The long Red Sox National nightmare is finally over; the Sox finally signed themselves a part-time catcher to round out the 2009 roster. It seems like The Nation is pretty split as to whether they wanted The Captain back for another season (and possibly two more). Is $5M too much for a .220 hitter who couldn’t catch up with my sister’s fastball? Sure. (No, my sister is not named Jennie Finch.) But even from somebody who rips Captain Intangibles on a regular basis, Varitek is too ingrained in this pitching staff to ignore the non-statistical aspects of his game. He’s been the rock of the Sox staff for the past 11 seasons, and getting rid of him would have been like having your IT director quit without giving two weeks notice. Will you eventually figure out where everything important is? Sure. But you’re going to have a month where you only receive 50% of your email in the meantime. This way, hopefully Tek will be able to train a successor in the next two years so the Sox can have a nice smooth transition to the post-Tek era. Of course, that does require trading for a good young catcher…

In other news Kevin Millar may stay in the AL East, but will now be booby trapping the visiting manager’s office north of the border in Toronto. I hope he realizes that all his prank phone calls are now going to cost international rates. He’s probably going to go through his paycheck just by calling up Tito to ask him if his refrigerator is running.

I don’t care what Punxsutawney Phil says, eight days until winter ends, eight days.