Call it a spur-of-the-moment thing, but it's no bull. Red Sox fans are talking a new brand of talk, pardner, as their team gallops toward a playoff berth and a potential showdown with the black-hatted New York Yankees. Around Fenway Park, where doubt is the bucking bronco every fan rides toward postseason play, this year's rallying cry is
"Cowboy up." Seldom heard around these parts -- or east of Dodge City, anyway -- the expression became popular several weeks ago thanks to Kevin Millar, the first baseman and designated hitter who obviously knows a cutting horse from a cut fastball, and relief pitcher Mike Timlin, a stalwart of the Sox (Brahma) bullpen.
Millar trotted out the phrase last month when certain cynics - those saddle-sore knights of the keyboard, otherwise known as
sportswriters - questioned the team's toughness. "I want to see somebody
cowboy up and stand behind this team and quit worrying about all the negative stuff," Millar growled after a loss to the Oakland A's.
"For this team it's perfect," Millar told a reporter from South Florida's Sun-Sentinal last week. "A cowboy is just like your tough guy, the guy that falls off the horse, broken arms and all that kind of stuff." Recalling how he and outfielder Trot Nixon picked up the phrase back in 1995, when the two played winter ball in Mexico together, Millar added, "This team has that kind of makeup ... a bunch of guys that go out and basically
cowboy up."
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