12:11 PM EST on Thursday, December 16, 2004

Granted, they're biased. He was their teammate for the last six years, and blossomed into one of baseball's best right before their eyes.

Even so, the depth of affection the Cardinals have for Edgar Renteria -- on the field and off -- is striking.

"I would take him over any shortstop in the game," ex-Cardinals catcher Mike Matheny told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2003. "He is a complete player on offense and defense. His baseball knowledge is impressive. He's hard-nosed, and he handles pressure. Above all, he is a good guy."

"He has been a favorite player since he got to St. Louis," manager Tony La Russa said in 2004. "He is a favorite teammate, and a good person. He's everything you want in a professioal player."

The irony is impossible to miss. Pedro Martinez left town and Edgar Renteria is arriving for the same reason: Money. The Mets offered Martinez more than the Red Sox, and the Sox offered Renteria more than the Cardinals. But that's where the similarities end.

While the Sox freely admit they'll miss Martinez' pitching skills -- and they will -- there's a lot about him they won't miss. The front office won't miss the constant battles to impose the most cursory forms of discipline on a man who seemingly recognized no authority other than his own (and it's an open secret that many in management aren't

shedding many tears over his departure). Most of his teammates, for however much they may have liked him and admired his abilities, aren't going to miss the clubhouse double standards that developed over the years.

"Those were his own rules," Curt Schilling said Tuesday morning on WEEI's Dennis and Callahan radio show, referring to Martinez' penchant for arriving late, sometimes leaving early, being allowed to occasionally depart the team for periods of time, and even dictating his own schedule (such as in the ALCS, when he insisted on staying in Boston while the team played Game 6 at Yankee Stadium so he could get ready for a potential relief appearance in Game 7). "They had been established and in place before I got here. Before [manager Terry Francona] got here. He was allowed to do those kind of things and that was something that . . . yeah, that is different than other players.

"But what are you going to do? There was a precedent established before we got here, and it was OK with everybody and, hey, the media didn't have a problem with it. So I guess as players it was not up to us to have a problem with it."

In St. Louis, no one had a problem with Edgar Renteria. Ever.

He's "priceless," former teammate Eduardo Perez said on the final day of the 2003 season. He's "a Mastercard commericial, right there."

What he brings to Boston as a player is obvious. He won't be 30 until next August -- he's 11 days younger than Alex Rodriguez -- so he's still in his physical prime. Even though his batting average dipped 43 points last year, it was still a more-than-respectable .287, with a .327 on-base percentage and a .401 slugging percentage. It suffered only in comparison to his 2002 (.305/.364/.439) and 2003 (.330/.394/.480) seasons, when he established himself as one of the game's best shortstops. Moving to hitter-friendly Fenway Park will almost certainly improve those numbers.

Defensively, he's a two-time Gold Glove winner. He and third baseman Scott Rolen formed an almost inpenetrable force field on the left side of the St. Louis infield.

"Those guys are amazing," said Cardinals outfielder Reggie Sanders, who played with the Pirates, Giants, Diamondbacks, Braves, Padres and Reds before joining St. Louis in 2004. "They've been robbing hitters [of hits] for years. I know, because they got me plenty of times. When you don't see them every day you wonder if it's just against you, but they do it every day."

As good as Orlando Cabrera was during his three months with the Sox, no one ever felt he was better than Renteria when the two were opponents in the National League. Renteria combines all of Cabrera's defensive talents with offensive abilities Cabrera can't match. And as easily as Cabrera slipped into the "idiot" culture of the Sox clubhouse, Renteria figures to make the transition just as seamlessly . . . and as a leader rather than a follower.

It's simplistic, and incorrect, to say the Sox got the better of the Renteria/Martinez exchange because Renteria is low maintenance and Martinez is high (higher? highest?) maintenance. Pedro may have demanded his perks, but he earned them on the field during seven mostly outstanding -- and sometimes historic -- seasons in Boston. Schilling said as much on the radio Tuesday.

"I was surprised" at the different standards, he said, but added, "I . . . wasn't here for the seven years prior. I didn't get a chance to see up close the things [Martinez] had done for this city and this team as a performer."

But times are changing. One of the goals of the John Henry/Tom Werner/Larry Lucchino ownership group that took over in 2002 was to alter the culture at Fenway Park, where the stars traditionally have had the run of the joint . . . frequently to the detriment of the product on the field. Martinez was one of the last symbols of that culture.

Now he's gone. And in his place is a man who may come to symbolize the new culture Henry and Werner and Lucchino are trying to build in Boston.