On Sunday afternoon in St. Louis, the Cardinals were playing their final home game of the season. At the same time, Cardinal legends Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols were taking part in their last regular season home game, and Adam Wainright might make it three.
St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol came to the mound in the late innings and had the three legends walk off the mound to the dugout, together, for one last time. A thunderous ovation greeted the trio and created another memory from a special season.
It will not be that simple for Alex Cora this week. For one thing, there's little to celebrate about the 2022 Red Sox season, which ends, not a moment too soon Wednesday. For another, no one on his roster is retiring. But a number of them may be playing their final game in a Red Sox uniform in the coming days. The Red Sox have a long list of potential free agents, including a few who have contributed to World Series teams here: Xander Bogaerts, Nathan Eovaldi and J.D. Martinez to cite three.
It's possible that all three could return. Or one or two. Or none. That's the thing here -- uncertainty rules the day.
So how do the Red Sox -- and Cora, in particular -- handle the potential goodbyes? How does Cora approach the issue?
Eovaldi will make his final start of the season Tuesday, and it's easier to control the departure of a starting pitcher. He can come out in the middle of an inning and remove him, allowing Eovaldi the opportunity to walk off the mound and acknowledge the crowd.
Handling position players is more of a challenge. Martinez is a DH, so he can't come off the field from a defensive position in the middle of an inning. And while Bogaerts had expressed an interest in playing all three remaining games, he wasn't part of Monday's lineup. After taking batting practice on the field, he was bothered by back tightness, lingering from the weekend.
"It's different (here),'' said Cora. "We'll talk about it. They want to play. I'll think about it and see what we can do. Hopefully, we have 35,000 people every night and they'll recognize that. I just want them to recognize everybody here. I know it wasn't a great season; it was a horrible season, to be honest with you.
"But the fact that we're still getting fans and they get into it, it still makes it special for the last three days...I think the fact this franchise, and the people here that recognize the effort and what we tried to do, although we didn't accomplish anything, we just finished last. We have to respect that. I hope they actually acknowledge some of these guys that will be playing the next three games here.''
Eovaldi has spent four and a half seasons with the Sox, having been acquired just before the 2017 deadline. He endeared himself to his teammates and fan base in the 2018 World Series, when he supplied six innings of relief in a marathon 18-inning loss. In the absence of Chris Sale for much of the last three seasons, Eovaldi has been, when healthy, the team's most dependable starter.
Martinez endured a down year this season and a poor 2020 pandemic season, but in his three other years, served as an elite run producer in the middle of the Boston lineup. His career in a Red Sox uniform may lack the singular moment of Eovaldi's, but he proved to be a clutch post-season performer, knocking in 24 runs over 23 games.
The most emotion in the final two games is expected to be focused on Bogaerts, who made his debut in 2013, but whose history with the franchise dates back to 2009, when he signed, at 16, as an international free agent.
Bogaerts is now part of Red Sox' lore -- as a member of two world championship teams -- and also listed in the record books. Earlier this year, Bogaerts became just the fourth player in franchise history to reach 1,500 career hits before the age of 30. He's been an All-Star on multiple occasions, and at 30, has plenty of good baseball in front of him. This year, thanks to some adjustments, he enjoyed what was easily his best season from a defensive standpoint.
He'll also become something of a test case this winter. After the Sox were unable to reach agreement with their last high-profile, homegrown player (Mookie Betts), fans want to see a commitment to Bogaerts as an indication that management is committed to retaining its own stars.
"It'll be emotional,'' Cora acknowledged to reporters over the weekend in Toronto, "but I hope we don't get too emotional. It's part of it. I hope he's my shortstop for however long I want to manage. That's the goal here. We like him. We want him here.''
Still, the next two days could result in an outpouring of affection for Bogaerts from the fans, who would prefer to express their love for the shortstop than to begin the long goodbye to him.