I originally started this blog to provide Red Sox fans with a source of information to dominate the water cooler. Over the past few weeks I've been captivated by Bruins' run at Lord Stanley's Cup, so admittedly I've missed more than a few Sox games. During my hiatus from this blog you readers have been kind enough to continue to check in from time to time which has pushed me over 1,000 views. So thank you. The motivation for this article came from a brief and seemingly insignificant comment from my father, "I love Adrian Gonzalez, that guy is just so much smarter than everyone he faces."
Clearly a bold statement in itself but it got me thinking, 'Why haven't I embraced Adrian Gonzalez like most Red Sox fans?' Now please don't jump to conclusions, the guy is a top 3 hitter in the MLB (Pujols and Miggy Cabrera right with him) plays a very good 1B and by all accounts is one of the stand up guys who will do anything for a charity. I cannot emphasize this enough. My inability to embrace Adrian as a Red Sox baffles me as much as it does you, and no this isn't some inflated sense of entitlement that Yankee fans had toward Alex Rodriguez, "If he hasn't won us a ring he's not a real Yankee." The second possibility is because we traded for him instead of drafting and developing him. False. Everyone who knows me as a baseball fan knows I love prospects and the whole process that goes with them. Yes we traded Casey Kelly, Anthony Rizzo and Reymond Fuentes but lets face if this was 2006 it may have costed Bard, Ellsbury and/or Pedroia. I was not enamored with any of those guys so any emotional attachment is non existent and therefore not relevant.
As stated before in my previous posts, Clay Buchholz is my favorite player and I believe that by the end of the 2012 season he will be in consideration for one of the top 5 pitchers in the MLB. This is a product of me following him from the moment he got drafted. However, Pedro Martinez is without a doubt my favorite Red Sox player of all time, and yes we acquired him in a trade (sorry Fisk, Doerr, Esposito, Rice, Lynn and the great Teddy Ballgame but if I didn't see you play you can't get on my list). A-Gon has had monster home runs, walk off hits, and at bats that any baseball analyst would be lying is they said they didn't appreciate, but for some reason as a fan I'm almost indifferent when he comes to plate. He doesn't give me that feeling that Manny elicited of 'I could see something special I'll remember forever' every time he steps to the plate, or watching Nomar knowing that every time he made contact it was going to be the hardest ball I ever saw hit.
I hope you don't view this as a knock on Adrian Gonzalez in any form. The guy is an incredibly talented player and damn good person too, but I ask you to look deep inside your fan hood and ask yourself 'Why I am I a fan of (player x).' The relationship between a fan and any player is complicated, irrational and often times fleeting and sporadic. Choosing a player you like is like trying to choose your favorite food: you don't choose it, you just like it more everything else.
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