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The Boston Red Sox Friday, April 3, 2020 * The Boston Globe Here are the best ballplayers I’ve covered, position by position Peter Abraham My first game as a beat writer was Aug. 6, 2002. The New York Mets played the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park and I was there working for the Journal News, a newspaper based in White Plains, N.Y. Two future Hall of Famers, Roberto Alomar and Mike Piazza, were in the lineup for the Mets that night. With Alomar on first base, Piazza homered off Ben Sheets in the top of the first inning and the Mets went on to win the game, 5-1. Looking up that box score led to this thought: Who are the best players I’ve covered in 18 years on the baseball beat? I had the Mets from 2002-05, the Yankees from 2006-09, and the Red Sox since 2010. For the purposes of this list, only players from those teams are eligible, and it’s based on how they played at the time I was covering the team. Here is my list: First base Mark Teixeira I covered one year of Mo Vaughn with the Mets when he was still good, and that was a lot of fun. But Teixeira had a .948 OPS for the Yankees in 2009 and finished second in the MVP voting for a World Series champion. He also won a Gold Glove. Mike Napoli had an outstanding 2013 season for the Sox. Adrian Gonzalez hit .321 with an .895 OPS in two seasons with the Sox. Second base Dustin Pedroia I’m glad I got to watch Dustin play when he was healthy and the best all-around player at this position. Pedroia routinely made impossible plays in the field and had an .811 OPS before Manny Machado crushed his knee. I also covered Alomar and Robinson Cano. Alomar was at the end of his career and Cano at the beginning. Cano had Hall of Fame potential before leaving the Yankees and getting suspended for PEDs. Third base Alex Rodriguez On a day-to-day basis, I’ve never seen a more technically sound player than A-Rod. He rarely ran into outs or made mental mistakes in the field, and obviously he mashed at the plate. That’s why it’s so disappointing that he got involved in PEDs. What a waste. I also covered David Wright and Adrian Beltre. It was only a year with Adrian, but he was so much fun to watch. If not for injuries, Wright would have been a Hall of Famer, and Beltre should make it on the first ballot. Beltre never took a play off. If only the Sox had kept him. He wanted to stay, too. Shortstop Derek Jeter For whatever reason, it became trendy to find ways to criticize Jeter. Here’s what I saw: an .847 OPS and an average of 153 games a year. Every good team I’ve been around had a player or two who made sure the focus was always on that day’s game. Jeter did that for the Yankees, finding ways to tamp down whatever foolishness was going on around him. Xander Bogaerts is seven seasons into his career and only recently has come to understand how good he can be. Center field Johnny Damon Covering Damon with the Yankees was interesting because he clearly enjoyed blending into a team loaded with stars. Damon had an .821 OPS in four seasons in New York and averaged 103 runs. Damon is underrated historically. He finished his career with 1,668 runs, 2,769 hits, 866 extra-base hits, and 408 stolen bases. Only seven other players — Craig Biggio, Barry Bonds, Ty Cobb, Rickey Henderson, Paul Molitor, Tris Speaker, and Honus Wagner — have done that, and all are in the Hall of Fame outside of Bonds. Right field Mookie Betts It’s an easy call with Betts, who is on a Hall of Fame path after starting his career as a second baseman. Trading him will be a mistake that lingers through history. Left field Hideki Matsui Part of this is that I haven’t covered many great left fielders. But people forget how good Matsui was. He had an .852 OPS with the Yankees and four 100-RBI seasons. Matsui also worked around the language barrier to be one of the best clubhouse presences I’ve seen and was a genuinely funny guy to be around. Catcher Mike Piazza You know he was a great hitter. But he was a better catcher than people give him credit for. He knew how to call a game and he was sound defensively. He liked to talk about heavy metal and politics. I’m quite sure Mike will be the only player I’ll ever have a serious discussion with about the viability of a third political party in America. Designated hitter David Ortiz Papi hit .292/.383/.561 in the time I covered him, and