Here's your gold watch, now hit the road!

SPORTING GOODS

So maybe nobody cares in the wake of the Barry Bonds bombshell (brought to my attention by Sergio), and with the World Baseball Classic kicking off in the US today.

But the Mets and Red Sox have had two events hit the transaction wire that should be greeted with joy by fans, even though the teams themselves may have not really done anything to make these events happen.

1. Bret Boone retired
2. John Flaherty retired

The retirement of each player means the same for each team. It means that rather than waste at-bats and innings in spring training on players who are no better than anyone either team has in the high minors, the Mets and Red Sox will be able to evaluate the younger guys fairly and give them valuable experience. Perhaps more importantly, neither player will be occupying a roster spot on opening day for no good reason.

Perhaps Bret Boone had more potential to bounce back, considering he was a star just a few years ago, but it was looking unlikely. See Sergio's previous post about Barry Bonds for the most likely explanation, though I am not one to throw out accusations.

Flaherty was just old, but I have another theory after reading that he gave no explanation for his retirement. I just think that he realized that it would be no fun to be Tim Wakefield's personal catcher. Let some younger guy with fresher legs chase those floaters all over the park, while Varitek gets the cushy job of catching Schilling and Beckett.

John Flaherty had a nice career, with his most memorable moment being the game-winning hit in the wild affair at Yankee Stadium that led to Nomar being booted out of Boston - the same game where Jeter did his famous dive into the stands. My favorite memory of him will be the weekly feature in a free NY sports paper that is no longer published, in which they would do a side-by-side comparison of John Flaherty and various pubs named Flaherty's, to see who had a better week. He held his own in those contests.

PS - forgot to mention, thanks to reader O for the heads up on Flaherty