Nomar: Man of the hour

As a horde of major league All-Stars crowded around an aging Ted Williams at Fenway Park in 1999, he kept asking, ``Where's my man?'' Then Nomar showed up, just like he did last night, beaming. Nomar Garciaparra, at the time on the verge of becoming the Red Sox perennial All-Star shortstop, reached in and hugged Williams saying, ``You're the man.'' ``One day, they'll call you the man,'' Williams shot back. Last night, for a few briefs minutes, they did. Things had not turned out the way Garciaparra, Williams or Red Sox Nation thought they would, his career in Boston ending abruptly on July 31, 2004, in what would be Theo Epstein's boldest move, bolder even than the unloading of Manny Ramirez. Garciaparra didn't even get the chance to say goodbye when shipped off to the Cubs while the team was in Minnesota in a trade some believe was the catalyst that propelled the Sox to their first World Series victory in 86 years. Whatever the truth of that, one thing is undeniable: Since Nomar left what appeared to be a Hall of Fame career has foundered on the rocky shoals of injury and the vagaries of the business of Baseball. Yet none of that mattered as he strode to the plate at Fenway Park around 7:30 p.m. Before he could step in and begin his St. Vitus dance of tugs, pulls and toe taps, the crowd began to stand, the voices roaring out the fans' feelings. Garciaparra waved his Oakland A's batting helmet and the roar grew louder. He turned from side to side, acknowledging each part of the park. The roar increased. Then, his head bowed from the emotion, he turned and patted his heart and then clapped back. ``When I got traded I was on the road and never got to say thank you,'' Garciaparra said at a jam-packed pregame press conference. ``Hopefully, the way I thanked them throughout all those years when I was here was just going out there and playing hard and giving it everything I've got.'' What he gave last night as he tapped his heart was more. He gave them a piece of himself, a piece he too often kept hidden during his 7 1/2 years here. Last night, for a moment, they came out. ``It was not necessarily a goodbye,'' Garciaparra said after the A's 6-0 victory in which he had two hits and knocked in the first run. ``It was a thank you. I'm still kind of on that high. That's what these people can do to you. ``I was getting choked up out there. I kept thinking `I gotta go hit? You kidding me?' There's no script for it. It was so emotional for me, their way of thanking me and me thanking them. I always believed it was a two-way street. This will never leave me.'' If it was up to Garciaparra, he would have never left them either. One can debate that point, but with hindsight clarity often comes. Last night it did for Garciaparra and for 38,294 roaring fans. ``The minute I put that uniform on I always had a dream I was going to start my career in a Boston uniform and stop my career in a Boston uniform,'' he said. ``I still have that dream. The only difference from the original dream is that I wasn't supposed to put another uniform on. But that dream is still there.'' No longer ``The Man'' Williams thought he would become, but now a man capable of understanding what he'd once had here while making clear that for all his wanderings there have been moments in other places, too. ``I don't judge my years as a player strictly by the numbers,'' he said, despite having hit .323 here with the Red Sox while earning two batting titles, then averaging .287 in the five years since. ``There are certain experiences I had that were unbelievable.'' One was when he first wore the uniform of his hometown Los Angeles Dodgers and stepped on the field at Chavez Ravine. It was the place where he saw his first game, the team his parents rooted for until he joined the Sox . Maybe things there weren't like they had been here but, ``I got to play catch with my father at Dodger Stadium. That was a special moment for me.'' Last night was another, the moment he returned for the first time to where it all began. His home was LA but, in a sense, Nomar Garciaparra was home again and people who felt they knew him had something to tell him. The best part was, as it turned out, he had something to tell them back. - rborges@bostonherald.com