I certainly know now that my innocence as a sports fan is over. Now I’m cynical. Now I feel like every time one of my favorite athletes does something, I will be suspicious of an ulterior motive.

There are now reports that the Yankees, in fact, encouraged Minaya to offer his seemingly outrageous deal to Martinez in an attempt to trump the Red Sox and leave them empty-handed in the free-agent pitching derby. I just don’t know whom to trust anymore.

But I do know one thing. I long for the times when I sat in the stands at Fenway Park on a warm summer’s day, five or six years ago, and watched a man who had no business even pitching in the majors come out and dominate big-league hitters like there was no tomorrow.

The days when I could see my favorite players on the field and not suspect them of hating the management, hating the media, hating their teammates. But, in fact, that day will never return because the business of sports is just that—a business—and the last year has finally made me realize that, once and for all.

I’ll still get goosebumps sitting in Fenway Park and hearing the crowd cheering for Curt Schilling as he goes to strike out the side against the Yankees. But it will never be the same as watching little Pedro Martinez out on the mound, feeding off the energy of the crowd that loved him so much, bringing together a city that had long been considered racist, and helping to raise the hands of Hispanics, blacks, Irish-Catholics and WASPs alike in cheering on a member of the Olde Towne Team.

I’ve always been amazed by how sports fans allow themselves to have such selective memories. Many of my fellow Red Sox fans have been calling me in the last day or two to express anger over Martinez’s defection to New York. Yet I choose not to remember those times.

Instead, I will remember a man with the No. 45 on his back who electrified a stadium, a city and a country, and then walked out the door and off into the sunset with a World Series Championship.

—Staff wroter Robert C. Boutwell can be reached at boutwel@fas.harvard.edu. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays.