Today the Boston Red Sox announced the re-signing of Nomar Garciaparra…

…to a one-day contract. Nomar immediately announced his retirement, saying it was a “dream fulfilled to retire as a member of the Red Sox.” He also announced plans to join ESPN as a baseball analyst.

The press conference at the Red Sox Spring Training facility was heartwarming – a love-fest between two factions who just 5 ½ years ago broke up on pretty acrimonious terms in the middle of the 2004 season in what is considered by many to be the catalyst to the Red Sox 86-year World Series title drought. Garciaparra, who left town complaining about the negativity of the media and the fans, and the pressure of playing in such a pressure-filled atmosphere, gushed about his love for the organization that drafted him and how he always considered the Boston and the Red Sox his “family”.

The Sox, for their part, welcomed him back with open arms. Team president Larry Lucchino said, “When the history of the Boston Red Sox is written again, a big chapter will be devoted to Nomar Garciaparra.”

I’m curious as to the motivation for this PR move. Once debated as the top shortstop in the game (along with Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez), Nomar’s career has been on a downward spiral since leaving Boston, plagued by injuries that have kept him off the field. Did playing in such lackluster baseball towns as LA and Oakland make him realize the grass isn’t always greener? Is this strictly a PR move intended to improve his image and increase his marketability with ESPN?

Perhaps this is the first step in a series of steps toward the Red Sox retiring his number? The Red Sox have some of the strictest rules governing the retiring of numbers. According to redsox.com, players must have played at least 10 years with the club and be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. We’ll get to the latter in a moment. For the former, Nomar was brought up at the start of the 1996 season. He was traded halfway through the 2004 season, during what was his 9^th year in a Red Sox uniform. The Sox could choose to interpret Nomar’s one-day contract as his 10^th year with the club. Interestingly, they made it a point to sign him to a minor league contract. Since Nomar was drafted by the Red Sox in 1994, if they were counting minor league experience he’s already been with the club for more than 10 years.

As for his Hall of Fame candidacy, let’s look at Nomar Garciaparra’s career statistics:

Career Stats (regular season):

Batting Average:           .313

Home Runs:                  229

RBI:                             936

Slugging %:                   .521

Career Stats (postseason – 32 games):

Batting Average:           .321

Home Runs:                  7

RBI:                             24

Slugging %:                   .589

Nomar also won two consecutive batting titles in 1999 (.357) and 2000 (.372), was a 6-time All-Star, won the Rookie of the Year award in 1997, and finished in the top 10 in MVP voting 5 times.

According to baseball-reference.com, the players Nomar most closely resembles are:

1. Joe Gordon (845) *
2. Bret Boone (838)
3. Mike Young (837)
4. Wally Berger (833)
5. Aramis Ramirez (826)
6. Mike Lowell (824)
7. Travis Fryman (823)
8. Vern Stephens (822)
9. Babe Herman (818)
10. Tony Oliva (818)

Only one of these (Gordon) is a Hall of Famer.

Hall of Fame Standards rating puts Nomar at a 47 on its scale of 1-100, with 50 being an average Hall of Famer. On Hall of Fame Monitor, Nomar’s probability of enshrinement is a 112, where 100 means a good possibility and 130 is a virtual cinch.

I also love this list, which shows historical similarities to other players by age, and indicates the kind of decline we saw in Nomar’s career:

23 Yogi Berra (960) * 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C

24 Ernie Banks (926) * 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C

25 Hanley Ramirez (908)  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C

26 Ernie Banks (877) * 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C

27 Ernie Banks (872) * 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C

28 Ernie Banks (868) * 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C

29 Ernie Banks (862) * 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C

30 Miguel Tejada (859)  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C

31 Miguel Tejada (862)  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C

32 Miguel Tejada (850)  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C

33 Jeff Kent (877)  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C

34 Jeff Kent (888)  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C

35 Jeff Kent (872)  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 C

Nomar remains in pretty good company, but is it Hall of Fame company? I’m really looking forward to that debate on sports talk radio over the course of this year.

Welcome back, Nomar!

According to Tom Keegan of the Lawrence Journal-World, sources close to the Big Ten are confirming that Big Ten officials have begun discussing membership with the Longhorns.

This would be a major coup for the Big Ten. Not only would it give them the requisite 12th member (yes, the Big 10 actually has 11 teams) that would allow it to hold a big-money conference championship game in football, but it would gain audience throughout the entire state of Texas for its Big Ten Network, plus more lucrative national television appearances than they currently get with their powerhouse Minnesota-Northwestern matchups.

This news comes as a bit of a surprise. While Big Ten expansion has been rumored for years, with multiple overtures to Notre Dame - located smack in the middle of Big Ten country and currently unaffiliated in football - and rumored discussions with other more geographically-relevant Big 12 schools like Missouri or Nebraska. Big East schools Pittsburgh or Syracuse have also been rumored, likely based on their geographical fit.

Kudos to Chris Burge of Bleacher Report for calling this one two months ago. He actually has a pretty insightful breakdown of why this is a really strong fit for both parties.

The conference shuffle doesn't end there. The PAC-10 is also rumored to be shopping for expansion, with other Big 12 schools like Colorado being mentioned, as well as lower-tier schools Utah, BYU and Boise State. If Texas were to jump ship, the Big 12 would also be left scrambling to add more teams to preserve its own championship game.

According to the Big Ten source, the conference expects something to go down within the next 12-18 months, so stay tuned!

National Signing Day is generally the day in early February when high school seniors sign their commitment papers to accept football scholarships to the college or university of their choice. I guess new USC head coach Lane Kiffin is just trying to stay a step ahead of the competition.

Yesterday, news broke that David Sills, a promising young quarterback prospect out of Delaware has been offered, and verbally accepted, a football scholarship to play for the Trojans of the University of Southern California. The only problem is Sills won’t even be starting high school until 2011.

Read the headline of this post again. It could have come directly from The Onion, if it weren’t so tragically true.

Admittedly, Sills has some skills for a 13-year-old. He also has the relative size – he’s already almost 6 feet tall and projected to cap out at around 6’5”. Unfortunately, there’s no way to really know what’s going to happen in the next 5 1/2 years for this kid – physically or emotionally. How could he even comprehend the concept of college, let alone the complexity around accepting a scholarship offer to a major Division 1 program?

Middle school athletes have been recruited for years into top basketball programs, though not always as blatantly. Lane Kiffin has robbed the cradle here, and may have also violated NCAA rules—not  exactly unfamiliar territory for the Trojans’ program, or to Kiffin. This would be the second recruiting violation brought to light in the 10 days since Kiffin took over the program. Kiffin was charged with at least 6 violations in his 14 months at the University of Tennessee prior to taking the USC job.

The jokes going to be on poor David Sills, though, when the scumbag Kiffin leaves USC (Vegas odds are on an NCAA ban from football) before he even takes his first high school snap.

My favorite part of this story? Kiffin’s only exposure to this clearly transcendent young athlete is a less-than-3 minute clip on YouTube. You can view that clip below.