Comings & Goings

So everyone is up in arms about potentially losing Jacoby Ellsbury. And I love Ellsbury, I do. I love the story. I love his heart. I love his drive. I love his wide-eyed innocence. He's so easy to fall in love with. He had me with that first single.

But the genius of this management team is that they know that there's no such thing as irreplaceable. They taught us that from the word go when they traded Nomar.

No matter who we lose, we get through it.

It's comforting to me. There's no one soul mate. You can be madly in love with someone. You can be sure that he's the one. And then you can be in the position of needing to let him go. And you can still be okay. In fact, you can still thrive.

In the heat of the moment of love, it's so easy to say "the one," to focus on nothing else but what might have been, and that path you were on with that person. But it turns out, there are a million ways to win. We can replace Johnny Damon with Coco Crisp and still win. Win differently, for sure, but win nonetheless.

What I love are those moments when you've finally put something good together, the right structure, the right self, so that you know you withstand anything: departures, changes, new additions. It's a good time in life when you feel very capable of winning. Sure of it even.