Red Sox refuse to play - UPDATE

UPDATE 4 - from Extra Bases, Nick Cafardo - 2:20PM - Here's what we know about the deal to compensate players:

A major league source said moments ago that all staff associated with the trip will be compensated. Not sure whether it's $40,000 or even more because the receipts from the trip will be split at the end.

According to the source, in the past, the coaches' compensation has come from the players' portion of the pool. This time around the coaches were eliminated from that pool. Did someone not tell the players? That'll be the interesting question to Sox player reps after the game.

The source said that coaches, and managers as well as the training staff will all be compensated and the final amount is expected to exceed $40,000 per man.

The major league source was miffed that they are being portrayed as the ones who backed out of an agreement.

Efforts to reach the Players Association have been unsuccessful.

UPDATE 3 - from the Courant / ESPN - 2:13 - Francona speaks:

"Just a normal day in Red Sox Nation, huh?

"We found out some surprising revelations yesterday and tried to get to the bottom of it and had no luck. It kind of filtered into today. What I want to say is how proud I am of our team. I think that might have gone unnoticed to the casual fan. We do things so much as a ballclub and we’re so united. I don’t mean just the players. I mean the staff, the trainers and our players showed that. That’s what this was about. It wasn’t about being greedy. It was about trying to be unified.

"There was a big miscommunication. When half the people are in Japan, half are in China, some are getting ready to board a plane, it didn’t make for very easy communication once we got the ball rolling. I’m not here to place blame. I actually had a couple conversations with Mr. Selig; I hope it came across how much respect I have for him. The last thing we want to do is insult the fans here or the Blue Jays. We had something we had to get done. We do it as a team and that’s the way we always do things. That’s probably the reason we’re good.

"Some of that is pretty personal. The Red Sox were unbelievable, as they always are. And I’m confident as we get to communicate with MLB and the Players’ Association, there will be better communication. In the meantime, the Red Sox really stepped up and for that, I was proud of everybody. I’m talking about the top, all the way to the bottom.

"Today’s game was certainly in jeopardy. We realize we never want to be disrespectful to anybody, especially 7,000 fans sitting out here, the Blue Jays over there. Because of the lack of communication, it got backed up into today and we everybody felt like they were put on the spot a little bit and we needed to resolve it before we went forward, and thankfully, we did. There was a lot of hard work by a lot of good people."

UPDATE 2 - 1:40PM - Red Sox spokeman John Blake confirmed it moments ago.

"The matter has been resolved. We're going to Japan."

UPDATE - 12:53PM - The Red Sox are back in the dugout and on the field. It's assumed that an agreement has been made - we'll keep you posted.

The game is scheduled to begin at 1:10PM. David Aardsma will start. Diasuke is pitching in a minor league game.


Joy of Sox gives us the latest on this story...

The issue has not been resolved and the Red Sox have not taken the field. The game was supposed to begin about 10 minutes ago.

ProJo Blog:

Jason Varitek just said the Red Sox are not going to play today's game until "MLB gets this straightened out." When asked if the club would be going to Japan, he replied: "We'll wait and see."

It has also been reported that MLB also reneged on a promise to allow family to travel with the players during the trip.

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Mike Lowell:

It's not just the coaches, it's the staff, the trainers, a lot of people are affected by this," said Lowell. "I'm so super proud of this team. When we put it to a vote it was unanimous, we're all in agreement that we're not going to put up with this.

Schilling:

It’s wrong, it’s wrong. It was part of the basic agreement when we talked about it last year. The coaching staff was part of the conversation, we all heard it. It’s not really surprising because the coaches and staff are people generally who have always been overlooked and undervalued.

Terry Francona:

We’re spending energy on something we don’t want to spend it on. I don’t understand it. I was embarrassed this morning. I had to tell them, "Hey, that money you may have already spent, go get it back." ... I did not have an off day yesterday. I had the phone glued to my ear because I was promised some answers and I haven’t even received a phone call. ... What I want to do this morning is get excited to play a baseball game and what I ended up doing is apologizing to the coaches and being humiliated.

Schilling:

Some of the things that have been promised to us have already been taken away. From the players' standpoint, we all felt the same way. This can't happen. ... They [MLB] wanted this trip to happen so badly, a lot of promises were made and they're falling by the wayside time and again. [The coaches being paid] is something we were adamant about at the time and we've reiterated it multiple times.

Thanks again to JoS.