The Junk in Jonathan Papelbon’s Trunk

In the fall of last year, Red Sox Nation learned a lot about Jonathan Papelbon. We discovered that his lights-out pitching could withstand the pressure of the postseason. We laughed as he danced a merry jig to the sounds of the Dropkick Murphys. But most importantly, we learned Papelbon has quite the shapely derrière.

Which is why we’re disappointed Dunkin’ Donuts used a stunt butt in a new ad featuring the Sox closer.

It’s tantamount to calling in a body double for a rear shot of Jennifer Lopez. It just shouldn’t be done. But it was.

“We actually did use a body double for some of that,” [Northeast director of field marketing Doug] Koval said. “We were joking that the commercials are based around all these butt slaps, and (Red Sox manager) Terry Francona would never approve of us slapping his butt as many times as we did.”

The butt they called in looks nothing like Papelbon’s callipygian ass. Couldn’t Hill Holliday have sprung for a panel of Papelbon followers to evaluate the accuracy of the stunt butt?

Despite our problems with the body double, the promotion is a pretty good one. Every time the Red Sox win a game, you can get a free iced coffee or iced tea when you buy a sandwich or pizza (through June, 24). Since we’ve become addicted to those quick and filling sandwiches, our butts are filling out just as nicely as Papelbon’s.