By Jess Lander, YawkeyTalkies Editor

The Red Sox welcome back Nomar Garciaparra.

Well, for today anyway.

Fondly called Nomahhhh by Red Sox Nation, number 5 signed a one-day contract with a Sox minor league team before announcing his retirement from baseball after 14 seasons, at 36. He will now work as an analyst of ESPN where he said he’s thrilled to stay a part of the game.

This move is greatly appreciated by Sox fans, who have a decade’s worth (1994-2004) of memories from the beloved shortstop.

“I’ve always had a reoccurring dream to be able to retire in a Red Sox uniform,” Garciaparra said, as he admittedly choked up in a press conference today. “To have that dream come true I can’t put into words…To be able to say I came back home to Red Sox Nation, it’s truly a thrill. It’s good to be back.”

I thought it would be appropriate to remember Nomar’s greatness.

• He is a six-time All-Star
• He is a 2-time AL Batting Champion (consecutive years 1999, 2000)
• 1997 AL Rookies of the Year
• Won the Silver Slugger Award in 1997
• 2006 NL Comeback Player of the Year
• One of 13 players in Major League history to hit two grand slams during a single game, and the only to do so at home .

For the Sox, he earned the starting shortstop position late in his first season and secured the job until his departure. Since, the Sox haven’t been able to replace him, going through shortstops like Tiger does mistresses. (Sorry, had to.) In his rookie season, Nomar not only won Rookie of the Year with a 30-game hitting streak and 30 home runs, but was voted eighth for MVP and voted into the Home Run Derby competition.

Starting in 1997, his batting average never went below 3.0, reaching 3.72 in 2000, averageing .338 overall in his time at Fenway. He also hit 169 home runs during his time at with the Red Sox. His numbers with teams after weren’t even close.

Nomar’s fall for the Sox started in 2001 with a wrist injury. Though he recovered it sprung a string of injuries all having something to do with him being traded just a few months short of the 2004 World Series Championship, leading him to a shuffle around the Cubs, Dodgers, and Athletics, and leading to his retirement today.

On missing the World Series, Nomar said today, “I feel a part of it,” recognizing that it was something bigger for Boston than about the players. “It was about winning the World Series for these people, for Red Sox Nation.”

Nomar came home last year as a visiting player and received an amazing ovation from fans.

Nomar, thanks for so many great years. You were aways a Red Sox in our hearts.

And we were always in his.

“The biggest part of my heart, is obviously here,” he said.

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