When today's front page of Boston.com mentioned "big-toothed agents" in a story about the spate of spy movies on tap for the rest of the year, I would like to think they were getting a dig in at Ben "Dr. Teeth" Affleck. But I know that they were merely referencing Austin Power's outsized choppers.

Which is too bad. Affleck's got some genetically-altered, freak nuclear accident-fueled teeth.

Speaking of him, have you heard about his spat with some of the Red Sox players? When the Sox were in Toronto, Affleck made an appearance in the booth (being in Toronto to hype The Sum of All Fears and being, one would think, a Sox fan). I saw him in the booth with Sean McDonough and Jerry Remy; the IMDB blurb about this made it out to be a national crew, but I don't think Sox-Jays were on nationally at any point.

Anyway, Affleck starts making disparaging remarks about Lou Merloni, a utility infielder who has been on the Boston-Pawtucket bus a lot in his career. The remarks centered on things Merloni said (I think last year) about how getting sent up and down so much "made a mockery of his career" or something along those lines. Affleck seemed to think that Merloni's career wasn't of the level where it could be mocked.

Affleck apparently also threw some digs at Trot Nixon, the Sox' fairly solid right fielder, whose been in a slump since an illness a few weeks ago.

General clubhouse response focused on just the right thing: Affleck's "acting" ability. Kind of hard for someone whose resume includes Pearl Harbor, Reindeer Games, and all that other crap to talk about other people performing below average, isn't it?

All in all a tempest in a tea pot, but it was nice to see Nixon note that Matt Damon "made" Affleck. Pretty much true, too; without Damon, Affleck would probably still be scraping up roles from Kevin Smith (which isn't so bad in itself, I suppose).