Some of ’em left town amid fan outrage; some left quietly via waiver pick-ups or trading-deadline transactions; and some left with a swift kick out the door, with GOOD RIDDANCE tattooed on their backsides as they headed for greener pastures or obscurity.

Whatever the reason, major-league baseball’s current rosters include many prominent and not-so-prominent former Red Sox players. Some of them have flourished, but others have proved that their departure from Boston was not such a bad thing.

Was it good or bad for the Boston Red Sox when the following players changed uniforms? You be the judge. Teams are listed alphabetically.

Anaheim: only one member of baseball’s defending world champs got his start in Boston, but he was a big one. Well, not exactly big, since the five-foot-eight-inch David Eckstein probably is prohibited from even getting on certain rides at nearby Disneyland. Nonetheless, the 28-year-old shortstop was a key contributor to the Angels’ run to the title last fall, and the halos got him from the Sox for virtually nothing. Eckstein never actually played in a Boston uniform, but he was the same hustling, gritty player in the minors that he became for Anaheim, and it was unfortunate that former Sox GM Dan Duquette ignored his scouts and minor-league coaches by trying to slip him through waivers back in August of 2000. The Angels had received good reports about him over the years and snatched him up. Eckstein has compiled a .nifty 286 average in his three years there, along with a .975 fielding percentage. Granted, it’s unlikely he would have overtaken Nomar on the current Sox roster, but Anaheim got him for next to nothing, and thanks in part to him, they’re the ones wearing the shiny rings right now.

Arizona: Curt Schilling is another potential star who got away before his greatness could be assessed, and the burly righty can also boast a world championship post-Boston. The then-21-year-old minor-leaguer was traded to Baltimore by the Sox in 1988 in order to acquire veteran starting pitcher Mike Boddicker. Boddicker helped Boston reach the playoffs in both ’88 and ’90, but he was on the downswing of his career, while Schilling was just getting warmed up. Schilling has won 156 games in his durable 16-year career with the Orioles, Astros, Phillies, and now D-Backs, and the last two years he has gone 22-6 and 23-7, both times being a Cy Young runner-up. Along with Randy Johnson, he helps Arizona boast the best one-two pitching punch in the majors, and the two were co-MVPs when the snakes won the 2001 Fall Classic over the Yanks. Also on the D-Backs’ roster is Carlos Baerga, who after playing just one season for Boston last year in a pinch-hitting/utility/cheerleader role is now seeing a bit more playing time in Arizona, where he has 20 hits in 50 at-bats (.400) over 21 games.

Chicago Cubs: a couple of ex-Soxers are currently playing in the majors’ second-best ballpark. Mark Guthrie, who was a forgettable member of the Sox’ bullpen in 1999, hangs his hat in the Friendly Confines, as does former outfielder Troy O’Leary. Guthrie is still chugging along at a journeyman’s pace, but O’Leary, who was at times a consistent contributor for the Red Sox during his seven-year stint in Boston, is still trying to prove Duquette’s decision to send him packing after the 2001 season was a bad one. O’Leary will perhaps always be remembered for his heroics in game five of the 1999 Divisional Series against Cleveland, when he hit two home runs and drove in seven runs in Boston’s 12-8 deciding-game victory. O’Leary slumped to .261 in 2000 and .240 in 2001, and he was one of the many targets of fans’ derision — for perceived lackadaisical and dispassionate play — during the Sox’ late-season meltdown in 2001. O’Leary played in Montreal last year, batting .286 in 97 games, and signed with the Cubs this season, where he is batting just .182 in 17 games.

Chicago White Sox: a couple of once-popular Red Sox are now donning white socks instead, as the city’s south side is where you can find Tom Gordon and Brian Daubach. Gordon pitched for four seasons in Boston before injury and a lengthy recuperation forced Duquette to release him. But the memory of Gordon coming out of the bullpen to close out a game provides a pleasant distraction from any thoughts about the Sox’ current bullpen situation. The unquestioned highlight of Flash’s tenure here was his 46-save effort in 1998, a season marred only by his game-four failure in the ALDS against the Indians. He needed elbow surgery in 1999 and didn’t pitch again until 2001, when the pitching-starved Cubs took a chance on him. He converted 27 of 31 saves that year, but a back injury put him on the shelf for the bulk of 2002, when he was traded to Houston. After going 1-1 with a 3.42 ERA for Jimy Williams last year, he signed with the White Sox this spring. Currently, he’s 1-2 with a 3.32 ERA through 13 games, and has blown both of his save chances. Daubach, who was released by the Red Sox for economic reasons this past off-season, made the White Sox squad this spring, but he’s 3-31 (.097) with just one RBI and eight strikeouts in 15 games of action. By the way, though he’s not a former Red Soxer, Bartolo Colon almost joined the Olde Towne Team this past winter, and he’s just 2-3 with a 4.37 ERA and 30 strikeouts in seven games for Chicago. Somewhere, Casey Fossum is sleeping easier.

