The captain has earned his keep
DENVER - I know this will sound crazy, not to mention irrelevant. But I cannot think of a better way to sum up what Jason Varitek means to the Boston Red Sox.
Though it's obvious we will never again see a player-manager in major league baseball, humor me, please. I believe that if there is one person in the contemporary game who could be a player-manager, who possesses both the requisite baseball savvy and organizational ability to handle the job, and who has the needed respect from the players whose lives and careers he would be governing, it is Jason Varitek. Call me insane, but that's what I believe.
Thanks. I needed to get that off my chest.
On a team populated with Papis, Mannys, Schills, Becketts, Paps, Lowells, and Superkids, Jason Varitek does not stand out to the average fan. But let there be no confusion about just who is the leader and rock of this team. Jason Varitek wears that "C" for a very good reason.
I'm now pulling rank. One of the privileges of this job is that we can see what you cannot. You see Varitek wearing No. 33. You may even be one of those folks hanging around the Red Sox parking lot, and thus have seen him in is civvies, either going to or coming from the ballpark.
What you don't see is what we see after every game Varitek catches. You don't see him sitting on a chair in front his locker, gargantuan, humungous, Canada-sized ice bags encased in Ace bandages wrapped around both knees and both shoulders. It is at moments like this you realize just how much more a catcher works than everyone else on the team, except perhaps the pitcher. Then your mind shifts to the routine pregame sight of Varitek poring over the scouting reports. Then you are reminded just how much more a catcher thinks than everyone else on the team.
"He has a lot of responsibility," said Terry Francona. "Sometimes you see him after games with those ice packs. I think he maybe ought to put one on his head, too, because you can tell he's worn out. After a game he bears a lot of what happens and he takes the responsibility. But on the flip side, when you're shaking hands after a win, by his demeanor you would never know how many hits he has. If he catches a win, I think he feels like he's done his job."
Varitek is completing the third year of a four-year, $40 million contract, and it is hard to imagine what this team would be without him. Well, no, actually it isn't. We saw what happened last year when he injured his knee and missed a key month of the season. The Sox' collapse and disappearance from the 2006 pennant race coincided with his knee surgery in August and subsequent rehabilitation.
Of course, we had seen it before. The 2001 season was essentially over the minute Varitek wrecked his elbow while making a diving catch of a pop foul against the Tigers. Both his and the team's bad fortune was that he fell on the slick circular logo the Red Sox had in place that summer. Anyway, he had season-ending surgery June 12 and the Red Sox lurched their way to a dismal finish (13 1/2 out) that cost manager Jimy Williams his job.
Varitek is not having a great postseason at the plate, but he's not having a bad one, either. He came into Game 4 batting .250 overall, with 5 doubles, a homer and 9 RBIs. But it's been a bit of a different story in the six-game turnaround beginning with Game 5 in the American League Championship Series.
In the six-game Red Sox winning streak, The Captain has gone 7 for 21 with 3 doubles, a walk, and 2 sacrifice flies, one of which brought in the first run in the tense 2-1 triumph in Game 2 of the World Series. His fifth-inning single brought home Mike Lowell with the second run in last night's Game 4. Those types of clutch at-bats are in keeping with his general postseason efficiency.
He's never been a great hitter. He's never hit .300 or hit more than 25 home runs or driven in more than 85 runs. He goes on strikeout binges. But he's still a switch-hitting threat who can enhance a lineup.
"Well, I think he's dangerous because he has power," said Francona, who never frets about Varitek's hitting. "I think any catcher worth his salt is going to lose at-bats because you're catching first, and Jason falls into that. You see a lot of innings where he's hitting second and he's got some pitcher's ear, or they've got his ear, and the hitting isn't in the forefront. That happens. You get worn down. You catch that many games, you're going to get worn down. You're going to lose some bat speed from time to time. That's just the way the game is."
Regardless, Varitek is building an impressive postseason dossier, having hit 10 career October homers, the all-time Red Sox high. He also came into last night's game as the Red Sox career postseason leader in games (52). But, of course, he is the everyday position player dean on this team, the only person who participated in that first great comeback of this current Red Sox era, the 0-2 extrication in the 1999 AL Division Series against Cleveland.
Francona considers himself blessed. He has been able to write Varitek's name down in the lineup card 556 times since taking over as manager prior to the 2004 season.
"I don't think we've ever denied, nor do we want to, the role that he has on our club. He's our captain. He not only runs our team, but, obviously, the pitching staff," said Francona.
He's not the biggest star on the team, but he's something more important. In the locker room, he's the boss.
Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at ryan@globe.com. 