I Try To See Rocco, But All I Think Is Nomar

I’m not much of a morning person; in fact, I can’t remember the last time I was awake at seven o’clock in the AM without being even the slightest bit tired; however, today was an exception.

As I awoke at 6:30, I quickly came to realize that due to my screwed up sleeping schedule, I wasn’t in the least bit tired. Grudgingly, I rose and went to retrieve the morning paper, the sports page specifically, which I don’t often read any more; and yet, on the front page of the Worcester T&G sports section a headline and a picture caught my attention.

There was Rocco Baldelli, a player I have always liked, holding up his new Red Sox jersey. But on the other hand, there was the caption: “Fragile Rocco takes Nomar’s No. 5.”

You want to talk about weird feelings in the pit of your stomach? That lone caption hit my harder than some of the more emotional issues in my life. Now, ignoring the fact that that’s completely messed up and definitely qualifies me as a feeling-less zombie, it got me to think back...To think back of the days of Nomar and just what he meant to me and the city of Boston at one point.

For many Red Sox fans, (particularly those born late '80s–early '90s) Nomar was the reason they became Red Sox fans, even baseball fans. I was the prime example of this type of person.

For those children who claimed they’ve been a fan of their favorite team all their life, or even since they were about four or five years old: bullshit. There’s always that certain event or certain player that draws to the sport and draws you to a team. For me, Nomar Garciaparra was that reason.

Sure, I can remember watching the 1996 Sox team with guys like Mo Vaughn, but I don’t recall much, nor was I that interested; however, that all changed when a young shortstop with a goofy batting stance out of Georgia Tech arrived on the scene full time in 1997.

From the very beginning, I fell in love with everything about Nomar. Like many, I loved the way he prepared himself in the batter’s box—from tugging on the batting gloves to kicking dirt and twirling the bat. I loved his acrobatic-like fielding style and his crazy sidearm delivery at short.

I loved his unique first name and his fun-to-say last name. I loved how time would seem to stop when he came to the plate, and how everyone seemed to stop what they were doing just to watch his at-bat. Oh, and let’s not forget how amazed I was at his ability.

To this day, I’ve never been obsessed with a player more, nor seen a better pure hitter in his prime than Nomar. If you scoped around my room a little, you’d come to find around five or six Nomar posters along with 80-something Nomar baseball cards, not to mention all the Nomar shirts I had before I out-grew them all.

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