When the Miami Marlins won on each of the first seven days in May, it marked the majors’ second longest winning streak of the season at that point. Texas had won eight in a row in April. The Marlins’ streak slashed Washington’s lead over them from 6 games to 3 ½. A lot of good it did them.

The Marlins got as close as three percentage points to the Nationals – that was on June 4 – but since then their season has deteriorated into a disaster.

From June 4 through last Saturday, their 15-31 record has been the National League’s third worst (only a game and a half better than Colorado’s 13-32), and they have tumbled 14 games from the still-leading Nationals.

As if the losing skid weren’t bad enough, it has prompted the re-emergence of the worst of the Marlins and their owner, Jeffrey Loria, repeating a pattern the Marlins have developed to perfection under Loria and one of his predecessors, H. Wayne Huizenga. The theme of the pattern is shedding high-priced players when the time, in the eyes of the myopic owner, is right.

Huizenga initiated the practice immediately after the Marlins won the 1997 World Series, and Loria repeated the demolition a year after the Marlins won the 2003 World Series. The Marlins have not won a third World Series, but Loria isn’t waiting for that event. He has concluded that the Marlins won’t come anywhere near winning it this season – or even making the playoffs – and began stripping the team last week.

“What a scam the team owners have pulled off,” a reader wrote in an e-mail. “They get public financing for a new stadium, sign a few free agents, sell tickets, and then bust it out.”

The reader had it exactly right except for one detail. There are no owners, only one owner, and Loria is the man who has perpetrated the scam the reader refers to.

It is not his first. He was the owner who two and a half years ago was the sole target of a rare joint action by Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association ordering the Marlins to make proper use of the many millions of dollars they receive in revenue sharing each year.

The humorous aspect of that episode was that Loria said he was investing the money in the new park, the one the Marlins built to attract fans whom they are now scamming by trading away good players.

By not jamming Marlins Park every night or day, South Florida fans are showing that they don’t trust Loria, and last week he justified their mistrust.

By trading Hanley Ramirez, Omar Infante and Anibal Sanchez and putting Josh Johnson on the market last week, the Marlins are insulting the fans and disrespecting them as they always have.

After the Marlins won the World Series in 1997, Huizenga ordered general manager Dave Dombrowski to dismantle the team. He knew he faced a hugely increased payroll and wanted no part of it. I’m a businessman, not a sportsman, he basically said.

After the 2003 World Series win, Loria waited a season – and subsequently bragged about it – before taking severe economic action and demolishing that team. Now Loria hasn’t waited for his team to win a World Series. The Marlins weren’t playing like a contender for the playoffs so Loria pulled the plug.

Marlins fans have become used to this boorish behavior, realizing that any hope they had that a new park would make a difference was wishful or foolish thinking.

With a couple of exceptions, new parks in recent years have served as magnets, drawing disinterested, disgruntled and just plain curious fans to see the local heroes. Of 10 parks that opened since the start of the 2000 season, five were more than 90 percent filled the first season, one was 87 percent filled, two others had people in more than 78 percent of the seats and two were just under 70 percent occupied.

The Marlins, through Saturday, had had fans buy 77 percent of the park’s seats, suggesting that many Miamians had not bought into Loria’s acquisition of his baseball version of art works – Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle, Carlos Zambrano, Heath Bell and Ozzie Guillen as well as the new park, the team’s new name and its new uniforms.

They understood very well, on the other hand, that Loria, the international art dealer, was again shedding payroll. Besides knowing art, Loria knows how to shed payroll. In trading Ramirez, for example, he saves about $37.25 million for the rest of this year and the next two years. If the Marlins succeed in trading Johnson by Tuesday’s 4 p.m. deadline, they would save about $18.6 million on his salary for this year and next.

One would think the Marlins would want to hold onto a pitcher of Johnson’s caliber, but they have seemed to be more interested in dumping money when the players earning that money are not producing playoff-bound wins.

There’s a comment on a Web site dealing with player salaries, Cot’s Baseball Contracts, that, I think, fairly captures Loria.

“Jeffrey Loria,” it says, “bought the Marlins for $158M in 2002. Under the purchase agreement, the sale price was reduced to $143 million when the team did not get a new stadium within five years.” And with no apparent intention to link that note with the next one, it does nevertheless, saying, “Forbes magazine valued the club at $450M in March, 2012.”

