The Return Of El Guapo

The Nashua Pride minor league baseball team is renowned, like any great minor league team, for its desperate promotions to bring people to the ballpark. (Last year they signed Oil Can Boyd ... well, before he was hit with stalking charges.) Well, this year, they've come up with the best promotion yet: They're bringing back El Guapo!

Garces told The Nashua Telegraph on Tuesday that he's down to about 235 pounds, which is about 15 pounds lighter than his listed playing weight with the Red Sox, who released him in 2002 after he struggled with an ERA of 7.59 in 21 innings of work. He attempted a comeback in 2005 and signed a minor-league contract, but was released that October.

We're going to hope he's flat lying about the weight loss, because that will be no fun whatsoever. Garces says he felt — here we go — "disrespected" by former manager Grady Little when he left Boston and claims to be throwing 95-mph-plus these days. We hope he recognizes that the key to his employment is not his fastball, but his weight, and gets back down to business.

Hide The Women And Children, Nashua: El Guapo's Coming To Town! [One More Dying Quail]