E-Mail This Article to a Friend Burned by the hot stove BY MITCH KRPATA

I confess that, although I consider myself a life-long sports fan, I’ve never heard the term "hot stove" before this year. Maybe it’s one of those things I learned and then immediately forgot, like the state capitals or my girlfriend’s birthday. One thing’s for sure: I’m already sick of the sports media’s attempts to work the phrase into cute headlines. It can only be a short step from THE HOT STOVE IS SIZZLING to FRYING SOME TRADE-RUMOR BACON ON THE HOT STOVE!

Still, how else can one describe all the off-season wheeling and dealing? Major League Baseball has managed to follow the most memorable post-season in years with its most memorable off-season ... well ... ever. When the A’s acquisition of Mark Redman can somehow not be front-page sports news, you know things are hopping. (You did know they got Redman, right? To add to a rotation that already features at least three of the best young pitchers in the game?) In the AL East alone, the Orioles are poised to become contenders by adding Miguel Tejada and making serious bids for Ivan Rodriguez and Vlad Guerrero. The Yankees, as usual, have added a future Hall of Famer in Gary Sheffield. And the Red Sox ... they’ve got the hot stove melting down.

Which brings us to one Alex Rodriguez. Single-handedly, he’s managed to distract New England fans from a Patriots team that has now won more games in the regular season than any before it. He kept us from storming Danny Ainge’s office with pitchforks and torches when the Ricky Davis trade was announced. At least the Bruins have the defense that no one was paying attention to them in the first place. The fact is, we’ve put the bulk of our fan energy into a team that won’t play a regular-season game for another four and a half months, and, once again, the Red Sox have let us down.

After weeks of speculation, Bud Selig set a deadline for five o’clock yesterday evening: either make a deal or drop the whole thing. Like many in Red Sox Nation, I spent the half-hour prior to the deadline obsessively refreshing ESPN.com and RedSox.com. Too bad this was all leading up to the biggest anticlimax since the introduction of New Coke.

"The deal is dead," the sites announced shortly after five.

That’s it? That’s the best they could do? This rumor’s gone from a simmer to a boil on the hot stove since before Thanksgiving, to the point where I was actually surprised to see the sniper-trial verdict listed above the A-Rod deal on the Boston Globe’s Web site. I’ve debated the merits of the trade with everyone I know, and even with complete strangers on the T. This was supposed to be the ultimate baseball transaction. I was expecting something on the magnitude of the Louisiana Purchase. Instead, it looks like the shop is closed.

Yet there will be repercussions for the Red Sox. On balance, it looks as though nothing has changed. Manny being Manny, he will continue to hit like a baseball terminator from the future while failing to run out ground balls and frequently forgetting how many outs there are. Nomar is hard-wired to play hard. His game won’t be affected. It’s the rest of the team I’m worried about. Kevin Millar committed a major gaffe in an interview earlier this week by basically falling to his knees in front of A-Rod and shouting, "I’m not worthy!"

Those weren’t his exact words, but he did say he expected the deal would happen and that Nomar was obviously unhappy in Boston. What do you suppose will happen the first time those two encounter one another at spring training? I’ll wager a sheepish grin from Millar and a Pacino-like death stare from Nomar.

We grew to love the 2003 Red Sox because, no like no Sox team in recent memory, they really did spell "team" without an I. They seemed to be following the lead of the 2001 Patriots. Now, that unity may be lost. Has Kevin Millar inadvertently split his teammates into pro-Alex and pro-Nomar camps? Will Nomar take a hard-line stance during the next round of contract negotiations, knowing how close the only team he’s ever played for came to moving him? Will Manny, just once in his life, run out a damn ground ball? No matter what the answers to these questions, the inescapable conclusion is that we seem to be heading into the 2004 season with the same players, but a different team.

Even mumbling the words "Curt Schilling" over and over is no palliative for the disaster this nonevent has turned out to be. Believe me, I’ve tried. For weeks, analysts have been saying there’s no way the deal could fall through. Both parties wanted it too much. Defying the cardinal rule of being a Red Sox fan, I just assumed we had A-Rod in the bank. That didn’t stop me from devoting every spare second to checking the latest updates on the story. Hell, I was so absorbed in this thing that I forgot the Patriots are playing this Saturday night, and I made other plans. This is the level of dementia to which the hot stove has reduced me.

Enough, I say. Those of us in Red Sox Nation had our hearts ripped out less than two months ago. All the Sox had to do was say, "Baby, I can change!" and we’d already be standing on Yawkey Way with flowers. They’ve made some exciting deals over the past month, but come on. We’ve got the best Patriots team of all time steamrolling toward the playoffs, and no one seems to notice. I think the gas from the hot stove is making us woozy.

The one positive I can see from all this is fewer smarmy headlines, though a masochistic part of me was looking forward to major media outlets falling over each other to be the first to say, NO-MORE GARCIAPARRA IN BOSTON! Instead, maybe they can talk about the Players’ Association giving the Sox A-RAW DEAL. Let me know if anybody steals that one. I’ll be over here watching football.

"Sporting Eye" runs Mondays and Fridays on BostonPhoenix.com. Mitch Krpata can be reached at mkrpata[a]phx.com