Martone: Why shouldn't Varitek keep playing?

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So the question before the court is: Will you, a Red Sox fan, feel differently about Jason Varitek if he signs with another team and spends his final years -- or, more likely, year -- somewhere other than Boston?

My friend Rob Neyer of sbnation.com doesn't think so. ("Are people really going to remember or care if Varitek spends a few months wearing a Twins uniform?") After all, does anyone remember that Dwight Evans finished up with the Orioles? Or, conversely, that Hall of Famers like Luis Aparicio, Orlando Cepeda and Andre Dawson finished up here? (STUPIDITY ALERT: Sorry, just realized that Cepeda played 25 games for the Royals the year after leaving Boston, and Dawson actually spent his final two seasons with the Marlins. Arrggh! Sorry.)

But it raises an interesting point. Very, very, very few players even get the opportunity to spend their entire careers with one team. (Varitek technically doesn't count, since he started with the Mariners, but he's close enough.) Should they feel so strongly about their legacies that they should eschew the temptation to become baseball nomads in their old age, bouncing from team to team the way Gary Carter and Steve Carlton (among many others) did?

You'd think it means something to them; after all, how many of them sign one-day contracts to "retire" with the team that meant the most to them? (Hello there, Nomar Garciaparra.) But fact is, it really doesn't.

Given the choice, 999 players out of 1,000 continue playing once their original team cuts them loose. The ones that don't, like Jim Rice, don't because no one offers them a job. And it makes sense. They're ballplayers. Why wouldn't they want to continue playing ball as long as possible? And not to be crass or anything, but what else are they going to do in their lives that will pay them nearly as well? Even as much as baseball's minimum salary?

I know I don't feel one bit differently about Dwight Evans because he was an Oriole in 1991, and I won't feel one bit differently about Jason Varitek if he's a Twin (or whatever) in 2012. They have the rest of their lives to not be a ballplayer. They should continue being one as long as they can.

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