I wanna be like Nomar G

Nomar appreciating the love last year at Fenway. Photo courtesy of Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.net and used with permission.

You all know this by now, but since I’m sitting here with tears streaming down my face I have to write it down to make it real for me.

This post will be rambling and incoherent with many uses of unnecessary punctuation.  I apologize in advance.

At 10:30 this morning the Red Sox will have a press conference from Ft Myers announcing the signing of Nomar Garciaparra to a one-day contract so he can then retire with the organization.

Yes, this news made me burst into tears.   And I’m genuinely just bouncing around the house, waiting for 10:30am to arrive so I can see Nomar with the Sox (in a jersey, right?  They’re going to give him a jersey?????  They have to do the jersey thing.  They have to!  Nomar in a Red Sox jersey again will floor me, just floor me.).

Last year I wrote about Nomar coming back to Fenway park and how I actually had a ticket to the game and didn’t end up going.  I cried (not because I wasn’t there but because of what was happening) for a good part of that night.  I’ve always maintained that I believe “the trade” in 2004 was the right thing to do even though I cried for days after he was traded…but I never stopped “loving” Nomar.  I always wished him well (watching him in that Cubs jersey that first time nearly killed me).

Lest people want to muck up the works today and bitch about Nomar for whatever reasons, I give you this quote from last year (about us, the fans!):

“I love ‘em. I love the way they treated me,” said Garciaparra, whose eyes were filled with tears. “I’m getting emotional because when I was gone, Boston fans were everywhere. I can’t say how many times I heard, ‘Thank you. Thank you for all you did.’ Even today, I was walking down Newbury Street, a guy came up to me and shook my hand and looked me in the eye and said, ‘Thank you for all you did.’ And I just looked at him and said, ‘No … thank you.’”

How do you NOT want this guy to retire as a Red Sox player?

There were many more good times with Nomar than there were bad…and that’s what I choose to focus on.  What’s in the past is past and, for me, all that matters now is that Nomar is coming home.