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“I promised myself I wouldn’t wish for Jacoby Ellsbury to get hurt.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin joined Word of Mouth’s Virginia Prescott at the Music Hall in Portsmouth for Writers on a New England Stage. Goodwin was there Wednesday to talk about her best-selling book, “The Bully Pulpit: Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the Golden Age of Journalism.”

But the first question for the famously rabid baseball fan was what she made of Red Sox centerfielder and lead-off hitter Jacoby Ellsbury jumping to the New York Yankees. The author of “Wait Till Next Year” and “Team of Rivals” said that, in light of the team's championship run in 2013, she's not willing to second guess the decision to let him go.

"You’ve got to trust that the owners and the general manger made the right decisions these last two years when they unloaded those huge contracts: Crawford and Gonzalez. And even though I would have loved to have kept Jacoby here, I think, hopefully they know what they are doing and I trust them after this year.

"I keep reading in the newspapers, 'Well, he’s injury prone, maybe something will happen,' and I’ve promised myself that I won’t wish for that because in my first holy confession in the Catholic Church, I had to admit that I wished that various New York Yankees players -- while I was a Brooklyn Dodger fan – would break wrists arms and ankles so that the Dodgers would win their first World Series.

"And I remember the priest said, “How often do you make these horrible wishes?” and I had to admit every night when I said my prayers, so there is no way that I am praying that Jacoby Ellsbury gets injured – sort of." 

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