BOSTON – Let’s start with this: I never said that anybody should boo Nomar Garciaparra, nor did I ever say that he would get booed at Fenway Park on Monday night.

The 35-year-old shortstop with the distinguished (okay, ginormous) honker and the propensity to wildly swing at first pitch fastballs was returning to Fenway Park for the first time since being traded away back in 2004, and the tenor of Garciaparra’s reception at the Fens was the subject of wild speculation.

Would he get booed as if he were wearing Yankee Pinstripes? Would he be the subject of wild adulation and standing ovations saved for only the Favorite Sons and Daughters of Red Sox Nation? Would it be somewhere in-between with a milquetoast reaction for a broken-down, once-great player that was now playing out the string for a mediocre Oakland Athletics team?

I was co-hosting the Dale and Holley Show on 850 WEEI on Monday morning/afternoon and posed that question, and further stated that – were I one of the cash-carrying Red Sox fans lounging in the bleachers for Monday night’s game – I’d give the two-time batting champion some lukewarm “Welcome Back” clapping upon his return.

Nothing too over-the-top with excitement and nothing too vitriolic, but instead something polite and in the middle that matched the ambivalent nature of a once-golden baseball God coming back to Boston in the twilight of his career as a mere mortal.

As it turned out, Garciaparra stepped up to the plate in the top of the second inning and received a warm, cathartic standing ovation that lasted for 72 seconds and washed away all of the negative vibes. Garciaparra ended up going 2-for-4 and knocked in a run out of the six spot in Oakland’s lineup and helped lead to a 6-0 win over the Sox at the Fens – a game that will be long forgotten save for the thunderous, decisive welcome that the prodigal baseball son received upon his return to Boston.

“I never stopped appreciated playing in this city,” said Garciaparra in a meeting with reporters prior to Monday night’s win. “I tell people you'll be okay (in Boston) as long as you give everything you got.

“I was traded on the road and never got to say 'thank you’. The minute I put that uniform on, I always dreamed I would begin my career in a Boston uniform and end it in a Boston uniform. I still have that dream (of ending career in Boston uniform). The only difference is I wasn't supposed to put another uniform on.”

Garciaparra had some great moments with a Boston uniform on, and there’s no doubt that he was an incredibly special player during his first seven seasons in Boston. There was the American League Rookie of the Year honors and the two batting titles, and the .372 batting average and 30-game hitting streak. There were the five All-Star appearances and the 1998 season that placed him second in the AL MVP voting that year.

Garciaparra was a bright light on some pretty lackluster teams early in his career and he was a dominant force during the transition years between Mo Vaughn/Roger Clemens and Manny Ramirez/Pedro Martinez, but the final memories of Nomar weren’t good ones for Boston.

The shortstop never signed a hefty four-year extension with the Sox that had been on the table at one point and his ever-delicate feelings were hurt when he heard himself mentioned in trade rumors prior to the 2004 season. A mysterious Achilles injury washed away much of a 2004 campaign that would eventually see the Red Sox capture the elusive World Series title, and the quirky infielder was experiencing more and more difficulty living within the fishbowl atmosphere that comes along with playing pro baseball in Boston.

The final nail in the coffin: An early July series against the New York Yankees at the “Old” Stadium that saw Garciaparra on the bench with an injury, and represented a real midpoint for that particular chapter of the Sox/Yankees rivalry. It was the deciding game of a three-game set and Yanks shortstop Derek Jeter – a player that Garciaparra was always linked to during his time in Boston – memorably crashed head first into the stands to snare a foul pop-up that seemed destined for souvenir status.

The footage still lives from that game – and it now serves as evidence as Garciaparra sat hunched on the bench and sulked while the rest of his teammates were up and standing on the dugout steps trying to push their baseball team to an improbably victory in enemy territory.

Nomar wouldn’t play that night against the Yankees in a game that Boston eventually lost (and a game that I covered and still contend was the greatest regular season baseball game I’ve ever seen), and he effectively didn’t want to play in Boston anymore.
He told Red Sox ownership that he felt like he was playing three games every night in Boston – the media availability period before the game, the actual baseball game and then another grueling session with the media following the game – and that was simply too much for him.

The Sox attempted to address Garciaparra’s concerns as best they could, but eventually the right-handed hitting infielder with the sweet stroke was identified as part of a “fatal flaw” that needed fixing on that 2004 band of Idiots.

In short: Garciaparra didn’t want to be in Boston anymore, didn’t want to deal with the current ownership/management group that’s still in place now and didn’t want to endure the pressure of being a Red Sox player in a baseball-crazed city. He had to be dealt away from Fenway, and Sox GM Theo Epstein didn’t waste much time pulling the trigger.

Since Garciaparra never bothered to stay around long enough to be a part of the 2004 World Series team – due to the unhappiness and discomfort in Boston that were clearly more important than sticking it out with his teammates – his legacy in Boston never really felt quite complete following his departure.

There was something missing, and it didn’t seem fitting to drown the man in adulation on Monday night when he used every bit of influence to blow the Red Sox pop-stand back in 2004. Yet after winning a pair of World Series titles and watching many more superstars come and go since the end of the Nomar Era, the fans opened up their hearts one more time for their beloved No. 5 on an otherwise anonymous Monday night.

While it’s true that the softened hearts of this generation’s Red Sox fans simply aren’t the same as the hard-edged, scraggly ones that lived through ritualistic heartbreak each and every autumn, it also makes for some overwhelming baseball moments like Monday’s Garciaparra love-fest.

And that’s not such a bad thing after all. Even if it proved me wrong and gave Garciaparra the chance to finally say his toe-tapping, glove-adjusting, step-counting goodbyes.

 

What did you think of this article?

Liked
Disliked
No Opinion