I’ve always believed that there are three stages of “fanhood” with lifelong team affiliations – childhood, where you simply root for or against whatever team your parents support, regardless of how you feel about them. This stage usually lasts until you’re about 12 or 13 years old; you might “love” a team, and you definitely have a favorite player, but most kids aren’t obsessive about their teams. Certainly not like most of the people reading and writing on these pages…

Stage two comes in your early teens and lasts until right around the college years. In High School, we all kind of come into our own with our fan allegiances. We’re much more sophisticated in our fanhood, and can actually carry on a sports-based conversation that involves more substance than “Player X is wicked awesome”, and “When I grow up, I want to pitch for Team Y”. (Well, except Yankee fans. This feature of their fanhood never really develops fully).

Finally, Stage three. Usually by the college years, our allegiances are firmly entrenched by 18 years of support for our teams and hatred for their rivals. When we go off to school, we can build new friendships based on nothing more than which team’s hat we choose to wear to class in the morning or which side of a sports bar we sit on. The third stage carries on throughout the rest of our lives, when we don’t necessarily live and die with every game of a season, but sports still plays a huge role in our lives.

Well, I sort of grew up with Nomar Garciaparra. Although my earliest baseball memories are of the 1986 World Series (yes, that one), and although Wade Boggs, Dwight Evans and Mike Greenwell were my favorite players for years while I was a kid, my “Stage Two” came around at just about the same time as Nomar. I was lucky enough to get to watch him play for a full year in AAA-ball in Pawtucket in 1996 before the rest of the baseball world got to see him. He was a revelation at the plate, hitting .300 in his Major League rookie season in 1997 and only dropping below the .300 line once in his time in Boston, an injury shortened 21-game 2001 season when he still hit .289 He won the ’97 Rookie of the Year, made five All-Star appearances and finished second in the 1998 MVP balloting to Juan Gonzalez along with four other top-10 MVP finishes. He was a solid mix of power and speed, putting up 10+ steals in four of his six full years in Fenway and 20+ Home Runs in every one of his full seasons in Boston, something he’s only done once since being unceremoniously shipped out of town five years ago.

Not every player who has returned to Fenway Park got the type of reception that Nomar Garciaparra got on Monday night. None deserved it. For almost ten years, Nomar was The Red Sox. He was the face of a perpetually underachieving franchise, the player that every fan could rely on to produce stellar numbers regardless of the win-loss record. Nomar was always there, patrolling the left side of the infield and lacing line drives off the Monster.

It was only in 2004, after the crushing end to the ’03 campaign and at a time that another Red Sox season seemed lost to mediocrity that the tide began to turn. Fans began routinely booking Nomar at home, something that would have been unthinkable just a few seasons earlier. His attitude was clearly different – maybe he thought he was underappreciated (he probably was). Maybe he thought he would never get as good a chance at a World Series as the Red Sox team in 2003 (he was definitely right). Maybe he was just still kicking himself for turning down a $60M guaranteed contract (and subsequently signing a series of 1-year deals for far less money). Or maybe he just was angry with ownership for pursuing Alex Rodriguez and Magglio Ordonez for Nomar and Manny Ramirez before the ’04 season started.

When he was finally sent to the Chicago Cubs in a three team trade that brought Orlando Cabrera (ironically, now Nomar’s teammate) and Doug Mientkewicz to Boston, it was as if the sports world in Boston came to a halt. If you want to separate the “real” Red Sox fans from the “pink hat” Red Sox fans, ask them one question – do you remember where you were when you heard Nomar had been traded. It’s the quickest way to see just how long that person has been a “true” fan. (For the record, I was sitting in my buddies’ apartment playing Xbox when I got a Nextel chirp from another friend yelling “No More Nomah!”)

It was a move that obviously needed to happen – the ring in ’04 should be proof enough. It was a sad end to one of the more storied – if too short – careers of a Boston icon. In 2003, the New England Pyramid of Sports Teams and their defining stars was Red Sox (Nomar), Patriots (Brady), Celtics (Pierce), Bruins (Thornton) in that order. Imagine that – a declining shortstop with zero titles was probably more well-known and definitely more loved than a two-time Super Bowl winning quarterback. By the middle of the 2004 season, fans were split almost 50/50 on the Nomar trade. Of course, by the end of the year there was little doubt that the right move was made.

I always imagined Nomar somewhere in California in October of 2004, watching the World Series and ensuing celebrations from his house. I always hoped he was smiling at the thought of his former teammates, friends and city celebrating a long-overdue title, though I doubt he was.

When he entered the game to lead-off the second inning Monday night, the Fenway fans gave him the respect he deserved with a two-minute standing ovation. The look on Nomar’s face showed that he was happy to be back. Happy to be home. Boston will (hopefully) always accept him and applaud his returns. Once a favorite son, always a favorite son. Welcome back Nomar. Welcome home.

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