Friday, January 19, 2007
Trot's an... Indian?
I have to admit that this completely blindsided me. Maybe if you're in Massachusetts you've seen it coming, because there's been coverage of some sort or another, but I honestly had no idea. On some intellectual level I knew the likelihood of the ol' Trotter being back was slim, but.... he's TROT NIXON. The concept of him in anything other than a Red Sox uniform is so utterly foreign that I can't even process it. And although I KNEW he had to go somewhere else, if he wasn't going to play here, I guess I didn't believe it.
So when I fired up Rotoworld this morning, fully prepared to just skim through a bunch of short-term transactions with utterly unimpressive middle relievers on National League teams, I saw Trot's name and my brain just kind of... stopped. Nixon agrees to deal with Cleveland? What? WHAT?
I had to head up to the studios, then, to work on some paintings, and that was where I started trying to think this through. Trot Nixon, an Indian. Trot Nixon, playing AGAINST the Red Sox. Trot Nixon, regularly patrolling a right field without the specifically sadistic contours of right field in Fenway.
Trot Nixon with a filthy Chief Wahoo on his head (oh jeeeeeez) instead of a filthy Boston B.
Like so many moves in baseball, this is easy to understand from a logical perspective, and almost impossible to understand from an emotional one. Trotter's older, he's VERY injury-prone, and that's a tendency that's only going to get worse with time. It makes all the baseball sense in the world for the Red Sox to move on and go with someone younger, someone fleeter of foot and less wonky of knee.
But this is TROT NIXON. The ORIGINAL Dirt Dog, the guy who's been there through.... hell, through everything. One of the few Sox who came up through the system from day one onwards, and that's terribly rare in MLB, even more so with the Red Sox... although, with Theo at the helm and the minor leagues improving, I expect that'll start becoming at least a little more common sooner rather than later. But Trot did it in a time when the Red Sox were not at their most developmental best, and he stuck with the team through thick and (very) thin.
The entire length of my active baseball consciousness, Trot Nixon has been a member of the Boston Red Sox. It's about the same for anyone around my age. The Red Sox are not Trot Nixon, but Trot is the Red Sox, if that distinction makes any sense.
I was going to Photoshop Trotter into an Indians uniform, but I can't bring myself to do it. It's too utterly weird, too incredibly wrong. I don't want to picture it, and I'm going to try avoiding a mental image of it until the season starts and I'm forced to see it.
It is, of course, impossible wish him anything but the best of luck in Cleveland (even though, as a Tigers fan, I wish his team overall falls somewhat short). And he had bloody well better get the standing ovation of his lifetime when the Indians first come to Fenway this season.
Trot Nixon playing for the Cleveland Indians.
Still can't quite believe it.Labels: baseball, goodbye, Indians, MLB, Red Sox, Trot Nixon
6:28 PM
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