BOSTON — The Red Sox have given catcher Jason Varitek until Friday to accept or reject a one-year, $5 million contract offer with options for 2010.
Varitek, a two-time all-star who turns 37 on April 11, is coming off the worst of his 11 seasons with the Red Sox. In 131 games, he hit .220 with 13 homers and 43 RBIs.
The Red Sox have one catcher, Josh Bard, who signed a nonguaranteed, one-year contract as a free agent.
“I really don’t have anything to say,” Scott Boras, Varitek’s agent, said after the deadline was disclosed.
Red Sox mourn loss of Updike
BOSTON — The Red Sox joined in mourning the death of Pulitzer Prize- winning writer John Updike, who in a famous essay once described Fenway Park as a “lyric little bandbox of a ballpark.”
The essay, “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu,” was inspired by Updike’s attendance at the last game Ted Williams played, in 1960.
Red Sox president Larry Lucchino noted the essay’s first few lines have been inscribed on the walls of the reception area in the team’s front office since 2002. He said Updike’s words “serve not only as a tribute to the ballpark he described, but also to the magnificent style in which he captured it. He will be missed.”
Updike called Fenway “a compromise between Man’s Euclidean determinations and Nature’s beguiling irregularities.”
Updike died Tuesday of lung cancer. He was 76.
Dodgers sign Sturtze, Castro
LOS ANGELES — Right-handed reliever Tanyon Sturtze and shortstop Juan Castro agreed to minor-league deals with the Dodgers.
If Sturtze is added to the 40-man roster, he would receive a one-year deal worth $550,000 while in the majors and $65,000 while in the minors. If Castro is added to the roster, he would receive a one-year deal worth $700,000 while in the majors and $81,000 while in the minors.
The Associated Press
