07/20/2023
Player of the Week #2 - NoMAH!, Nomar Garciaparra
With Player of the Week we highlight some of our favorite athletes whom made us love sports as much as we do.
The late 90’s baseball headlines were dominated by shortstops as an abundance of talent at the position cropped up around the league. With names like A-Rod, Jeter, Ripken, and Vizquel, one name and batting average stood out among the rest— NoMAH!
Drafted in the first round of the 1994 draft, Nomar Garciaparra made his major league debut in late 1996, and his eventual first major league hit left the park. In 1997 he wasted no time turning heads during his first full season in Fenway with his quirky batting routine, and his gaudy numbers at the plate. The future of Beantown looked bright as Garciaparra finished his Rookie of the Year winning season over .300, with 98 ribbies, and 30 ding dongs (the most by a rookie shortstop in baseball history)! He even found time to squeeze in a 30 game hitting streak, and lead the league in triples.
For the rest of the 90’s Nomar’s average continued to improve, and he kicked off the new millennium with a .372 season average in 2000. Garciaparra’s 2000 batting average was the highest single season average by any right-handed batter since Joe DiMaggio’s .381 in 1939. Though injuries would severely shorten and hamper his later career, NoMAH made 6 All-Star appearances, including one in 2006 with the Dodgers where he posted a .360 average into July (before injuries struck again).
With kids across the country imitating his toe-tapping, glove-strapping batting routine and stance, Garciaparra’s popularity and impact on the game were much bigger than his body of work. Despite being traded mid-season in Boston’s 2004 Championship campaign, NoMAH retired with the Red Sox, and will always be remembered as one of the greatest Red Sox shortstops of all time.