that was the end of his career. His final season was a lesson in how to go out on top. He also was much more of a student of hitting than people realize, putting in a lot of time studying pitchers and working on his swing. Starting pitchers Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Tom Glavine, Mike Mussina Hard to argue with four Hall of Famers and The Rocket. I was fortunate to cover Martinez when he joined the Mets, and I learned a lot about pitching from him. He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever been around. Not baseball players, people. Johnson and Clemens were larger-than-life characters. Glavine and Mussina were guys who maximized their talent. Mussina was always funny to be around. He is the most normal person for somebody who was such a great player. Relief pitcher Mariano Rivera He was the best at what he did and I doubt anybody will ever be better. For a beat writer, Rivera made the job easier by eliminating ninth-inning drama. That’s what made April 15, 2007, such a shock. The Yankees took a 4-2 lead into the ninth inning at Oakland. Rivera got two quick outs before Todd Walker singled and Jason Kendall walked to end a nine-pitch at-bat. Marco Scutaro then hit an 0-and-2 pitch off the left-field foul pole to win the game. Manager Joe Torre In order, I’ve covered Bobby Valentine, Art Howe, Willie Randolph, Torre, Joe Girardi, Terry Francona, Valentine again, John Farrell, Alex Cora, and now Ron Roenicke. I didn’t see Francona at his best, given the 2011 collapse, so the nod goes to Torre. He was the right person at the right time for the Yankees. It’s hard not to wonder how good Cora would have been (and perhaps still could be) if not for the cheating scandal that cost him his job. I don’t think 2018 was some fluke. Cora had been preparing to manage for years and skillfully blended analytics with old-school sensibilities. If A-Rod can transition from disgraced pariah to “Sunday Night Baseball,” Cora can manage again. On what would have been Opening Day, sounds of silence at Fenway Park Stan Grossfeld To some, the best sound of Opening Days past at Fenway Park was always the rumbling good vibrations of the metal gates being hoisted up, revealing so many joyous faces on kids who were playing hooky, decked out in their best Red Sox gear, including their baseball gloves. The grownups greeted each other by saying, “Happy New Year,” as they entered the ancient ballpark on this holiest of baseball days. The faces never really changed much. Fans were greeted by the same, slightly grayer ushers who were there when Pedro Martinez fanned five of the six hitters he faced in the 1999 All-Star Game. Aramark employees huddled under the bleachers, amazed that people would drink ice-cold beer on 45-degree days. The players would line up along the foul lines, framing the giant American flag on the Green Monster and providing a quintessential Norman Rockwell moment. The great American philosopher Yogi Berra once put it all into perspective: “A home opener is always exciting, no matter if it’s home or on the road." We will still have our Opening Day when this coronavirus runs its course, but on Thursday, the day scheduled for the 2020 opener, Fenway is like a ghost town, the ballpark and all the bars and souvenir shops around it locked up tight instead of anticipating a 2:05 p.m. start against the Chicago White Sox. People in respiratory masks make their way down Jersey Street, waving off reporters. Parking is free instead of a costing you a second mortgage, and there is no traffic. It seems longer, but it was just one year ago that the Red Sox received their 2018 World Series rings. That was the highlight of last season. Then in the offseason, the Sox lost their manager and their biggest star, and they still have an MLB investigation hanging over their heads. But the ongoing pandemic has rendered all of that trivial. We used to worry about pitching; now we worry about sneezing and finding toilet paper. The game of baseball is just one thing on a long list of what is missing this day at the oldest big league ballpark in America. No smell of grilling sausages and onions on Lansdowne Street, no Big League Brian on stilts, no F15 flyover, no “Sweet Caroline,” no “Dirty Water,” no RemDawg, no Joe Castiglione, no Eck talking about “cheese,” no Lynne Smith Fenway hat selfies, no little kid’s face as he gets his first foul ball.