In case the link isn’t obvious, I see it as suggesting that Loria’s team is worth a lot more than he paid for it and that he is willing to spend to support it. Marlins fans deserve better. Now that the Marlins play in a new park, a large part of it publicly funded, what excuse can Loria have for not supporting the team properly?

He could argue that he has done that with his player acquisitions via free agency and trade, but the Marlins’ newcomers have performed like the old team members.

Jose Reyes, whose $106 million signing bumped Ramirez to third base, has had an unspectacular season, hitting .274 with 23 stolen bases. Mark Buehlre ($58 million) has a 9-9 record with a 3.31 earned run average. Heath Bell was given $27 million to be the closer, but he has squandered 6 saves in 25 chances and has a 2-5 record with a 5.25 e.r.a.

The Marlins obtained Carlos Lee from Houston July 4, but he has hit only one home run in 19 games.

Little has gone right for the Marlins this season. Loria decked them out in their fanciest duds, but the party to which they were headed cancelled their invitation and they were stuck staying at home. Their new home and new clothes might be soiled next year, but maybe they’ll find them a better fit.

If I could talk to Loria, I might be able to get some answers to questions that might help me and you understand what he is doing but he did not return telephone calls.

ANONYMOUS A’S ERUPT

The Oakland Athletics may not be playing moneyball any more, but they have been playing magic ball. Whether it’s general manager Billy Beane or manager Bob Melvin or someone else who is responsible, the Athletics have had a remarkable run toward the playoffs.

In the last seven weeks, the Athletics have won practically three games of every four, running off a 29-10 record and leaping from 9 games behind Texas to 3 ½ games behind. More critically in these wild (card) times, the A’s snatched the American League wild-card lead from the Angels last Saturday.

There’s plenty of time – two months – to sort out that stuff, but it’s the first good news the Athletics have experienced all season, given Commissioner Bud Selig’s silence on their desire to move to San Jose. In fact, at the rate of speed Selig is moving on their request, the A’s will probably be in the World Series before they are in San Jose.

Maybe not this year, though, because what team can expect to go that far with players who might not be household names in their own households. None of these starting players had as much as a year in the majors when the season began:

Left fielder Yoenis Cespedes, second baseman Jemilie Weeks, shortstop Eric Sogard, closer Ryan Cook, starting pitchers Tommy Milone, Jarrod Parker, A.G. Griffin, Travis Blackley. They make up four-fifths of the starting rotation, the closer, half of the infield and a third of the outfield, and the Athletics are storming through the American League.

ANOTHER MINAYA MAN

Just as so many of this season’s Mets players have done, Matt Harvey, the 23-year-old pitcher who made a sterling major league debut last Thursday, came out of the Mets’ minor league system that some narrow-minded critics said former general manager Omar Minaya didn’t build.

I have made this point before and if presented the opportunity will probably make it again because I believe in Minaya’s talent and value to an organization.

In his six years as the Mets’ general manager Minaya might have made some mistakes – what general manager doesn’t? – but one of them wasn’t leaving the organization without a functioning farm system. Examples of his and his aides’ work can be seen every day in the Mets’ lineup.

But Harvey may turn out to be Minaya’s finest legacy.

The Connecticut right-hander was Minaya’s last No. 1 selection in his six annual June drafts with the Mets. In Arizona last week Harvey pitched 5 1/3 shutout innings, allowing no runs and three hits and striking out 11.

Harvey was the seventh player chosen in that draft, and Minaya credited Rudy Terrasas, the amateur scouting director at the time, and Sandy Johnson, special assistant to the general manager, for making the choice.

“Our scouts really liked him,” Minaya said. “Whenever you get a guy like that, that big with a good delivery and velocity, you have to take him.”

Now the San Diego Padres’ senior vice president for baseball operations, Minaya recalled that Harvey threw his fastball between 94 and 97 miles an hour, had “a really good slider,” a good curveball and a changeup he was developing.

“He was not afraid to pitch inside,” Minaya said. “He had an attack mentality. He loved coming after hitters.”

The Mets, Minaya said, considered other players for their first choice, a middle infielder and a catcher, he recalled, but “Rudy and Sandy both really liked him and those guys are very good evaluators. They said we can’t pass up on a guy like that and he wasn’t far away.”

