December 5, 2010 may go down as one of the most stressful but exciting days for fans of the Boston Red Sox. This is the day that the biggest trade in recent history went down sending first baseman Adrian Gonzalez to the Red Sox by trade but it almost didn’t happen.
All trade talks began on Saturday saying that Gonzalez had been traded from the San Diego Padres for three of Boston’s top minor league prospects, which included Casey Kelly a right-handed pitcher and was considered there top prospect. It was said the only way the deal would go through was if Gonzalez, who is coming into his final year of his contract, was willing to sign a contract extension allowing him to skip free agency and become of a long term member of the team.
The two sides began to negotiate a long term contract with a 2pm ET deadline on Sunday to get a deal complete. Both sides worked long into the night and Red Sox Nation began to worry if a deal would get done. It was said that Gonzalez camp was requesting a six year deal worth $150 million and the Red Sox are not known for signing players over five year deal due to injury or age.
Well the 2pm deadline comes and goes, the fans are nervously waiting to see if a deal had been agreed upon between the two camps.
When a tweet from SI.com’s Jon Heyman came out saying that the “Gonzalez trade had feel thru”. Peter Gammons also added that Gonzalez was leaving Boston on a 4:30 flight and had left a hundred million dollar deal on the table.
At this point the hearts of all Boston fans was broken as some fans were calling for the firing of General Manager Theo Epstein and saying that John W. Henry should sell the team if he wasn’t willing to spend money on winning players. This would be the second time they was unable to finish a deal as they lost in the bidding two years before on first baseman Mark Teixeira to the New York Yankees.
Later in the day as hearts of broken fans sit around to hear from the team sources come out to say what had happened. Rumors began to surface that the two sides was still working on a deal past the deadline deal. This began to bring hope back.
Then at around the 9 pm ET, out of nowhere Heyman sends out a tweet saying that a deal had been completed sending Gonzalez to the Red Sox. This was not the deal Boston had originally wanted and the deal was done without contract extension that they had hoped for.
With all the speculations over of will he or won’t he play in Boston, Monday morning the deal became official in a press conference. Gonzalez said that as a boy his favorite American League team growing up was the Boston Red Sox.
“I’m very excited,” Gonzalez said. “I’ve had five incredible years in San Diego. When I grew up, my whole dream as a kid was to play in the major leagues and be a Padre. My second dream was to be a Red Sox. So, I’m very excited. God has been very, very good to me, and I’m just very excited to start this new phase. I look forward to a lot of world championships.”
Boston fans couldn’t have said it better than that; he is being brought in as a bat that has been missing in the lineup since the trade of Manny Ramirez in 2008.
Since a deal is not in place as of yet he is currently under contract his original contract for one year for a bargain of $5.5 million. It is said that the Red Sox and Gonzalez have common ground and they feel that a deal can be done at a later date. Some believe that a deal will not come from the Red Sox until after Opening Day so to avoid any luxury taxes on the 2011 pay roll.
So now that it is all said and done Gonzalez will take the field on April1, 2011 as the starting first baseman for the Red Sox, the fans can now be excited for the future of the team and no longer be calling for Epstein’s head because of his success.
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