Four years ago teams played a game of musical shortstops, and they are playing it again this year. For one of the shortstops, Edgar Renteria, the music has never stopped.

Renteria (33 years old), Orlando Cabrera (34) and David Eckstein (34) are free agents, just as they were following the 2004 season. That winter Renteria moved from St. Louis to Boston, Cabrera went from Boston to Anaheim and David Eckstein moved from Anaheim to St. Louis.

They are not the only shortstops who are free agents now. There are about a dozen others, including Rafael Furcal, Omar Vizquel, Cesar Izturis and Adam Everett. But Renteria is the shortstop I want to look at most closely.

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With the election of a new president, this seems to be a good time to retell a story that may still not generally be known. It’s about the baseball owner.

That is how, for eight years, I have referred to President George W. Bush. That, after all, is how I know him. I have had no contact with him during his presidency, but when he was the managing general partner of the Texas Rangers, I occasionally talked to him and asked him questions.

He was amiable and abundantly approachable. If the owners were meeting in a hotel and they emerged from their meeting room, most of them would run away from the group of waiting reporters. Not Bush. He would walk right up to the group and make it obvious that he was willing to talk. When your ability to do your job depends on accessibility and availability, it’s hard not to like a guy like that.

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Adam Eaton will get a World Series share, and he will get a World Series ring. Sadly for him, however, he was not part of the World Series. His absence extended his perfect streak: three playoffs in four years and not one post-season game pitched.

Eaton, a 30-year-old right-hander, pitched himself out of the Phillies’ starting rotation last July, worked briefly and ineffectively out of the bullpen and basically disappeared for the rest of the season and the post-season.

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