Sportsfrog.com

To recap the last 24 hours in Red Sox nation:

—Red Sox continue to express interest in Bill Wagner

—Closer Jonathan Papelbon is quoted on WEEI wondering why the Red Sox would do that

—The Red Sox acquire Billy Wagner

—GM Theo Epstein is called upon for a clean-up in aisle five:

Epstein has also had a long chat with Jonathan Papelbon on comments which first appeared on WEEI.com where Papelbon expressed reservations about including Wagner into the bullpen and how that would impact roles.

“I think Pap feels he was misunderstood,” Epstein said. “He’s not a Rhodes Scholar to begin with. When I talked to him directly about it he couldn’t have been more excited. When we had our window (to speak to Wagner), Pap went out of his way to make sure he knew he was more than welcome here.

Re: the bold, true dat.

And goes nuts on war metaphors when standing by his Manny Ramirez criticism:

“It takes 25 guys on a team to win, not 24, and that was blatantly obvious,” Papelbon said after the Red Sox’ workout at City of Palms Park. “It doesn’t matter who you are – you could be Babe Ruth – if you’re not in that same cubbyhole with the rest of the guys going to war with you, you’re all going to die. That almost happened.“

Thankfully, Papelbon was never a soldier. I doubt he would have found cubbyholes much protection. Or perhaps he is being literal, and there at the end of his Boston stay, Ramirez was stalking the clubhouse with hunting knives, and the other 24 players were hiding in cubbys. And he almost found them. And they almost died. But then, thankfully, Ramirez was traded. And they lived.