“It was a good trip,” Epstein said. “Lot of fun. I’m looking forward to doing it again next spring.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!