Viewed in the here and now, this weekend's blockbuster deal between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers is a giant 'get out of jail free' card for the team on the east coast. With the team's 2012 season sunk by poor play and a fractured clubhouse, GM Ben Cherington has a chance to climb out from under the weight of three giant contracts handed out by his predecessor and plan for a "first principles" future that suddenly includes the term "financial flexibility." The only visible cost of the deal at the moment is a couple more years of Adrian Gonzalez's prime — which could indeed be significant — and the $12.5 million they'll be sending the Los Angeles Yankee s (sic) to help pay the quarter-billion's worth of contracts that are headed west. But looking forward, you have to wonder if that financial flexibility will mean anything given the atmosphere that's seeing the trio of Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and Carl Crawford (plus Nick Punto, why won't anyone think of poor Nick Punto?) ushered out of town in the most unceremonious way possible. That possibility of Beantown being treated like a no-entry zone crystallized itself on Saturday morning after seeing the cover...