Feb 16, 2005 4 min read

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) – Banners proclaiming the Red Sox as World Series winners finally hung from lampposts outside their spring training ballpark 86 years after their last championship. Inside, the winning pitcher in the game that clinched the title prepared to leave for his new team.

Change was all around City of Palms Park on Tuesday – from Derek Lowe’s departure for the Los Angeles Dodgers camp in Vero Beach to decorations that represent challenges as well as congratulations.

Can Boston win consecutive titles?

“I’m a greedy person. I want as many as I possibly can get,” right fielder Trot Nixon said. “I want to be one of those guys also that has an opportunity to take a picture and have four or five rings on my finger with this team.”

Even Lowe, who was disappointed with the way his seven full seasons with the Red Sox ended without a solid offer from the club, wished them well.

“You root for the guys,” he said. “You hope they stay healthy. You hope they have a good year. You hope they get to the World Series. There’s no bitterness toward the players because these guys are great guys.

“It wasn’t their decision why (I’m) not here, so why wish bad things upon them?”

Lowe, who lives in Fort Myers, thanked the Red Sox for letting him work out in their stadium. He planned to go to Vero Beach on Wednesday, one day before Boston’s pitchers and catchers are due to report. The entire team is due in Monday, with the first full-squad workout next Tuesday.

Lowe won the clinching game of each of the three postseason series – “I was really proud of him,” manager Terry Francona said Tuesday. But he knew Lowe’s days were numbered back in July when the Red Sox shopped him around before the trading deadline.

When he was left out of the playoff rotation he had more incentive to finish his Boston days on a high note.

“In any profession, when somebody tells you can’t do something, it motivates you to go out there and prove that you can,” Lowe said.

That’s something he shares with his former teammates.

The Red Sox swept St. Louis in the World Series, but baseball magazines have picked them to finish second in the AL East behind the Yankees for the eighth straight season. On paper, their rebuilt rotation seems weaker than New York’s. Perhaps Boston’s comeback from a 3-0 deficit to the Yankees in the AL championship series was just a fluke.

It may have been if Red Sox players report to camp with inflated egos and stomachs resulting from too much time in the offseason spotlight and too little in the gym.

“I’d be real disappointed if guys came in thinking” they could slack off, Nixon said. “Once January came around you should realize that, hey, this is my profession. This is what I love to do. I don’t want to play and then retire after winning a championship.”

He was the only returning player from last year’s championship team at the ballpark on Tuesday. Pitchers Wade Miller and Matt Mantei, acquired in the offseason, also have been working out. Miller is coming back from an injury-plagued season.

Francona sees Mantei as a pitcher who can make a strong middle relief corps even stronger.

“If there’s the bases loaded in the seventh inning and we need a strikeout, I think Matt Mantei’s going to have a pretty good chance of being successful,” Francona said.

Two new starting pitchers, David Wells and Matt Clement, hadn’t arrived by the time players, including minor leaguers, had finished working out on Tuesday.

The heightened emphasis on steroids is another addition to spring training. Nixon is Boston’s player representative and said the attention won’t last long on Jose Canseco’s book released this week in which he alleges steroid use by certain players.

“I don’t care about Jose’s book,” he said. “It’s another black eye for baseball a little bit but I think it’s just a black eye before spring training and the minute the boys start showing up for camp, it’s going to be long gone and not talked about anymore.”

For Lowe, there still will be thoughts of his place in the history of one of the most successful Red Sox teams – especially on opening day.

“I’m going to be sitting in San Francisco watching them play on TV,” Lowe said. “Now I’m a fan watching these guys play. Now you’ve got to watch (Curt) Schilling and (Randy) Johnson, opening night, Yankees-Red Sox, and not be part of it …”

It won’t be the same, just like the rest of the new season.