Nomah!

It was announced earlier today that Nomar Garciaparra will sign a one-day, minor league contract with the Red Sox this afternoon and then immediately retire so he can go out as a Red Sox (we'll get to that detail in a second). With Nomar announcing his retirement it seems like a good time to reflect on the career of the man whose career I probably saw a higher percentage of than any other player in Red Sox history [Editor's note: Admittedly, it is still a pretty low number. When Paul Pierce retires you will need a snack and a bathroom break to make it through the 50,000 words I will have written].

Nomar was arguably the second biggest star of the Red Sox at the time I started following baseball more seriously. He was decidedly behind Mo Vaughn, but when Mo left for the Mets, Nomar had the stage all to himself and he ran with it to be just as popular among non-baseball-loving Bostonians as he was with the die-hards. I remember my sister was working at Wellesley at the time and one of her students wanted to buy the now-infamous shirtless SI cover off of me for twice the normal price because she couldn't find one in the stores. Still, right up until his 2001 wrist injury, he kept up the performance on the field. If he was a star off the field and a dud on it, he never would have lasted in Boston for as long as he did. Everybody who was a Red Sox fan and went to a batting cage between 1996-2004 did the Nomar Garciaparra pre-swing ritual of adjusting batting gloves and tapping their toes before getting ready to hit. Nomar really seemed like the perfect franchise guy - he never got into trouble off the field, he sat and talked hitting with Ted Williams, he was a home-grown talent and he seemed to care about being a Red Sox. That is why every Sox fan dug in their heels about him when the discussion of "Who is the best shortstop among Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Nomar Garciaparra?" came up. And, sure, it seems fairly absurd to think about that being a real debate in hindsight, but at the time it was a guaranteed way to kill 30 minutes before everyone threw up their hands and walked out without a single opinion being changed. He might not have been as good as A-Rod and Jeter, but dammit, he was our guy. I remember when Nomar came back for his first Fenway appearance almost five seasons after being traded and some ESPN talking heads being shocked, shocked, that Nomar got such a prolonged standing ovation. I remember writing that those guys were idiots. Nomar will always have a special place in Red Sox lore. So, enjoy retirement #5 - don't be a stranger around the ballpark.

-Those words aside, I have never understood the athlete tradition of signing a one-day contract just so you can retire as a member of a specific team. Does this ever come up? Has anyone ever been sitting around discussing great players and debated who they were under contract with when they retired, as if this played a part in their greatness? This has to be a relatively new thing. No one thinks less of Willy Mays just because he was a Met when he retired, nor does anyone really think of him as a Met. But a guy like Otis Smith who, while he does own the greatest Monday Night Football self-intro ever, will never be the kind of player people sit around worry about what organization he retired from, felt like he needed to sign a one-day contract just to go out as a Patriot. Really, let the fans worry about who they will remember you playing for. Nomar, no matter who he was under contract with when he retired, will never be thought of as anything but a Red Sox.