The Mark Bellhorn era appears to be over for the Sox. Rather than harp on the fact that the dude’s bat hopped the last train to Clarksville for much of the 2005 season, I’m stepping into the wayback machine to recall my favorite Bellhorn moment: the home run off Pesky’s Pole in Game One of the 2004 World Series. I’ll never forget that reverberating, oh-so-satisfying “clang” as ball hit pole, asses left chairs, and Tavares’ knees gave out from under him. It’s a moment I wrote of in this post, a review of the Faith Rewarded DVD, from December:

There’s so much brilliant stuff here, but a few moments really gave me the vapors. Like the point in the film where Bellhorn smacks his World Series Game One homer off Pesky’s Pole. As he rounds first base, he points into the dugout. Not a Manny-style convulsion, just a quick flick of the index finger. And as you watch it again and again, it’s almost like code. Like he knew. Like they all knew. Like we all knew. This was gonna happen.

We’ll miss the Bell. And we respect the Bell.