Cleveland: just one Sox alum here, but his post-Boston career raises all kinds of what-ifs. Ellis Burks got his start here in 1987 and played six productive seasons patrolling center field for the Sox. For some reason, Boston chose not to pursue him when he became a free agent, and Burks signed with the White Sox instead. After batting .275 in 1993, he was traded to Colorado, where he put together five more outstanding though injury-plagued seasons (.322, .266, .344, .290, .286) before moving on to San Francisco, where he batted over .300 twice in three seasons. For the last two years he has been suffering in Cleveland, though his numbers have not dwindled. He has achieved a batting average of .293 over his 16-year career while smashing 349 home runs and driving in nearly 1200 runs. Johnny Damon’s not bad these days, but if Boston had held on to Burks, perhaps Red Sox history might have been written a little differently.

Colorado: Darren Oliver, known most famously as the guy the Sox got in order to finally bid goodbye to controversial outfielder Carl Everett, was released last July after going 4-5 with a 4.66 ERA. After pitching for St. Louis’s Triple-A team the rest of the summer, Oliver hooked up with the Rockies this year, where he’s 1-2 with a 6.03 ERA in six appearances. Chris Stynes, who played just one reasonably successful season for the Red Sox in 2001 (.280, 101 hits) before Duquette inexplicably sacked him, hit .241 for the Cubs in 98 games last year and is batting .250 in 27 games for Colorado thus far this season.

Florida: Carl Pavano, known in these parts for nothing else than because he was the one traded to the Expos for Pedro Martinez back in 1998, has not exactly become the phenom that many scouts had envisioned. He went 24-35 in five seasons with the Expos, with his best year coming three years ago when he compiled an 8-4 record in 15 starts. Last year he joined the Marlins, where he went 3-2 with a 3.79 ERA in 22 games before his season (for the second straight year) was cut short by soreness in his throwing arm. He’s 29-41 for his career, and is probably best known nationally for the fact that he gave up Mark McGwire’s 70th home run in 1998. This year Pavano’s off to a 2-4 record and a 4.66 ERA through his first seven games.

Houston: this one’s gonna hurt, Sox fans. You know who it is, don’t you? Imagine as a part of Red Sox’ 1990s line-ups — and even today — a four-time All-Star, the 1991 Rookie of the Year, the 1994 National League MVP, and a slugger who’s averaged a .302 BA while collecting 390 home runs and 1340 RBIs during his 12-year career. Yes indeed, who knows what life at Fenway Park would have been around here had Jeff Bagwell not been traded to the Houston Astros for reliever Larry Andersen back in 1990. Andersen stayed for just three months and secured but one save in 15 appearances for the playoff-bound Sox. Bagwell, in contrast, is most likely headed to the Hall of Fame, and he’s never played fewer than 110 games per season over the course of his impressive career. Can’t blame Duquette for this one, because former GM Lou Gorman is the one who’ll always have to live with this most ridiculously uneven of Red Sox trades. We’ll see for ourselves in mid-June, when the Astros make their first-ever visit to the Fens. By the way, also on the Houston roster is Adam Everett, the minor-league shortstop who was traded to the Astros to acquire Carl Everett in the first place. Though Adam was highly touted by virtue of his first team All-American status in college (and the fact that Baseball America rated him as the best defensive player in the 1998 Entry Draft), the 26-year-old has done nothing to make anyone believe he would have supplanted Nomar in Boston. Adam batted just .193 in his first taste of the majors last year, and has yet to hit a home run in his brief 43-game career.

Los Angeles: it’s almost easy to forget that set-up man extraordinaire Paul Quantrill got his start in Boston, where he pitched out of the pen for three seasons. He was traded to Philadelphia in May 1994, and he spent two seasons at the Vet before going to Toronto for the next six seasons. In 2001, he led the majors in wins by a reliever (11), and his 80 appearances led the league. The fact that he was just two for nine in save opportunities proved that perhaps a good number of those 11 wins were of the "vulture" variety, but his 3.04 ERA was among the best in the AL. He’s been pitching at Dodger Stadium for the last two seasons, and though his career record is 57-69 with a 3.77 ERA, given the shape of the current Red Sox bullpen, even those numbers would be greatly welcome now.

Tune in over the weekend for the rest of the Sox alumni toiling at the major-league level.

Part two of this post-Fenway reunion will be published here at BostonPhoenix.com on Friday. Same bat time, same bat station.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com