Harvey’s 106-pitch performance against the Diamondbacks didn’t surprise him, Minaya said, “because I knew he was a competitor and an aggressive kid. You can tell guys who are going to be special. And he was one of those.”

SWEEPSTAKES CANDIDATES

More candidates may be added to the list before Tuesday’s 4 p.m. non-waiver trading deadline, but five pitchers have been traded to contenders in the past week, and which one is most likely to help his new team achieve what it got him for?

The pitchers are one reliever, Brett Myers, now with the White Sox, and four starters, Francisco Liriano of the White Sox, Zack Greinke of the Angels, Wandy Rodriguez of the Pirates and Anabal Sanchez of the Tigers.

Myers could get the most opportunities to help and could play a big part in the White Sox effort to hold off the Tigers.

The White Sox and the Tigers will go at each other for a wild-card spot as well as the American League Central title.

Meanwhile, the change in the A.L. wild-card hierarchy is interesting. For much of the season, it appeared likely that the two A.L. wild cards would come from the East, but now that Oakland has insinuated itself into the wild-card race and the Orioles and the Rays are stumbling and the Red Sox bumbling, there could be openings in the A.L. contingent

Once upon a time, Washington was first in war, first in peace and last in the American League. These days Washington is first in the National League, and Davey Johnson is first in Washington.

Any manager who has a Washington baseball team in first place, whichever the league, has to be viewed in the nation’s capital as somebody special, more special than any officeholder or other politician.

“I’m enjoying the season,” Johnson said. “I’m enjoying the players.” But, he added in a long, wide-ranging telephone interview Friday, he doesn’t enjoy every aspect of his job and where he does it.

“It’s a pain in the neck flying into Dulles,” he said of the airport the Nationals use, “and driving to the ball park to get your car.”

At 69, the oldest manager in the major leagues, Johnson has an understandable gripe. But he doesn’t otherwise betray his age. The Nationals are the fifth team he has managed, and when Jim Riggleman unexpectedly resigned June 26 last season over contract differences, the Nationals didn’t hesitate in naming Johnson, who had been a front-office adviser for several years under general managers Jim Bowden and Mike Rizzo.

“I’ve learned a lot from him just watching what he does with players, the patience he has with players; he makes players comfortable,” said Bob Boone, the Nationals’ assistant general manager, who has been a major league manager himself. “Players reflect the attitude of their manager. He’s relaxed, calm, doesn’t get excited.”

Johnson had not managed since 2000 when he went to work for the Nationals.

“I wouldn’t say I wasn’t working,” Johnson said, citing his coaching and managing roles with Team USA in the World Baseball Classic and in five world championship tournaments and the Olympics and with the Netherlands international team.

“I didn’t look down on those jobs,” he said. “I thought they were great. I wouldn’t have changed that for managing in the big leagues, I loved managing kids. That was a real joy to me.”

Which is why Johnson is having so much fun managing Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, Ian Desmond, Danny Espinosa, Ryan Zimmerman, Ross Detwiler, Gio Gonzalez, Wilson Ramos, Jordan Zimmerman, Drew Storen, Tyler Clippard, Henry Rodriguez and Steve Lombardozzi, none of whom is older than 27.

How was Johnson in position for general manager Mike Rizzo to pluck for the job?

“Originally,” Johnson related, “Jim Bowden maybe five years ago told me he wanted me to scout some clubs in spring training. He gave me 1500 bucks or something. I kind of faded from that relationship as I was doing more U.S.A. baseball.

“When they hired Mike Rizzo, he wanted me to put a uniform on in spring training and be a consultant. I enjoyed that. I didn’t have any responsibility, just talk to players and watch them play.”

Johnson officially joined Rizzo Nov. 18, 2009, as senior adviser. “I liked the people Rizzo had in the scouting department,” Johnson said. Nineteen months later, “He wanted me to manage the club.

“I knew the system,” Johnson said. “I felt I knew the talent. I said I’d do it if he wanted me to. I liked the owners. They were in real estate and that’s where I put my money.”

One step remained before Johnson succeeded Riggleman. “I had to ask Susan,” he related, referring to his wife. “She said she knew I loved challenges so she was o.k. with it.”

Because Johnson had not managed a major league team since the Dodgers fired him after the 2000 season, a rumor arose that he had been blacklisted by one of his former employers.

