Now batting for the Red Sox, #5, Nomahh, Garcia-Parraaaaaa

Nomar Garciaparra is the greatest shortstop I have ever seen pull on a Red Sox uniform.  While that may seem like hyperbole to some, I’ll stand by it til my dying day.  If you weren’t a kid growing up in Boston during the 90s, you may not understand the profound impact Nomar-mania had on your formative years.  I wore #5 from Little League through my senior year of high school, and I had to fight for it every time they handed out jerseys.  I can vividly remember Little League coaches yelling at us out of exasperation, as every infielder would round ground-balls and slingshot the ball across the diamond in a sidearm fashion, emulating our icon Nomar’s signature play at shortstop, a technique that is not meant for novice ballplayers.  Playing whiffle ball in the backyard, kids would tap their toes in the batters box and fidget with imaginary batting gloves in true Nomar fashion.  Despite playing in an era with other greats such as Pedro, Manny Ramirez, Mo Vaughn, and Big Papi, I’d be willing to bet that if you went and asked every 30-something year old in the Greater Boston Area which player truly made them fall in love with baseball, they’d answer with one word, albeit overly exaggerated and pronounced without “R”’s: Nomahhhhhhhhhh.

He truly took the region by storm. Despite being the 12th overall selection in the first round of the 1994 draft, Nomar arrived in the big leagues without much fanfare at the conclusion of the 1996 season, making his debut on August 31, 1996. His minor league career was mostly nondescript. During his only full minor-league season in 1995, Nomar hit .267 for Double-A Trenton, while playing against competition three years his senior. After hitting to the tune of a 1.120 OPS during an injury-plagued 43 games at Triple-A Pawtucket in 1996, Nomar got the call to the bigs for the stretch run. He finished his first stint in the big leagues with a .743 OPS while contributing 4 home runs and 16 RBI, playing 22 games at shortstop for the third place Red Sox in September.

It was the next season when Nomar truly came into his own and began a four year run of greatness at the shortstop position that few have ever been able to match. While winning Rookie of the Year in 1997, Nomar hit .306 with a .875 OPS. Outstanding numbers for a shortstop. He would go on to improve upon each of those statistics in each of the next three seasons, culminating in a historic 2000 season where Nomar would hit .372 with a 1.033 OPS. Over those 4 seasons, Nomar would accumulate over 27 WAR and three All-Star appearances (somehow he did not make the 1998 All-Star team despite hitting .323 with 35 home runs and 122 RBI, generating 7.1 WAR and a second place MVP finish). Nomar was on a Hall-of-Fame trajectory through 4 seasons in the majors and entering Spring Training for the 2001 season, Boston was waiting with bated breath for their prodigal son to lead them to promised land and end the Curse of the Bambino. A balky wrist had other plans.

Reportedly, Nomar had mild to moderate wrist pain throughout the 1999 and 2000 seasons which he was able to deal with through anti-inflammatories and rehab. However, after a supposedly normal workout during Spring Training 2001, Nomar awoke the next morning with a wrist so inflamed and swollen and he could not move it in any fashion. Nomar and the Red Sox training staff were able to trace the original source of the injury back to a hit by pitch all the way back in the 1999 season. Conservative treatment failed and Nomar underwent extensive surgery to repair a split tendon. As a result, he only appeared in 21 games during the 2001 season, and was never the same after.

The spark was gone. The anticipation before every at-bat was gone. The Hall-of Fame resume dwindled before our eyes. Don’t get me wrong, post-2001 Nomar was still a fine player. He’d comeback to earn All-Star appearances in both 2002 and 2003 while hitting above .300 in each season… but something was just different. He was no longer invincible. He was no longer immortal. Other young shortstops such as Tejada began to supplant his spot in the hierarchy among the game’s greats at the position.

2003 was Nomar’s last true season as a member of the Red Sox and he made it a good one. Playing in 156 games, a career high, Nomar contributed 28 home runs and 105 RBI with a 121 OPS+. The Red Sox were one fateful swing from Aaron Boone away from reaching the World Series. Alas, Boone took Tim Wakefield deep into the October night and it wasn’t to be.

Then came the 2003-2004 off-season. The very off-season in which the Red Sox dove deep into negotiations to acquire Alex Rodriguez. This drove a deadly, irreparable stake into the relations between Nomar and upper level management for the Red Sox. A new regime, led by young gun GM Theo Epstein seeking to make his mark on the franchise, believed that Nomar was on the decline, particularly defensively, and didn’t foresee Nomar as a major part of the organizations future plans. Between this well known philosophy and the heavily publicized trade talks for Rodriguez, Nomar was deeply offended, and rejected a contract offer ahead of his final season prior to free agency. Relations between club and player failed to improve as the season began, and to make matters worse, Nomar began to suffer what would become chronic tendinous issues which would plague him for the remainder of his professional career. Due to recurrent Achilles Tendon issues, Nomar would only appear in 38 games for the Red Sox in 2004 prior to being traded to the Cubs at the trade deadline. I was distraught. Truly, I’m not even joking, I think I cried multiple times that day.

While he would get a ring for his half-season with the Sox in 2004, it wasn’t the culmination of the journey that many were expecting. The prodigal son who was supposed to lead the snake-bitten franchise to glory never materialized for a host of reasons. Nomar would go on to play five more seasons for the cubs, dodgers, and athletics after the trade, making one more All-Star appearance during that time. Largely though, it was a sad end to a once supremely promising career, heavily marked by injuries. While he’d continue to hit for average throughout this time, the once fearsome hitter was a shell of himself; Nomar only reached the 20 HR plateau once more in his career after leaving Boston, and would only go on to play 425 games in the majors over the course of his five post-Boston seasons. Oh what could have been. Injuries robbed the baseballing world of what appeared to be an elite shortstop career in the making.