immediately flash to mind when he’s 57 years old and receiving a rousing ovation while throwing out the first pitch at Fenway during the 25th anniversary celebration of the ‘04 champs. Bet the coffee table book is already in the works.
But the photos don’t tell the entire story. Words are required to address the nuances of Varitek’s 15 seasons with the Red Sox, a run that began with one of the great heists in baseball history -- Varitek and righthander Derek Lowe arriving from Seattle in July 1997 for ignitable closer Heathcliff Slocumb -- and apparently ended this week when the Red Sox signed Kelly Shoppach.
For a player who is assured of permanent reverence in New England, his departure is a complicated one. It’s a day that’s overdue -- he hasn’t had an on-base percentage higher than .313 since ‘07 and threw out just 12 of 85 base-stealers last season -- and yet it’s one that tinges you with melancholy now that it has come around. With Varitek moving on and fellow tenured favorite Tim Wakefield likely to follow, only two players remain from the ‘04 champs. (David Ortiz, the driving force of course, and Kevin Youkilis, a bit player then.) Was it really that long ago?
The calendar insists it was, and you get the sense that Varitek himself has had a hard time coming to grips with that. “At a loss for words,” his wife Catherine wrote on Twitter Tuesday after the Shoppach news broke, and you imagine her sentiments are mutual with her husband’s. But Varitek has seen hundreds of teammates come and go, the one-name superstars such as Nomar, Mo, and Pedro as well as the one-shot obscurities such Walt McKeel, Ken Grundt and Dario Veras who never got that second cup of coffee. While it would be counterproductive for athletes to give much thought to the end of their run while they’re still immersed in playing, the writing on the wall for Varitek was much closer than 310 feet. Yet he wants to stay longer still.