“Not at all,” Johnson said but acknowledged, “After Peter Angelos, Marge Schott, Murdoch and company and Kevin Malone and company, it was a little more stressful. But in each case I tried to leave the club in better shape than I inherited it. When I was let go in L.A., I was pretty much burned out. I needed to be around my kids.”

The people Johnson mentioned were mostly owners he worked for – Schott in Cincinnati (1993-95), Angelos in Baltimore (1996-97), Rupert Murdoch and general manager Kevin Malone in Los Angeles (1999-00).

“I had a lot of people call me at that time wanting me to be a bench coach,” Johnson recalled, “but the traveling and being bench coach didn’t challenge me. I had numerous opportunities to be back in the big leagues.”

After the Dodgers’ dismissal, Johnson said he adopted a different view. “I told my wife after the L.A. thing, ‘Sweetheart, you’re going to go to work.’ She opened a women’s clothing boutique, and it became probably the most successful in central Florida.”

Now, however, it’s Davey’s turn again, and he is running a team that has been atop the National League East most of the season and every day for the past two months. The Nationals’ play has not surprised their manager.

“I said if we did the things we’re capable of we could contend or win,” Johnson said, adding, “It wasn’t a pipe dream. I wasn’t just blowing smoke.”

He came to his outlook, Johnson said, by the fact that “we played well against Philadelphia and Atlanta, the two teams ahead of us.” Last season the Nationals beat the Phillies 10 times in 18 games and split 9-9 with the Braves.

“I felt we had the makings of a decent pitching staff with young talent in the wings, Bryce Harper included. I definitely thought we’d be a contending team and if the young players played up to their potential we could win the division.”

The acquisition of two starting pitchers, Gio Gonzalez and Edwin Jackson, reinforced Johnson’s view, which was also built on his expectations from certain players.

“Baseball people look at talent,” he said. “I’ve had enough experience being with young players.”

Third baseman Ryan Zimmerman, he said, “is a great defender and hitter. We have a shortstop in Ian Desmond who forgot the kind of player he was. I talked to him and told him he had Barry Larkin type talent. He can steal, hit to all fields and I told him you have more power than Larkin. He’s had his ups and downs but now is playing up to his potential.”

Second baseman Espinosa, Johnson added, “is a great defender with a high ceiling offensively. We didn’t have Adam LaRoche all last year. You just have to have patience and let them play and stay out of the way.”

Johnson said he had the 19-year-old Harper making the team out of spring training, especially because he’s a left-handed hitter and the lineup needed a left-handed hitter. But they let the outfielder start the season in the minors because “we didn’t want to have to deal with Harper struggling early so we sent him back.”

The Nationals recalled Harper April 28, and he is hitting .270 in 73 games with 8 homers and 26 runs batted in.

The other notable National, Strasburg, began the season at the start, April 5, but he will end it before the end.

“He’s going to be shut down,” Johnson said. “That’s what we did last year with Jordan Zimmerman.”

Zimmerman, in his first full season and a year and a half past elbow surgery, made 26 starts and pitched 161 1/3 innings before being shut down for the final month. Strasburg, who had elbow surgery in September 2010, has started 19 games and pitched 110 1/3 innings.

Rizzo has said he will decide when to end the 24-year-old right-hander’s season, and he will end it even with the Nationals in the pennant race. He has a 10-4 record and a 2.85 earned run average.

“It’s out of my hands; I don’t have control over it,” Johnson said. “We’ll deal with it when it comes up. I’m an Army brat. I follow the chain of command. We’ll deal with that just like we’ve dealt with the loss of Jayson Werth and Drew Storen.”

The difference with the loss of Strasburg is the Nationals will be so much closer to winning the N.L. East title, and his absence could undermine their effort.

“Regardless of what happens I have high expectations for this ball club,” the manager said. “I’ll be disappointed if we don’t carry this through right to the end.”

Johnson said people constantly ask him if he plans to continue managing.

“I have a saying,” he said. “You make a decision after the last pitch is thrown and the last out is made, hopefully after the World Series. Then you sit down and think about the next day and see how you would best be served. It has no bearing on what happens today or what you do next February.”

In this instance, though, Johnson contradicted himself.

“People say what are you going to do next year,” he said. “I say I’m a consultant next year. As soon as it’s over I’m on a consulting contract so I know I’m going to be employed. I’m comfortable with that.”

