Unconditional Love Turning Sour for Nomar

Unconditional love is one of those things you can’t necessarily define, but you know it when you see it or feel it—or hear it, as those at Fenway Park June 9 did when Nomar Garciaparra made his long-awaited season debut for the Red Sox.

Every move he made was greeted by an outpouring of applause. See Nomar trot up the dugout steps, hear unconditional love. See Nomar throw with a teammate, hear unconditional love. See Nomar walk to home plate and begin his tic-filled exercises in the batter’s box, hear unconditional love.

You got the idea Garciaparra could have walked on the field with a jersey sporting the words “Bush/Cheney” across the top of the back and the numbers “04” and he still would be cheered as if he could do no wrong.

“The fans are unbelievable here,” Garciaparra said after his season debut. “The ovation they gave me was incredible. I do truly appreciate it…I can’t thank them enough, it was a special feeling.”

For seven seasons, he was Boston’s Mr. Perfect; the most beloved athlete in the city since Larry Bird. Tom Brady won two Super Bowl MVPs in three years for the Patriots yet his popularity pales in comparison to that of Garciaparra’s.

Fans loved Garciaparra even though he’s yet to deliver a World Series to Boston. They loved him even as he has increasingly chafed underneath the white-hot Beantown spotlight, and you can be sure they loved him even more for his unyielding disdain for the area media.

They loved him even though he’s missed the better part of two seasons due to injuries. They loved him even though his numbers have been slipping to the point where the Holy Trinity Of Shortstops became Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Miguel Tejada.

And when the Sox attempted to acquire Rodriguez last winter and did everything except order a U-Haul for Garciaparra, Sox fans responded by deepening their devotion to him. “Who needs A-Rod? We’ve got Nomah” read the signs during the series against the Yankees at Fenway in April.

They couldn’t wait for him to get back. Jay Payton, the Padres centerfielder and Garciaparra’s best friend in baseball since the two were teammates at Georgia Tech in the early 1990s, couldn’t believe it when local stations broke into programming to announce Garciaparra’s imminent return.

“I thought something [bad] happened,” Payton said. “I thought somebody got shot or somebody got kidnapped. That tells you what kind of celebrity he is here.”

Yet now, it seems as if Red Sox Nation can’t wait for him to leave.

How does unconditional love turn sour? The easy answer is to say “By sitting out a key game against the Yankees,” as Garciaparra did July 1.

Terry Francona said it was his decision to rest Garciaparra, who made three key errors in the first two games of the series. But it certainly didn’t look good when Garciaparra not only failed to play at all in the 13-inning epic eventually won by the Yankees, 5-4—he and backup catcher Doug Mirabelli were the only position players to remain on the bench—but was also caught by television cameras standing alone in the dugout while the rest of his teammates hung over the top railing.

The next day, talk radio was abuzz with anti-Garciaparra chatter. How unimaginable was that a mere three or four months ago?

Except the relationship between Boston and its most beloved baseball player in generations had already started to go bad even before Garciaparra sat out against the Yankees. Several hours before the July 1 game, nearly three-quarters of those who responded to a boston.com survey said they believed the Sox should trade Garciaparra this season.

Let’s be honest here: Whether it happens by the time you read this or sometime this winter, Garciaparra is a goner.

As Angry Bill from Still They Believe might say, “Nomah’s career in Boston is ova. O-V-A, ova.” If Chandler Bing from Friends was a Sox fan, he’d shake his head and mutter “Could Nomar BE any more gone?”

He turned down a four-year extension worth a reported $60 million following the 2002 season, and he surely won’t get another offer remotely comparable thanks to the correction of the free agent market, the Sox’ refusal to overpay for any player and Garciaparra’s advancing age and injury history.

He takes another step out the door every time he swings away at the first pitch, thereby going against everything the Sox’ new regime believes in. He takes another step out the door every time he rants against “they,” whomever the “they” are that Garciaparra—clearly still perturbed at how he was treated last winter—lashed out at during the Sox’ trip to Colorado.

Garciaparra, believing people were either accusing him of dogging it during his lengthy rehab or already down on him after he struggled at the end of last season and during his first week back with the Sox in June, told the Boston Herald “…I can’t win—21 ABs [at Pawtucket] but no, ‘You’re faking it’ and ‘C’mon, what are you waiting for?’ Then I come back, they are still going to say ‘See—he sucks. He’s not good. You were bad last year, you’re bad this year.’

“It’s a no-win situation. They should just be glad I’m back.”

At this rate, it’s getting tough to tell who will be more glad when he leaves: “They” or him.

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