Wells Stays

By Sloan

At the beginning of the 2005-2006 off season, the Boston Red Sox had many questions and many holes that needed to be filled. We didn't have our lead-off man and true "Idiot," Johnny Damon, anymore. We had to re-build our infield. Who was the GM? And we had to worry about granting trade requests by both Manny Ramirez and David Wells.

Well, we got Coco, our veteran defensive infield is looking quite good. Theo's back. Manny showed up. And now Wells is here to stay according to an Ap article written by Howard Ulman.

In the article, Theo Epstein says that Wells is here to stay. After wanting to be traded to the west coast to end his career, David Wells finally took back his request and says he is to retire after this year in Boston. Wells complains that there is no privacy in Boston and that he, his family and friends cannot go out in public peacefully, the same thing Manny complained about.

But luckily for Red Sox fans, Wells and his family will "tough it out" one more season. After this however Wells is "99.9 percent sure" that this is his last year.

Now, Wells is working on strengthening his knee that he had surgery on in the off season. Because of his knee, and his intentions to retire, it was extremely difficult to trade Wells like he wanted. But the Red Sox did make attempts, even though Theo was strongly against it.

According to Ulman, the Sox captain, Jason Varitek, had a talk with Wells that helped Wells make his final decision to stay. With Wells staying, it now helps the Red Sox, who already have a deep and powerful pitching staff, with a definite arm for the middle for the rotation.

I think Wells has been a class act this past off-season. I respect why he wanted to be traded, for the simple reasons he wanted to be at home with his two young daughters, and he wanted to retire where he lives. But after he realized what a hassle his request had become for both him and the team, Wells withdrew the request.

Wells finished his conversation with Howard Ulman with this comment, one that makes me feel even better he decided to stay."Instead of trying to make a mess out of the whole situation, I think it's best that you just deal with it, go in with good thoughts and good goals and try to help this team win a championship."

It is starting to look like a championship team the Red Sox have put together.

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