He was gloriously scuzzy, looking more like the guy who tries to sell you a John Deere tractor at Home Depot than the guy you’d be calling on to get Sheffield and Giambi out in the bottom of the eighth. You could almost picture him spending the off-season in a candlelit hovel in the far reaches of the woods. Smoking his own meats. Polishing his gun collection. Rambling on and on to the local townsfolk about how the Russians are just waiting to bomb us into the stone age, and that it’s never too late to build a servicable underground shelter with running water and electricity. We know we’ll never forget him, because we’ll never forget those final seconds of Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, when Los Embree closed the door on the Yankees, making official the greatest comeback — and the greatest choke — in the storied history of America’s game. We also know that to this point in the 2005 season, he had just gone completely tits-up. Handing out the home runs like Reagan used to hand out free cheese. As he walks out the door and into thin air, it is important to remember this: our grandchildren will know the name Alan Embree. And I’m fine with that.