The RaHooligan: Advice For Larry Summers: Be 'The Man' and Buy the Red Sox

Larry Summers, this column is for you.

It’s advice and I know you want it. In your first 100 days as President, you want to make a good impression. You want to show those stuffy professors that your brain is as big as your considerable girth and that a new sheriff is in town. You want to show the undergraduates you truly care about making everybody happy.

In short, you need to be “The Man with The Plan.” Here’ s what you need to do.

Forget all that Living Wage crap. Throw aside all the memos on inter-disciplinary integration, building a women’s studies center and raising the term bill. Essentially, ignore all of the nonsense you read on this paper’s editorial page. Think outside the box.

You’re sitting on a pile of money—about $20 billion, give or take a few billion depending on how tech stocks are holding up. It’s time for Harvard, the most prestigious university in the world, to step up to the plate and...

BUY THE BOSTON RED SOX!

Yup, Larry, you heard right. The Sox are on the block, and there’s no shortage of rich suburban bankers who want to pony up the $500 million it would take to buy them from the Yawkeys.

A half-billion dollars is nothing. Nothing compared to what Harvard will get in return.

Imagine the possibilities. Firstly, there’s no tradition in Boston older than the Red Sox—with the one exception of Harvard, whose upcoming 365th anniversary makes the BoSox’s centennial look tiny. If Harvard were to own the Red Sox, it would be the perfect marriage of Boston’s most permanent residents.

But, Mr. Summers, the real benefits, as always, are in the small details.

Lots of folks are angry that your predecessor, Neil Rudenstine, purchased half of Allston in a recent land grab. So what in the name of Ted Williams are you going to do with all that land? Well, the Red Sox need a new park. You do the math.

And what will happen to Fenway, you might ask? In grand Harvard tradition, you can turn it into a museum. Or, you could create your own tradition, and actually build something undergrads can use, like a student center.

Janitors want a living wage? No problem, you could say—here’s a summer job peddling peanuts at the ballpark. Those vendors make more than $100 a game off commission. Multiply by 81 games, and you’ve just doubled their pay!

You and I also know that the Harvard Business School is losing prestige. Add a graduate course in Baseball General Management and HBS’s popularity will skyrocket. Plus, you can rid yourself of that pesky Dan Duquette by having a steady flow of Harvard-educated general managers at your disposal.

Even the Medical School will benefit. Team doctors could always clear Sox players to play, and HMS’s world-class experimental surgeons would ensure that there are no more career-ending injuries to franchise players.

Boston and Cambridge have always had a love-hate relationship with the University and the recent PSLM campaign hasn’t helped Harvard’s image.

With one swift stroke, however, that could change. Free Red Sox tickets could go along way towards healing rifts with the Cambridge City Council. A luxury box seat in the new stadium would probably silence Ted Kennedy’s attacks about the living wage.

Most importantly, you will improve the lives of undergraduates immeasurably. Ownership of the Sox opens up a whole new slew of Core class possibilities. There could be new concentrations in sports-related fields.

Springfest could take place in the new stadium and feature the guitar stylings of backup catcher Scott Hatteberg!

President Summers, you also would have the best sports recruiting tool in the world. How could any prospective student-athlete say no when her guide around the Yard is none other than Nomar Garciaparra?

Harvard’s fun-loving and inimitable baseball coach, Joe Walsh, could finally get what he deserves—the best damn assistant coaches in the world (namely, Jimy Williams and Joe Kerrigan).

It wouldn’t be an entirely one-sided deal, either. The Sox players would benefit as well. Contract negotiations could be settled with relative ease. For example, if Pedro Martinez wants more money, he could sit in your office, call up a few old Senators for help and get you to assign a committee to study how much he should make. Painless, no?

And of course you would offer the Red Sox the very best free education in the world. Maybe you can personally escort center fielder Carl Everett to his course on dinosaurs.

Finally, President Summers, you would be helping me. Covering Harvard athletics has been great, but it doesn’t make me any richer. I can barely afford to go a Sox game and get drunk anymore. I’m sure the Former Secretary of the Treasury can help me with a few comp tickets, eh?

And in 100 years, when the Red Sox finally win another World Series, Boston will look back and celebrate the coming of Larry Summers:

The Man with The Plan.