The Ghostbuster

Beautiful moment this weekend when Yoshi introduced me to his and Tim Wakefield's love child:

http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/mlb/news/story?id=5071066

Dying art no more; the knuckle ball lives on. As Yoshi said, he was just the vessel.

A bunch of other stuff went back and forth between us over the weekend, as well. Yoshi's particularly excited about Hermida; hope no one missed Varitek's season debut: 2-4, 2 hr's; also, nice to see Beckett go 7 strong innings and out-pitch Zack Greinke for his first win of the season. But mostly, our conversation focused on Ortiz. Here's what we came up with:

David Otiz is 4 for 26. Throw in his two walks and he's been on base a grand total of 6 times in 28 trips to the plate. That's... not good. And by watching him, you don't get the sense you should expect much to change.

In his prime, Papi WAS ConEd. His offense and personality powered a power grid that fed the team and the fans and lit-up a city. He carried us on his shoulders. And in process of outfitting us with two World Series rings, we road him into the ground. Now, we're asking him to get-up and do it all over again.

Otiz's demeanor has changed over the past two seasons. He still sheaths his bat in his arm pit while he spits into the palms of batting gloves and claps his massive hands between pitches. But the spark is gone. It's like thunder with no lightning. These are painful words to write because they're about the end of the best era in my Red Sox history. Youkilis is fantastic. A true Red Sox. So is Pedroia. Ellsbury might be this teams Mike Greenwell -- really solid, but never a star. The rest of the position players are good too, but I'm sure they will vanish in the years to come. But Oritz, he was something special. He made it possible for Youk and Pedroia to flourish because he showed them how to win. He showed them that one player has the ability to turn a game around. You can see it in Pedroia when he steps to the plate -- he's looking to change the game with every swing. So is Youk. And they know how to do it because they saw Papi do it.

Papi packed a long career's worth of highlights into 5 seasons (2004 - 2008). He's obviously spent. So let's allow him to leave in peace. Maybe not tomorrow if he goes 1-4 with 3k's and a single. But wait until the game at Fenway when he goes 3-4, with a homer (or two) and 3 rbi's. Let him take a final curtain call on the field where he chased-off the ghosts of the past and won the hearts of a Nation. He wasn't here long, but he was here long enough to teach us how to win.