Nomar Court isn’t Nomar Street for a good reason.

The downtown Lewiston lane is closer to a glorified parking lot than a boulevard, approximately the length of a leisurely throw around the horn at Fenway Park.

You know. Fenway. Historic landmark and site of New England baseball diehards’ annual crying game. Home of the Boston Red Sox and the place where Nomar Court’s guy won’t pick up his checks any longer.

Saturday afternoon, Nomar Garciaparra became a page of Boston’s star-crossed past when the Sox shipped the perennial All-Star to their National League counterpart in misery, the Chicago Cubs.

As part of a four-team deal, Boston received two Gold Glove-winning veteran players named Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz and a 72-year-old public relations nightmare named Muriel Breton.

“They tried to trade him (last November) during his honeymoon,” Breton said. “I think it’s dirty. Dog-eat-dog. Money talks.”

The fury of Sox fans

Read those words and you can’t tell whether Lewiston resident Breton is furious with team management, disappointed by her hero or angry at nobody in particular. We Red Sox sufferers are such irrational creatures that fury tends to be nonspecific. We just know it’s been 86 years since our last world championship, and by golly, somebody is to blame.

Breton isn’t your average fan. She honeymooned at Fenway in 1955. Says two tickets cost $1.50 (about half the price of a Fenway Frank in 2004) and entitled her to the “best lobster-red sunburn” of her life.

Ted Williams hit a ball where the young couple sat during the game. Alas, they were standing in line at the concession stand and someone else walked away with the souvenir.

“Nomar was the best since Ted Williams. I used to listen to games on the radio with my dad when Ted played,” Breton said.

When Lewiston officials planned 26 street-name changes to accommodate the new Enhanced-911 system, Breton took her passion to City Hall.

What was then Allen Court needed a new name to prevent confusion with Allen Avenue in the event of emergency. Breton accompanied her son to a hearing and proposed christening her street in honor of the steady Sox shortstop.

The sign went up in March 2000.

Not just any pinstripes

Monday afternoon, it remained, designating the spot for a mailman quietly making his deliveries on a day perfect for playing a doubleheader.

Affixed to the pole, beneath the green-and-white sign honoring the unceremoniously departed No. 5, is another ominous marker: Dead End.

While she mourned the move, Breton wasn’t shocked. The Sox had showed that their franchise player was expendable when they romanced Alex Rodriguez last winter while Nomar was off celebrating his nuptials with soccer star Mia Hamm.

You know the story. A-Rod ended up with the Yankees. Nomar, already rehabilitating from an injury to his Achilles tendon, spent much of his spring and summer sidetracked by hurt feelings.

“I was surprised, but it seemed when his agent refused a contract extension that he was probably going to leave,” Breton said. “I still say, Go, Nomar,’ not going, going, gone.'”

Indeed, her loyalties are divided.

Stop at the corner of Oak Street and Nomar Court, and you’ll see two small satellite dishes connected to one apartment building. Thanks to technology that didn’t exist in Teddy Ballgame’s day, one of Breton’s sons found Sunday’s Cubs game on the Dish Network.

Breton watched. She suspects that Nomar, like Babe Ruth, Carlton Fisk and Dennis Eckersley before him, will conclude his career as a Hall of Famer – somewhere else.

She watched Nomar drive in a run as the Cubs won his Windy City debut.

“He looks good in pinstripes. Just not Yankee pinstripes,” Breton said.

Ouch. Good point.

Nomar will be a free agent when this season ends. No, that couldn’t happen. Could it?

If he wound up moving to second base and playing in the Bronx, expect another hearing. Muriel’s avenue would need a new name in a hurry.

Kalle Oakes is staff columnist. He may be reached by e-mail at koakes@sunjournal.com.

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