Too Big for his Bridges
Lakeshore Drive winds past Lake Michigan like a concrete shoreline, hugging it so close that you can hear the smallest wave if the traffic's light enough, which it never is, but it's honestly not that hard to imagine. I'll be travelling on it intermittently when I return to Northwestern in the fall, and I can't help thinking that Nomar will already be there.
I remember watching him in 1997. I was in middle school, and it sucked, powerfully. I was one of the unpopular kids then, awkward and unathletic, your typical quiet nerd who loved watching sports he could barely play. I had spent my evenings in awe of Clemens and Vaughn, Valentin and Greenwell. The older fans reading this might not know, but to we young initiates to the fandom, these guys were the pinnacle of baseball. We slept through '86, and were in kindergarten when Morgan Magic came to town, so the only baseline we had for what a good season looked like was 1995-and we lost pretty quickly in the playoffs that year.
My impressions of these players, then, are inflated beyond what the stats now tell me. In my mind, John Valentin is a Hall of Famer, as is Tim Naehring, Mike Stanley, Troy O'Leary, Lee Tinsley...these were the guys who made me a fan of the Red Sox.
Then they all left.
Clemens was gone in 1996, taking with him a still-golden arm and Dan Duquette's credibility. Vaughn hauled off in 1998, after one of the best years by a Sox hitter in a long time. Tinsley and Stanley's careers crapped out, Naehring's knee betrayed him, and Reggie Jefferson never lived up to his promise. All my heroes were leaving me, and now that the veneer of youthful idealism was wearing off, their replacements were a poor comparison. Ladies and gentlemen, Wilfredo Cordero.
Those guys made me a fan. Nomar kept me one.
I turned on the TV one day, and John Valentin was at third base. I didn't recognize the guy playing shortstop, taking Johnny's place. Tall, razor-thin, eagle's beak of a nose...no, definitely not John Valentin. What was going on here?
I don't remember who was up at bat, but he hit a quick ground ball between second and third, the kind that Johnny, bless his heart, would always try but never get to. I had almost written it off as a hit when this new guy came streaking into the picture. As he stretched out his glove hand to, impossibly, scoop up the ball, I saw a red number 5 on the back of his jersey.
Then, like he would a million times afterwards, Nomar snapped upright, jumped, and fired his cannon arm towards first. Inning over.
Much as I respected him, suddenly John Valentin was forgotten. This guy...this guy might be something.
Much of the familiar cast came around within a few years of Nomar's first monster season. Tek and Trot were playing regularly by 1999, as were Pedro and Lowe. I had new heroes, and reasons to start caring again. Like I said, Nomar kept me a fan.
Now he might be just another in a long line of stars who left this town a little bit tarnished, red dwarves instead of supernovas. He might be going to Chicago. Which team he's part of is irrelevant. He won't be our guy anymore.
I'll be living in Chicago, so I'll get to see him play almost every day. Wrigley's not so different from Fenway, you know. They care as much as we do. Maybe all he needs is a change of scenery. Maybe all we need is Randy Johnson.
Maybe we'll re-sign him at the end of this season. But I doubt it.
When it comes to optimism or pessimism, I always run screaming towards pessimism. It's like Ozzy Osbourne said once, actually fairly lucid for a change..."I'm a pessimist because if something goes wrong, I expect it. If something goes right, it's like...a pleasant surprise".
Too many bridges burned here. In Chicago, Lake Michigan's too big for bridges in the first place.
I remember watching him in 1997. I was in middle school, and it sucked, powerfully. I was one of the unpopular kids then, awkward and unathletic, your typical quiet nerd who loved watching sports he could barely play. I had spent my evenings in awe of Clemens and Vaughn, Valentin and Greenwell. The older fans reading this might not know, but to we young initiates to the fandom, these guys were the pinnacle of baseball. We slept through '86, and were in kindergarten when Morgan Magic came to town, so the only baseline we had for what a good season looked like was 1995-and we lost pretty quickly in the playoffs that year.
My impressions of these players, then, are inflated beyond what the stats now tell me. In my mind, John Valentin is a Hall of Famer, as is Tim Naehring, Mike Stanley, Troy O'Leary, Lee Tinsley...these were the guys who made me a fan of the Red Sox.
Then they all left.
Clemens was gone in 1996, taking with him a still-golden arm and Dan Duquette's credibility. Vaughn hauled off in 1998, after one of the best years by a Sox hitter in a long time. Tinsley and Stanley's careers crapped out, Naehring's knee betrayed him, and Reggie Jefferson never lived up to his promise. All my heroes were leaving me, and now that the veneer of youthful idealism was wearing off, their replacements were a poor comparison. Ladies and gentlemen, Wilfredo Cordero.
Those guys made me a fan. Nomar kept me one.
I turned on the TV one day, and John Valentin was at third base. I didn't recognize the guy playing shortstop, taking Johnny's place. Tall, razor-thin, eagle's beak of a nose...no, definitely not John Valentin. What was going on here?
I don't remember who was up at bat, but he hit a quick ground ball between second and third, the kind that Johnny, bless his heart, would always try but never get to. I had almost written it off as a hit when this new guy came streaking into the picture. As he stretched out his glove hand to, impossibly, scoop up the ball, I saw a red number 5 on the back of his jersey.
Then, like he would a million times afterwards, Nomar snapped upright, jumped, and fired his cannon arm towards first. Inning over.
Much as I respected him, suddenly John Valentin was forgotten. This guy...this guy might be something.
Much of the familiar cast came around within a few years of Nomar's first monster season. Tek and Trot were playing regularly by 1999, as were Pedro and Lowe. I had new heroes, and reasons to start caring again. Like I said, Nomar kept me a fan.
Now he might be just another in a long line of stars who left this town a little bit tarnished, red dwarves instead of supernovas. He might be going to Chicago. Which team he's part of is irrelevant. He won't be our guy anymore.
I'll be living in Chicago, so I'll get to see him play almost every day. Wrigley's not so different from Fenway, you know. They care as much as we do. Maybe all he needs is a change of scenery. Maybe all we need is Randy Johnson.
Maybe we'll re-sign him at the end of this season. But I doubt it.
When it comes to optimism or pessimism, I always run screaming towards pessimism. It's like Ozzy Osbourne said once, actually fairly lucid for a change..."I'm a pessimist because if something goes wrong, I expect it. If something goes right, it's like...a pleasant surprise".
Too many bridges burned here. In Chicago, Lake Michigan's too big for bridges in the first place.
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