Nomar Didn't Need Title to Capture Boston's Heart

The 14-year-old hidden away in a corner of my brain is counting down the days to Nomar Garciaparra's Hall of Fame induction ceremony, unable to envision a scenario where he doesn't become an all-time great.

He can not fathom Garciaparra playing his home games at Wrigley Field or Chavez Ravine, much less imagine him as a reserve infielder, pinch-hitter or part of a first base platoon.

He also can't imagine the Red Sox winning the World Series, especially with an Expos castoff starting at shortstop.

He can, at least, wrap his head around what took place in Fort Myers, Fla., Wednesday -- Nomar throwing out the first pitch before a cheering crowd at a spring training game after retiring as a Red Sox.

Baseball is a crazy game. Major leaguers are fond of reminding you of that fact routinely. It's one of those Bull Durham cliches, only there's more truth to it than, say, making sure to take things one day at a time.

Garciaparra's winding road from 1997 AL Rookie of the Year to retirement this week was crazy, all right.



Share The last few years haven't been so sweet for Nomar. There were all the injuries, first and foremost -- a wrist injury in 2001 that probably permanently altered the course of his playing career, the 2004 Achilles' tendon injury that hampered him so much GM Theo Epstein had no choice but to replace him with the steadier (if unspectacular) Orlando Cabrera at the trade deadline, the painful-to-watch torn groin in 2005 that caused him to miss three months with the Cubs, and a litany of bumps, knocks and bruises thereafter.

There was his acrimonious departure from Boston. It seemed long forgotten last July when Garciaparra returned to Fenway Park with the A's and was given a lengthy standing ovation from the crowd, but his divorce from the Red Sox was ugly.

Really ugly.

It began in December 2003 after the new front office team in Boston and Garciaparra couldn't come to terms on an extension that would pay him in the range of his All-Star teammates Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez. It carried on through an open flirtation with then-Rangers shortstop Alex Rodriguez, which Nomar's agent Arn Tellem called "a slap in the face," a war of words between Tellem and Red Sox management and constant questions from the Boston media about Garciaparra's mental state before Epstein pulled the trigger on the Cabrera swap.

All of that later stuff wouldn't have been so disconcerting to Red Sox fans if it wasn't for Nomar's meteoric rise to rock star status/regional battle cry (Nomahhh!).

Garciaparra was part of the Holy Trinity of Shortstops in the late 1990s along with A-Rod and Derek Jeter. Grouping him with those two might seem odd if you weren't paying close attention to Fenway Park before 2000. Jeter has the championships -- a modern day Joe DiMaggio to Garciaparra's Ted Williams. A-Rod has the hardware and riches, and maybe the records someday too.

But Garciaparra was right there with those two for more than a sliver in time.

From 1997-2000, he dwarfed Jeter offensively, hitting more home runs and doubles, driving in more runs and slugging almost 100 points higher than his Yankees counterpart. A-Rod had more homers and RBI over that same stretch, but Garciaparra held the edge in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging.

He did it with a quirky approach and much less in the way of lineup help than Jeter or A-Rod had.

You know the toe-tapping, the obsessive-compulsive strapping and unstrapping of his batting gloves and the fidgeting in the batter's box, but what also set him apart was this almost completely pure approach to hitting. Most of the time, Nomar stepped in and swung. That simple.

Don't conflate pure with superior. Nomar's swing-first, ask-questions-later style isn't a coaching point for little leaguers, but it does hearken back to baseball's 19th century roots, when pitchers threw underhand and a walk wasn't issued until after nine balls. The point was to get the ball in play, quickly, and Garciaparra excelled at that.

So no, Nomar wasn't exactly a Bill James prototype. Twenty-one percent of his career plate appearances ended after the first pitch, according to Baseball-Reference.com.

That might not be a smart approach to hitting, but it was much more entertaining to watch the free-swinging Garciaparra step up to the plate, swing early in the count and rope the ball around Fenway than it is to watch Kevin Youkilis grind out a 12-pitch walk.

Youkilis might be the player you build around, the guy you bet on for long-term success, but he'll never be the marvel Nomar was then.

Which is a long way of saying Nomar was special.

Red Sox fans have it good now. They're 1a to the Yankees, with an enormous payroll, two world championships in the last six seasons and a front office as bright as they come.

Nomar's two best seasons came in 1999 and 2000 -- leaner times for Boston fans. He won batting titles in both years, the first time a right-handed hitter accomplished that feat in consecutive seasons since DiMaggio. Simultaneously, his teammate Pedro Martinez was blowing away American League hitters in historic fashion, going 41-10 with a 1.90 ERA and 597 strikeouts on the way to consecutive AL Cy Young Awards.

The titles are wonderful, of course. But singular talents like Pedro and Nomar come along ever so rarely. Before Red Sox Nation, the Bloody Sock and Green Monster seats, Boston had those two.

Maybe grander triumphs achieved since Nomar left, or the angst that surrounded the club when he was around have obscured what he meant to Red Sox fans.

But Boston fans had it pretty good then, too.