Then he thought for a second and added, “If we don’t play well, I might get fired.”

RETURN TO MAJOR LEAGUE DUTY
Davey Johnson is one of three current major league managers who had not managed in the majors for nine years or more before last year or this. Their return has produced mixed results, and those results, interestingly, mirror the kind of success or lack thereof they achieved in their previous tenures.

Besides Johnson, the managers are Terry Collins of the New York Mets and Bobby Valentine of the Boston Red Sox. Johnson has the Nationals surprisingly in first place, Collins has the Mets surprisingly in the wild-card race and Valentine, not surprisingly, has created more controversy than success.

Valentine, who kept in practice between major league jobs by managing in Japan for six years, has had help in relegating the Red Sox to a scramble to avoid last place instead of keeping up with their archrival New York Yankees in the upper stratosphere of the American League East. The front office, led by president Larry Lucchino, has contributed, as have injuries.

But too much emphasis can’t be placed on injuries. Every team has them, and the best teams overcome them. The Yankees, for example, have the biggest division lead despite having lost closer Mariano Rivera for the season and starting pitchers Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia and left fielder Brett Gardner for substantial time.

The Nationals, too, have endured significant injuries. Closer Drew Storen missed the entire season until recently, and others have missed parts of the season: Jayson Werth, Michael Morse, Xavier Nady, Mark DeRosa, Wilson Ramos and Chien-Ming Wang.

Of the three managers re-employed in the majors, Collins returned after the longest absence, 11 years and 211 days. Johnson was next at 10 years and 269 days. Valentine returned after an absence of 9 years, 189 days.

Valentine, however, gained another benefit from his hiring by a major league club. By managing 95 games this season (through Saturday), Valentine has managed 2,284 major league games without finishing in first place. Only Jimmy Dykes managed more games without finishing in first place – 2,962.

UNION VS. UNION, BASEBALL VERSION

The baseball players’ union finds itself in a peculiar position. The union is one of the sponsors and producers of the World Baseball Classic, which is in the planning stages for its third event, and the Japanese players, winners of the first two classics, are threatening to boycott this one.

The Japanese players’ union wants a larger share of the proceeds from sponsorship and merchandise revenue.

In a statement quoted by the Associated Press, Takahiro Arai, chairman of the players’ union, said: ” We made our demands to the organizers a year and half ago, but we have yet to get a response, and since it appears one is not coming we are forced to take this stance.”

Michael Weiner, head of The Major League Baseball Players Association, acknowledged in a telephone interview that “it is an unusual situation” but said, “We know there have been discussions going on with them for a while. We believe we’ve been and continue to be fair with all the participants in the W.B.C. Our expectations are that everyone is going to play, but we know the Japanese players have been less than satisfied.”

Weiner said union lawyers and Major League Baseball officials have held discussions with the Japanese union and more talks will take place.

Qualifying rounds for the 16-team tournament will be held in September and November with the Classic itself scheduled for next March.

One of the qualifying rounds will be held in September in Jupiter, Fla. That group includes Israel, which is competing for the first time and will be hampered by the timing of its games.

The Israeli team, which is being managed by Brad Ausmus, the former major league catcher, was hoping to use some Jewish major league players, but they will still be playing for their major league teams and will be unavailable for the qualifying round.

Those players, if they want, would be available to play in the Classic, but Israel’s chances of winning in the qualifying round will be greatly reduced without them.

Maybe Sandy Koufax would be available for a game in September.

A team – no, make that a platoon – of psychiatrists could have a field day with Bobby Valentine. They could make a career of analyzing him and his bizarre behavior.

When the Boston Red Sox hired Valentine as their manager last December after disgracefully firing Terry Francona, some fans and members of the news media asked “can Valentine change?”

The point of the question was that Valentine had acted so bizarrely in his previous managerial jobs in Texas and New York that people wondered if they would see the same old Bobby V. or a different, more mature and human and dignified Valentine, who could treat the Red Sox with intelligence and class.

Valentine didn’t leave the questioners in suspense long. Less than two weeks into the season, he pulled out one of his favorite old tricks and publicly questioned one of his veteran players.

The manager questioned Kevin Youkilis’ desire, criticizing one of the fans’ favorite players.

