Loose Balls With Tibbs Occupation: CAC's Resident Player Prez - already survived 2 impeachment hearings Hobbies Losing Championship games (1-7 and counting), Losing 1v1 match-ups and Winning eating contests Age physically older than my body should be, mentally younger… Marital Status Locked up the best baller in the League

Allow Me to Re-Introduce Nomar

Tibbs 2010-03-11
A Take Down of FHF

Or rather, let me remind you of a few things that Five Hard Fouls left out of his latest blog post. I’m sorry I just have to take umbrage with that alphabet soup that was posted last night.

I don’t necessarily disagree with what the author is trying to say, but he’s going about it all wrong.  Sure it’s fallacy for guys to ‘return’ and retire with a team and ESPN has, in fact, oversaturated their programming with former players.  But for a guy that’s concerned about zippers being down, he certainly gave Jeter a verbal tongue bathing of his own.

The fact is, Nomar WAS a god-send a shortstop and loved it in Boston.  I don’t blame him for wanting to retire in red socks.  He gave Boston 6 and a half great years of a powerful bat at short and above average D.  I can bog you down with stats and numbers, like I’m apt to do, but I won’t. Just recall that the 6 seasons he was healthy, Nomar never hit less than .306, provided the position with power, drove in runs and did everything asked of him.

Sure, he was never the same after the SI cover (who said baseball had an HGH problem?!?) and he was traded for key pieces in the championship run. But it was that or the Sox would lose him for nothing in free agency after the ARod debacle. That’s how the business works.

He’d obviously never be the same player. Nomah would go on to hit .300 only one other time in his career. Why wouldn’t he want to revive the memories of his greatest accomplishments (5 all-star nods, 2 batting championships) if only for a day? You’re really going to begrudge him that honor?

Look, guys like Luis Rivera Carlos Rodriguez and John Valentine were the everyday shortstops for the Sox before Nomar came along.  Valentine put up one season that could sniff Nomar’s jock, and that was ’94 when he only played half a season.  It is safe to assume with a full season of reps he would have regressed to his career mean.

And since Nomar has left? You’d be hard pressed to find a more disgusting mash-up of heart unfriendly dishes at your local church’s potluck.  Watching the guys at short play a bastardized version of Russian Roulette and Musical Chairs makes any fan want to reach for the nearest six shooter. It’s been literal revolving door since ’04.  I’m sorry, Nomar isn’t the only one pining for the days of stability and power at short.

All these holes, and that’s before someone claims to think that it’s logical to claim that Bledsoe won anything as a Patriot.  If you can credit The Statue (just drop the Liberty, Gerrity, that guy’s shoes have more concrete than yours) with that 2001 Super Bowl win (‘pinch hitting’ for Brady in the start) then why not Nomar for is ’04 season? He was valuable into August, enough so to get Cabera and Doug M&%#@^ from the Cubies.  Nomar had 150 Abs in 2004, hitting, contributing more to the season than Bledsoe did, yet suddenly that makes Bledsoe a ‘winner’ where Nomar isn’t? I’ll give you that the one start was awesome, but he was obviously the inferior qb in ‘01. It was Billy B’s call to bench The Statue, he didn’t willingly back down and give it up, Brady made the plays to get them to the Super Bowl and win the thing all season long.   

So Nomar never won at title as a member of the Sox. Neither did Yaz, Rice, Bogs, Dimaggio, Tiante, Eck, or Fiske should all these former stars and Hall of Famers be tossed aside in the garbage heap never to be talked about again? I think not.

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