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My usual Friday B.S. column was bumped this week for this love note to Jason Varitek, who it was announced filed for divorce from his wife Karen within the last few weeks. Jason Varitek is quite simply the hottest catcher alive, and no, I only wish that was a veiled gay reference.

If you live in a cave, or anywhere outside of the AL East, Jason Varitek plays the catcher position on the Boston Red Sox and is the team captain. He’s 36-years-old, gray around the temples with the most enormous, muscular calves of any man alive. He has a 2008 batting average of .214, has driven in 32 runs (so far) and keeps fairly consistent stats from year to year which is remarkable because his extended batting slump has been yellowish and bloody. His entire career has been with the Boston Red Sox but he’s is in a contract year and makes $10,442,030 this year. So far, there has been no public announcement of a contract offer, and unfortunately, the Sox have a habit of dropping aging popular players on their physical decline. Tek is a switch hitter, and no, I only wish that was a veiled gay reference.

I don’t really get the celebrity news culture that has Tek’s divorce plastered all over the internet. Sadly, he and his wife have three young daughters, who doubtless will blame themselves for the divorce as all children from good homes do. But the divorce is eye-popping news for fans men and women alike who dream of making Tek their husband.

Tek is a beautiful human. He participated in the Red Sox episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (flying in half way through the episode so they could dress him but somehow missing the part of the show that seems to embarrass the straight participants). Unfortunately, the part he was absent for is also the part that includes partial athlete nudity (or in Johnny Damon’s case, almost a full porn video).

I am hardly the only fan who worships Tek, who has never met him, has no real concept of his personality, his personal life, who only knows him from Sox games, NESN interviews, and stats pages. I’m not the only one with an I Heart Tek button, or who swoons whenever he comes up to bat, or dreams to hear those three words out of his lips. I love you. If you don’t believe me, head over to romancingthetek.com where you can leave a message for The Captain in his time of need. Right now.

It is too bad that Tek’s divorce is going to be public fodder (at least in Boston) as will his eventual rebound. It’s unfortunate too that his departure from the Red Sox is all too likely after this season, given the team’s history of treating veteran players. And while I think it’s entirely tacky to express publicly my love for Tek before the ink is dry on his divorce, I do so knowing that in the world out there at large, there a lot of you who are thinking the exact same thing that I am:

YES!

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