I Miss The OCD

Last night the Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers to advance to the World Series. All congratulations to the Phillies, but I am disappointed. I am a Red Sox fan, so even though I would have loved to see the Sox and Dodgers play in the World Series, the Dodgers loss is not the reason for my disappointment. You see, I had forgotten how entertaining it is to watch Nomar Garciaparra go through his OCD routine after every pitch. I haven’t been able to see Nomar play on a regular basis since he was traded from the Red Sox in 2004 and I hadn’t realized how entertaining his habit was until I was able to see him play this year with the Dodgers in the post season. Sure, he twirls the bat and taps his toes about seven times after every pitch, but that is not the best part. After every single pitch, he backs out of the box, tightens his batting gloves even if he didn’t swing, tap his wrist four times, adjust his sleeve, tap his feet, and adjust his batting helmet. He does this after every pitch! It all starts in the on deck circle though. He goes through the whole thing over there as well! How does he remember all of this? He always does it in the same order as well. When did this start? Can you imagine a little league player doing something like this? Do you think he practices his routine? I can just see him standing in front of the mirror now; "adjust gloves, touch knuckles, touch wrist, wait . . . is it knuckles then wrist or wrist then knuckles? Knuckles then wrist." Does this affect him in his everyday life? Imagine his routine to make a left turn. "Ok Nomie, you can do this. Turn on your blinker, roll down your passengers side window, now put it back up, change the radio station, turn on your wipers, flash your high beams, turn off wipers, beep twice, and . . . go." I believe Nomar was the cause of half of Boston’s traffic congestion while he was here. How does he get his mail? Tap the top of the mailbox for times, open the mailbox, tap the side of the mailbox twice, take out a piece of mail, tap bottom of mailbox three times, get the rest of the mail, tap the mailbox pole with your foot twice, and close the mailbox." I picture this guy eating like Robert Barone from ‘Everyone Loves Raymond’. Remember that guy? He tapped all of his food to his forehead before he would eat it. One thing I don’t miss is Nomar’s compulsive need for throwing errors. We’ve got Julio Lugo for that! Nomar was a good player for the Sox, don’t get me wrong. He had a very promising career until his compulsive use of steroids caused his obsessive need for injury. It was never proven that he used steroids, but when you see a guy add thirty pounds of muscle over one off season and suddenly suffer tendon and muscle injuries, it is quite easy to see what happened. Nomar played an important role for the Sox though. We really should be thankful to him as Red Sox fans. If it wasn’t for Nomar being on the Red Sox, they never would have been able to trade him to the Cubs in a four-team trade that landed gold glovers Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz on Boston’s roster and eventually led to a World Series victory. I believe it was Nomar’s wife Mia Hamm that caused this trade (I don’t have any evidence to support this claim, I just couldn’t think of another way to use the Nomar quote I am going to use in this next line), and for that I would like to say on behalf of Red Sox fans everywhere, "Thanks beautiful."