Saying Goodbye to Yankee Legend… Stephen Drew

His calm eyes evoke a sense of peace, sometimes mistaken for detachment.

Can you see him?

He’s at the plate now, awaiting the next offering in his life’s journey, a child’s game played by men still grasping, yearning for their youth. It’s why the fans have come to watch this moment, themselves trying to hold onto the memories of the past, even as the veteran player stares fate in the face.

The pitcher deals. Fastball. Called strike one.

He’s been here more than 4,000 times in the major leagues, but this plate appearance…this one is more special to the man. Fenway Park public address announcer Henry Mahegan has announced his name to the crowd, eliciting what sound like boos, but are clearly overtures for his surname. Just like Dewey. Just like Youk.

He squints and stares down the lanky righthander who used to be his teammate. He knows his tendencies on the mound.

“Curveball,” he tells himself, as the pitcher fidgets on the mound, briefly filtering the fingers on his throwing hand through his drenched locks of hair that look as if they’ve been dipped in Crisco. The batter understands what this means, and feels all the more confident in what’s coming to him from 60 feet, six inches away.

Satisfied, the pitcher nods into his catcher and hurls his second offering.

Fastball. Called strike two.

There is a level of surprise, but the batter doesn’t show it. He keeps his emotions in check, even with the knowledge that this might be it. One more pitch. One more swing and his time here is done, his future unclear.

The 31-year-old from Hahira, Ga. will be a free agent after the game, able to choose his own path, the road that led him here, to this city only two years ago, following in the footsteps of his older brother. He was part of a World Series winner, just like his brother, who emerged as postseason hero. He too, just like his brother, was a factor, hitting his own home run in the fourth inning of a decisive Game 6 of the 2013 World Series.

What did it matter if he hit only .111 during that postseason? Where were the critics that night when he launched Michael Wacha’s first pitch into the right field bullpen? Where were they when his Duck Boat paraded past thousands on the streets of the city, grateful to give thanks to the man, the player who was one of the 25 who gave Boston another claim to its embarrassment of riches?

Do you see him now?

Here he is, perhaps down to the end, one more strike separating him from the uncertainty of a pay cut. He’s still in his prime, had an OPS as high as .810 only four years ago. But this season, this season there has been pressure and a .163 batting average to go along with a prorated contract that is only paying him $10 million.

Much like everything in life, the sweet nectar taste of the first time wasn’t as palatable the second time around. Boston became a den of unhappiness for the player. For the fans. For his teammates. Maybe most importantly, for his agent.

“You know, it’s there,” he once said, back when he signed with the Red Sox. Back when, even then, there were questions about his talent level declining. First in Arizona. Then in Oakland, where he went 4-for-21 with seven strikeouts in a five-game playoff series defeat against Detroit. “I mean, look back at my career, I always start slow anyways. I don’t worry about it until the end of the year.

“That’s how I look at it.”

But now, the end of the year is here, a time when a ballplayer’s legacy is on the line. For him, this is nothing new. He’s had to prove himself time and time again, wondering if the consistency might stick this time, hoping against odds that the baseball gods would bless him with the perfect stroke, the right eye for any given situation so that he may be considered among the greats. Eddie Bressoud. Jeff Blauser. Clint Barnes. Julio Lugo.

The Yankees, experts in greatness, recognized something still lingering in the ballplayer; a class of desire that attracted them to request his presence from their rivals. And so, here he is now, facing his former friends, his former manager who won’t ever stop believing in the plus-player.

Here he is, before the fans who adored him 11 months ago, the same who derided his existence as the humidity of a New England summer brought with it a crankiness only that of a last-place baseball team can deliver.

“You have a short window to play baseball,” the player once said. “I feel I’m in my best years right now. I’ve never been healthier and I think my game has evolved.”

With New York, it has evolved into a .488 OPS, a .150 batting average. 13 runs batted in. But stats don’t tell the whole story with the player, a champion in the prime of his career and yet one looking for a job in a field that has only given him $30.4 million over the past nine years.

His hits, when they squib off the end of the bat in defining fashion, have cost his employers $232,558 each of the 43 times that the ball has squibbed in signature fashion off the end of his bat. Each of the moments is precious, each special in its own way.

Can you see him?

He steps back into the batter’s box, the autumnal chill hinting that the evening hours are neigh. A leaf blows in the outfield breeze before settling on second base. The Boston shortstop, manning the spot he once called his own goes to retrieve it in perhaps a sign from above that this is it, the end of another season of playing a children’s game. Fall has arrived at Fenway Park and brought with it…wait, no, it’s only a hot dog wrapper.

He taps his right toe in the dirt and goes through the ritual. One practice swing, two…meh, one was enough.

The bat rests on his shoulder, only raising an inch once the pitcher steps back onto the rubber and glares into his counterpart. The batter is ready for what comes, prepared to make contact.

He’s not ready.

None of us are ready.

Yet the inevitability of the moment comes.

Fastball.

Called strike three.

Dejected, the player turns and heads for the dugout, what’s next an impossible question to answer.

He glances at the owner’s box where he sees the general manager, and recognizes the knowing glance that he’s delivering from above. In that moment, player and boss both understand what’s in store. It comes in February. It comes in spring training in Florida, where winter never comes and there’s always baseball to be played.

It’s a chance. A chance at continuing a career.

A chance at redemption.

Do you see him now?

“I wish I had a crystal ball so I could read these things into the future,” the player once said. “I trust my talent.”

His talent will be dormant for six months, ready to burst in a spring training he hasn’t enjoyed in two years now. He’s waiting, like the final pitch, for that chance.

Odds are, you’ll be seeing him sooner than you think.