It begins

Watch out. The East Coast media machine will get its grimy claws into Coco Crisp in short order now.
Already, he's being compared to Johnny Damon to the point that on-again, off-again Red Sox GM Theo Epstein is telling fans and media to cool their jets.
After sitting through two weeks of watching ESPN and other national outlets analyze this trade purely from the Red Sox standpoint, focusing only on what Crisp brings to Boston and treating what the Indians received as mere collateral damage, we will soon be subjected to a tidal wave of Coco-mania.

Hope you're ready, Covelli. In Cleveland, you didn't exist. Now, you have been born.

Once David Letterman and Jay Leno realize there's this ballplayer named Coco Crisp, make room for a slew of cereal jokes that will make you want to set all your boxes of Cocoa Puffs on fire.

Look for all the Boston and New York newspaper headlines, to be aired on said late-night talk shows: "Hot Coco" when Crisp hits for the cycle. "Choko Crisp" when he strikes out three times in a game. "Coco Loco" when he flips out and throws his postgame potato salad at a Boston Globe reporter because he's sick of reading lame newspaper headlines about himself.

At least once a week, we will have to hear the same question from someone, somewhere: "Is Coco Crisp your real name?" At which point, we will have to hear the story about how his nickname, Coco, was derived from his given name, Covelli.

Due to the mass-crush thousands upon thousands of New England girls will now develop on Coco, we will learn things about his personal life we never wanted to know:
Does he have a girlfriend?
Does he prefer boxers or briefs?
Does he have a girlfriend?
Does he have a piercing in a naughty place?
Does he have a tattoo in a naughty place?
Do any of his teammates have a piercing or tattoo in a naughty place?
Does he have a girlfriend?

Boston sportswriters will be scrambling to find Coco's place in the pantheon of Red Sox centerfielders by June. It's already happening with comparisons to Damon. Soon, we will find out how he ranks in comparison to Carl Yaztremski, Dominic DiMaggio, and Tris Speaker. If Peter Gammons doesn't write an article on it, you'd damn well better be sure Bob Costas will write a book and produce a TV special on it.

In 2007, Doris Kerns Goodwin hits the lecture circuit with a program titled "Coco, My Father and Me: A Retrospective." Ken Burns will produce a 15-part series on the tour.

In 2008, MIT graduate students concoct a theory called "The Coco Factor," irrefutably showing how the Curse of the Bambino could have been erased in half the time had six metric tons of chocolate been planted at the base of Babe Ruth's grave upon his death in 1948. It actually has nothing to do with Coco Crisp, but thanks to his newfound fame, the "a" has officially been dropped from "cocoa" in most American dictionaries, which, not coincidentally, are edited by Red Sox fans.

In 2010, Stephen King writes "The Coco Man," a novel about a Coco Crisp-worshipping Red Sox fan who is thrown in jail for a murder he didn't commit, is beguiled by a psychotic car, tries to kill his family at a remote mountain hotel, and gets held prisoner by a fat, crazy lady who breaks his legs. It becomes a national bestseller.

In 2022, Crisp is voted into the Hall of Fame with a career .281 average. Omar Vizquel is still waiting.