No more No-mah? Boston Prepares

It took 58 games to get Nomar Garciaparra back in the Boston Red Sox lineup and another month for him to start playing like a two-time batting champ and five-time All-Star.

And there’s no point in getting used to it.

Eligible to become a free agent, Garciaparra is expected to leave after the season -- or sooner, if the team decides to deal him for pitching help.

General Manager Theo Epstein showed he is prepared for the possibility with the aborted A-Rod blockbuster last winter, but others lament the fact that another Boston great could soon go the way of Babe Ruth, Carlton Fisk and Roger Clemens: out of town.

“He deserves to be here. He deserves to be here for a championship,” Boston center fielder Johnny Damon said. “We’ll leave that up to Theo and the owners. But, hopefully, he’s here for his whole career.”

Garciaparra declined several requests to be interviewed. But in comments throughout the season, it is clear that he still smarts from the team’s attempts to trade him over the offseason and the way that some of Boston’s fans seem willing to cast him aside for Alex Rodriguez or even Pokey Reese.

“I think that he’s had so many issues to grapple with, including an extended injury recovery period, that it’s hard to separate that from everything else that’s going on,” Red Sox president Larry Lucchino said.

“He’s a human being like all of us. His psychology is important to his performance. I hope and I believe that we’ll see the old Nomar with the injury behind him.”

Garciaparra turned down a four-year, $60 million offer last year, and the Red Sox believe the market has receded since then. Lucchino said there have been no new negotiations this season.

Lucchino would not comment on whether the team is trying to trade Garciaparra to avoid losing him at the end of the year, calling such speculation “unhelpful.” It’s a lesson the Red Sox learned when every detail of their offseason dance with the Texas Rangers was leaked.

That deal wasn’t designed to get rid of Garciaparra as much as Manny Ramirez, whose cumbersome contract stretches the team’s payroll through 2008. Garciaparra was included to make the numbers work out and because the team didn’t think he would be affordable after he turned down their offer.

Another player might have put it behind him. (In fact, another player did: Ramirez took the offseason turmoil to heart and has come back more approachable and just as dangerous at the plate.)

But the 30-year-old Garciaparra has sulked.

“I was definitely hurt by a lot of it. I probably feel like anyone else would feel after spending their whole career in one organization,” Garciaparra said when he arrived at spring training. “When I heard about it I was thinking the priorities are obviously not for me.”

Then, after eight hitless spring at-bats, Garciaparra was hit by a ball in the right heel -- an injury that was supposed to keep him out for a few days -- or, at most, a few weeks. He ended up missing more than two months.

Garciaparra’s detractors -- in Boston, even Ted Williams had ‘em -- questioned whether the shortstop was getting back at the team by taking his time to return from a seemingly minor injury. A small but vocal group of fans adopted the rallying cry, “Pokey would have had it.”

But when Garciaparra returned on June 9, he was greeted with a series of standing ovations and the mutual love affair seemed intact.

“You never forget that the fans here are just amazing,” he said then. “I deeply and truly appreciate it. I can’t thank them enough.”

The critics retook the stage last week when Garciaparra sat out the third game of a three-game sweep by the archrival New York Yankees. As the game went into extra innings, TV cameras caught Garciaparra sitting on the dugout bench instead of at the rail, where many of the Red Sox were cheering on their teammates.

Again the calls came for Garciaparra to be shipped out of town. It didn’t help that he was struggling at the plate. Or that Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter bloodied his face catching a foul ball while his Red Sox counterpart sat on the bench, unable to pinch hit.

“I’ve been judged on one month -- I’ve got eight years,” Garciaparra told the Boston Herald last month. “I think those eight years count -- they will somewhere, to somebody.”

Then he went on a tear, hitting .500 over the next five games to raise his average from .235 above .300. And all seems forgiven once again.

“He looks like his old self,” said former Red Sox shortstop Johnny Pesky, now a coach with the team. “If he didn’t play it was because there was something wrong. You never see him loaf.”

Pesky, who has been in the organization for more than six decades, dismissed any talk that Garciaparra was slacking off, either on his extended rehab or by sitting out in New York. But he acknowledged that Garciaparra might pay too much attention to the few critics among the 35,000 cheering fans.

“The people in this town love this kid,” Pesky said.