Filed Under » Boston Red Sox

These are busy times at the KFC franchise on Palm Beach Avenue in Fort Myers, Florida. Boston Red Sox pitcher and catchers are on their way to spring training in the town and coming soon behind them will be the team's position players. The restaurant is hiring new staffers and training them up in preparation for the coming rush.

"Late February through the end of the March is by far our busiest time," said KFC franchise manager Dale Dedmond. "And it's all thanks to the lazy, gluttonous pig-men of the Boston Red Sox who love our food so much."

Fort Myers has three KFC franchises, but the Palm Beach Avenue location gets the only boost in sales because "the players are obviously too lazy to go to any other KFC than the one that is the absolute closest, which is luckily mine," says Dedmond. "They roll up on their Rascal scooters and we just hand buckets of fried chicken to them out the door and off they go, bones trailing behind them."

The Boston Red Sox made the biggest signing of the offseason so far today by signing former Milwaukee Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder to an 8-year, $250 million contract.

"Prince is 27 and just entering his prime, so we feel we have locked up a powerful bat at the shortstop position for many years into the future," said Boston general manager Ben Cherington. "There isn't another shortstop in the league who can match Prince's production."

Fielder has averaged 38 home runs and 107 RBI in his six full seasons in the majors and has a career .282 batting average and .930 OPS. Cherington also pointed to Fielder's defense as a bonus.

"No offense to Marco Scutaro, who has been a professional for us at shortstop the last two seasons, but he made 33 errors combined in 2010 and 2011," the new Red Sox GM said. "Prince only made 19. So any perceptions out there that this is a huge downgrade in team defense couldn't be more absurd."

Theo Epstein was introduced as the new Chicago Cubs general manager on Tuesday and immediately went to work. Unfortunately, his first trade offer — one he admits "I had kind of staked everything on" — was turned down.

The deal, all of the Chicago Cubs players in return for all of the Boston Red Sox players, was not accepted by new Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington.

"I don't want to panic anyone, but with this trade not happening, we're going to suck for a long time, if not forever," said Epstein. "My expertise is more in the area of running really talented teams. Without those Red Sox players, I'm kind of out of my element. My rebuilding effort was based on getting Jacoby Ellsbury, Adrian Gonzalez and all of their pitchers except John Lackey."