Outtakes: Nomar Garciaparra on his Achilles injury, the 2004 season, and the Red Sox winning the World Series

July 6th, 2006 → 8:18 am @ Seth Mnookin // No Comments

This is the sixth in a series of outtakes from interviews done for Feeding the Monster, to be published on July 11 by Simon & Schuster. It is the last of three outtakes from this interview with Nomar Garciaparra, which was conducted in Austin, Texas on October 28, 2005.

On the rumors about his Achilles injury: When I heard how I got hurt playing soccer, it was insulting to me because it attacked my integrity. And some of the other stuff I have heard was insulting to my integrity. The stories that I heard that I was like, ‘What?’ When I heard that one, ‘You got hurt playing soccer,’ I actually heard that one after I was traded and the funny thing was that was the year, that year and the year before I didn’t kick the soccer ball around. I was like, ‘Why would you bring up soccer, because of my wife? Now is it getting personal? Why that?’ It’s just so far from the truth. I played the first two/three games of spring training, and what really happened with my Achilles and everything, when I got hurt—I assume a lot of responsibility for this because I was vague, and I’m not going to deny that—but I got hit there, and no one saw it, I was taking a ground ball. It didn’t bother me till three or four days later. I could have been other stuff. All I know is it flared up. This is how it happened. I’m not going to lie. Did that really cause it, maybe it did and maybe it didn’t. So I asked the doctor, ‘Can this happen?’ Because it didn’t flare up or bother me until later. And the doctor was like, ‘It can.’ When you’ve got a thousand people asking you what happened to you, ‘Well it could be this. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.’ I don’t know what to tell them.

Like I said, [the confusion surrounding the injury] is my fault as well. I’m not saying that I didn’t make mistakes along the way. I’m not here to tell you I didn’t. But either way, it flared up and it flared up really bad. It was so painful, so swollen, it was so bad, I couldn’t walk. I was in a boot. I was stubborn. I didn’t want crutches. And that is what I dealt with that year. It sucked. What I did learn about the injury, if you know anything about tendonitis at all, it’s inflammation of the tendon and the tendon is throbbing. It’s hurting. It’s painful, and it can gets so swollen it can eventually pop. You really have to calm that down for a few reasons: one for reduced pain, two to strengthen the area. If it gets weak, it’s just going to give. And the thing about the Achilles is, there is not much blood flow in that area of the body and the only way to get the inflammation out is with blood. Not much I could do in that area so it took me a while to come back and for it to calm down, to deal with that so it wouldn’t snap because if it snaps you’re done. And I’m also thinking about my free agent year, you know, ‘It doesn’t look like they’ll want me back.’ What was I going to do?

On the 2004 season: Throughout the year, that is another thing that hurt me was hearing that I was faking it, faking the injury. Those are the things that I don’t understand exactly. And in my free agent year….I’m not sticking it to the Red Sox, I’m not sticking it to anybody, my teammates, my fans, myself, those are the people I care about the most, I’m not sticking it to them. I mean the stuff you hear. I wouldn’t do this in the free agent year. If I could play, I could play. So when I was finally able to comeback, I played.

On the Red Sox’s World Series win: I was happy, elated, excited. It was a little bit hard, sure. Absolutely. I wanted to be there with them. But they made me feel like I was with them. Guys on the team called me throughout it. Trot, Tek, JD, ‘Hey guys, you’re winning, keep going.’ They’d call and say, ‘Nommie, did you see that?’ I didn’t watch the World Series but I heard…I didn’t sit there and watch it. But I followed it and I followed them, Trot, all the boys.

I was happy for the city, I was happy for those people. The whole time I was there, I said I wanted them to win a World Series. I was part of that championship season. For forty of them, I was a part about that. And my teammates knew that. It was great. Getting the call from them, and then me calling them back, it meant the world to me. I hope I just gave you the facts. I’m not here to bash anyone. I’m not one to say this guy’s this way. This is the first time I have said how it really happened. You can see through the media the half-truths. That’s why I’m here now. Because you hear it, I’m not one to point the finger. I don’t know how someone interprets it. They said they do respect me and that’s all I ask. And all I have ever given the media is that respect in return. And it may not have been easy maybe difficult, but at the very least I hope I was respectful at all times.

Post Categories: Feeding the Monster Outtakes & Nomar Garciaparra & Red Sox