No More Nomar

On Friday, July 30, a visitor to the eBay website could have snagged any of a few dozen items tied to Nomar Garciaparra, mostly pins, jerseys, even a copy of this magazine's profile of the short-stop with the funny name and not-so-sunny disposition. The next day, he was traded, from the Red Sox to the Cubs, from one cursed franchise to the only other one whose fans are conditioned to this sort of pain. Within days, eBay had become the garage sale for Red Sox Nation's members looking to unload or snap up reminders of their once favorite son, with more than 1,500 or so listed Nomar items. There were the predictable caps, No. 5 Red Sox and Cubs jerseys, and baseball cards. But also available was a 6-inch "Nomah figurine" and a "Nomah crooked nose T-shirt" (apparently the Boston accent is critical to the value of such items). The most expensive thing was a bat for $999 that the seller claimed Nomar had used during a game.

You half expected to see a wad of Nomar's spit, caked with Fenway dirt, show up. (Don't laugh. A piece of chewed gum by Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Luis Gonzalez fetched $10,000 at an auction, while the shaved goatee clippings from Oakland A's pitcher Tim Hudson went for $75 on eBay.)

Hani Durzy, an eBay spokesman, says the flurry of activity began within hours after the trade was announced around 4 p.m. on July 31. Over the next three days, he says, "26 Nomar Sox jerseys were listed and 17 Nomar Cubs jerseys." Durzy, a Sox fan who was born in Cambridge and now works at eBay's headquarters in San Jose, California, says he followed the outcry in Boston by reading newspapers online. "When you're talking about Red Sox fans and Cubs fans," he says, "those are the two most passionate fans in the country."

Jerry Remy, the former Sox second baseman who's become something of a cult figure as the team's game announcer for NESN, has received a record number of requests for signed copies of his score card from Nomar's last Sox game, July 28 against Baltimore (the $14.95 he asks for each card goes to the Jimmy Fund). The previous bestseller was Derek Lowe's no-hitter in 2003. "This will blow it away," Remy says. The Lowe game brought about 2,400 score card requests, while in just five days after Nomar's trade, Remy had received almost 4,000 requests for the July 28 score card.

With fans, columnists, and sports radio hosts gone hoarse debating whether Nomar faked his injury to force a trade or Sox management blew it, all that's really left to ponder are the essential questions at the heart of such a seismic shift in Boston's sports scene, questions like: What about Cherry Garciaparra?

In 1997, Nomar's rookie season, JP Licks tossed some cherries and chocolate chips into its vanilla ice cream, tweaked the name of a popular Ben & Jerry's flavor, and put out Cherry Garciaparra. At the time, JP Licks owner Vince Petryk had no idea how long the flavor, or the player, would last. Both were huge hits, and the flavor became as much a symbol for JP Licks as chowder is for Legal Sea Foods.

But with the namesake gone, what now? "We will keep it," Petryk says. "As long as I'm there, there will always be Cherry Garciaparra."

But there will be changes in town. The Nomar 5 Fund, which raised more than $1 million for children's charities, is sure to disappear after this year. And the Nomar Garciaparra Baseball Camp seems out of place with its hero a thousand miles away. A week after the trade, the camp's biography of Nomar on its website still said, "He will remain as the team's starting short-stop for many years to come."

In Chicago, fans can only wonder if Nomar is a two-month rental, or if he has more permanent plans. He and his superstar soccer-playing wife, Mia Hamm, who plans to retire after this year's Olympics, are renting in Chicago for now. But Chicago is the headquarters for the US Soccer Federation. And though it's hardly the ice cream town Boston is, maybe a deep-dish pizza in his name is in order. One slice of Nomar, to go.