“I don’t think he’s as physically or emotionally into the game as he has been in the past for some reason,” Valentine said in a television interview.

Youkilis said Valentine’s comment confused him, and Valentine subsequently said, after the Red Sox traded him to the Chicago White Sox, that Youkilis was at fault for not letting their differences die.

“I think the comment I made early, he made a big issue out of, and I don’t think he ever wanted to get over it,” Valentine told Boston reporters before the Red Sox hosted the White Sox in a weekend series.

So let’s try to understand this Valentine version of reasoning.

Valentine makes an unprovoked and unnecessary comment about a player, and the player is supposed to accept it without retort. Furthermore, the player should just forget the manager made the comment and never bring it up.

That’s the way Valentine would like it, but that’s not the way the world works, especially the sports world, where professional athletes feel empowered to speak when not spoken to. And does Valentine really think anyone is going to believe that the fault for any continuing differences between Valentine and Youkilis lies with Youkilis?

One issue that Valentine has not raised, to his credit, but that might have played a significant part in the Youkilis scenario is the beer-and-fried-chicken flap of post-season disclosure.

Before he was traded June 24, Youkilis was outed as being the primary suspect as the source of the Boston Globe story. The Globe naturally has not identified Youkilis as such but has basically confirmed it by omitting any mention of the source in the face of other reports.

It’s not known if the incident influenced Valentine’s April remark about Youkilis. Valentine hasn’t acknowledged knowing about Youkilis being the suspected source. When ESPNBoston asked Valentine if he knew Youkilis had been accused of being the source, it said he replied vaguely.

“I don’t know if I heard any of that stuff,” he said.

The best I can say for that answer is it’s a good evasion of answering the question honestly. I don’t think it was an honest answer because I don’t see any way the Red Sox could hire a new manager and not alert him to the clubhouse beer-and-fried-chicken fiasco that led to one of the worst September collapses in baseball history.

But if somehow Larry Lucchino and his fellow executives overlooked that item in their interview with the prospective manager, you can be certain that Valentine learned what he needed to know from holdover coaches, players or clubhouse attendants.

And while Valentine was learning about the involvement of Josh Beckett and his beer-guzzling and chicken-munching compatriots, he was also learning about the suspected role of Youkilis in their outing.

The question that arises from what Valentine presumably knew is did he use what he knew in forming his criticism of Youkilis in April? That we don’t know, but knowing Valentine, one could easily conclude that he did use it, knowing that it would help facilitate Youkilis’ departure.

Valentine wanted Youkilis gone to eliminate the likelihood of clubhouse strife and distraction. By questioning Youkilis’ desire, Valentine was making it easier for general manager Ben Cherington to trade the popular player.

For now, Youkilis has benefited from the trade (as have the White Sox), whether he wanted it or not. With the White Sox, he has regenerated his season, driving in 18 runs in 19 games after knocking in 14 runs in 42 Red Sox games.

What makes it even better for Youkilis is he is producing offensively for his new team while being paid primarily by his old team. To induce the White Sox to make the deal, the Red Sox agreed to pay $5.6 million of the $8.1 million left in Youkilis’ contract.

There is a larger issue in the Youkilis matter that is more philosophical than balls and strikes.

In being banished by the only team he had played for in his eight-year career, Youkilis seems to come out smelling as the bad guy for allegedly squealing on the beer-and-chicken guys. But should he be viewed as a rat?

The old clubhouse cautionary warning says “what you see here, what you hear here, stays here.” It’s also not considered proper to tell tales on your teammates.

But who is wrong here? The guys who committed the acts or the guy who told about the guys who committed the acts? If Beckett and pals created an environment that helped produce the September swoon, was it wrong for Youkilis or anyone else to disclose their role?

Whistle blowers aren’t popular in any industry and are often treated with disdain, but they serve a valuable purpose. If Youkilis or someone else had blown the whistle when the beer and fried chicken first made an appearance in the Boston clubhouse, maybe the Red Sox could have created a September song instead of a September swoon.

But that’s old news, and the Red Sox have moved on. They have a new manager and a double-digit number in the games-behind column, and they have no reason to fear another September swoon.

The way they’re playing under Valentine, he’ll be able to cater beer-and-chicken parties at Fenway Park every night in September. The beer and the chicken, of course, will come from Bobby V’s Sports Gallery Café in Stamford , Conn.