Boston backup catcher Doug Mirabelli, with two World Series rings, became part of Sox lore.

The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach

Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

And others, like Doug Mirabelli, latch onto it.

It was Mirabelli’s good fortune to be acquired by the Red Sox when they were on the cusp of ascending into the baseball stratosphere. It was his better fortune to have a skill — the ability to snare a dancing knuckleball in midair — the Sox desperately needed, what with Tim Wakefield being a fixture in their starting rotation.

So for 6 ½ years, save a lonely month spent in San Diego in early 2006, Mirabelli was on board for one of the greatest eras in franchise history. That run ended yesterday, when the Sox handed him his walking papers.

Justified? No question. Mirabelli turned 37 last October. As you can see from the graphic in the upper right-hand corner of the front page, he hasn’t hit higher than .228 since 2005. He hasn’t had more hits than strikeouts in a season since 2003, and last year he fanned in about one of every three plate appearances. The piano he’s been lugging on his back around the bases has turned into a Steinway Grand. With all that on the negative side of the ledger, you’d have to prevent an awful lot of wild pitches to justify your existence.

But he’s been the Red Sox’ version of Zelig or Forrest Gump. He may not have been front and center, but he’s been in the picture for some awfully memorable moments.

The Aaron Boone game? Mirabelli was actually behind the plate when the ball left the park.

The comeback for the ages against the Yankees in 2004? Check.

The two World Series championships in four years? Mirabelli is one of only eight players who was on hand for both of them.

That’s why we’ll always remember him. When push comes to shove, Mirabelli isn’t much different than any one of a number of guys who spent years backing up the Red Sox’ starting catcher. Some of them, like the ones in the accompanying list (Bob Montgomery, John Marzano, Russ Nixon), you may remember. Others, like Matt Batts or Roy Partee or Moe Berg, you probably don’t. (At least not for their ballplaying. Berg earned a whole other level of notoriety for his work as a scholar and a spy.)No rings for them. Two for Dougie. It’s what separates him from Marzano, Partee and others of their ilk, like Johnnie Heving and Roxie Walters.

That radiated glory, coupled with the big knuckleball mitt and his talent at using it, led the Sox to value Mirabelli beyond his station. They first decided to part ways with him in the 2005-06 offseason, trading him to the Padres for Mark Loretta. But when Josh Bard, the catcher they acquired from the Indians to take his place, had trouble handling Wakefield’s knuckler, the Sox panicked.

“We all thought [Bard] would be able to [learn to catch Wakefield] in the long run,” manager Terry Francona said at the time. “But we need to win now.”

“We had no doubt he would get it figured out,” said GM Theo Epstein. “It might be three days from now, or it might be three months. But we didn’t have the luxury of waiting.”

So they called San Diego — where Mirabelli, pining away for Boston, had long since worn out his welcome — and arranged to bring him back.

Oh, it was a great story. They completed the trade in mid-morning on the East Coast. They flew him cross-country from San Francisco, where the Padres were playing, on a private plane. They arranged for a police escort, rushing him from Logan Airport to Fenway Park in less than 15 minutes as he changed into his game uniform in the back seat. (“First time I’ve ever been naked in a police car,” he later quipped.) He got to the park just in time to trot onto the field for the top of the first inning, to cheers worthy of a Williams or a Yastrzemski. And into the lineup he went, against the Yankees on national TV, no less.

In the 107 games he played for the Red Sox after that dramatic moment, Mirabelli batted .196 with 11 home runs, 41 RBI and 95 strikeouts. In that same time frame, Bard — sent to San Diego as part of the deal — has hit .305 in 211 games for the Padres, with a .380 on-base percentage and a .453 slugging percentage. Reliever Cla Meredith, the other player who went West in the trade, has a 2.55 ERA in 125 appearances.

Not much of a trade. But what excitement.

And that, in the end, pretty much sums up Doug Mirabelli’s time in Boston. He was OK, as backup catchers go. Like many, he probably stayed at the dance a few years too long. He had a mythic reputation for being able to catch Wakefield’s knuckleball; Wakefield, though, had plenty of success before Mirabelli came along.

But he sure came along at the right time.

amartone@projo.com