If you're a true Red Sox fan, you've longed for the Padres' slugging first baseman Adrian Gonzalez with the same single-minded ferocity that Ralphie applied to his coveted Red Rider BB gun in "A Christmas Story." And it's literally been years. I remember surreptitiously checking MLBTradeRumors.com on my Blackberry two summers ago at the trade deadline in hopes that Gonzalez would be heading East. Well, looks like he's finally heading this way! Hallelujah! (And what a steal, too!** Bard, Ellsbury, Kalish, Iglesias all still Red Sox...) If I were Theo Epstein, I'd [update:] hit myself with a mallet until I blacked out wear a Santa hat to the press conference, just because. As my sorta Boston Globe colleague, and Red Sox blogger par excellence, Chad Finn put it this morning, "Sure do wish Opening Day could be tomorrow."

**Reserve the right to revise this in a couple years