Goodbye, Red Sox. Hello, Red Sox.

When Ray Allen left the Boston Celtics this offseason, fans realized that there would be a change in the culture of the team. And when Tim Thomas told everyone to suck one, we all realized that a new era was beginning with Tuukka Rask at the helm for the Bruins.

But when it comes to culture changes and transformations, the 2012 Boston Red Sox put everyone else to shame.

General manager Ben Cherington put the finishing touches on a blockbuster deal between the Red Sox and Dodgers Saturday afternoon that shipped Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto to Los Angeles and returned five players to Beantown.

It is the first trade in the history of Major League Baseball that involved multiple players with more than $100 million remaining on their contracts.

The reaction coming from Red Sox fans has been mixed. Some love it. Some hate it. Some are too shocked to know whether they should love it or hate it. Some stopped caring months ago and are just counting the days until the Patriots kick off against the Titans.

There are positives and negatives to come out of it, but one thing is for certain. The Red Sox that you watched yesterday are gone. Say goodbye. They're never coming back. The beer, the chicken, the 2007 championship and everything else that has come with the Red Sox during this recent stretch is gone, never to return.

What you'll see from this point forward is a new brand of the Boston Red Sox. They might as well change their uniforms and retouch their logo art. Say hello to the Red Sox.

I can't sit here and deny the fact that the Sox are now a weaker team. Adrian Gonzalez was a key part of this offense. It's tough to lose him. But let's break down these three guys and look at the pros and cons of their departures.

When it comes to Gonzalez, you're losing a guy who hits for an incredible average and drives in over 100 runs a season. His power isn't mind-blowing, but he's still a phenomenal hitter in the middle of the lineup. He's a gold-glove caliber first baseman, too. So, yes — a lot of value just went out the window. But what about his character? He's very business-like and professional. He's a class act. But in his brief tenure in Boston, Gonzalez failed to produce in clutch situations. He struggled with the pressure at times. He didn't display any leadership qualities, and he irritated many fans by saying it was God's plan to see the Red Sox collapse in September last season. Gonzo is a huge asset for a baseball team to lose, but I can't help but wonder whether or not he is a fitting cornerstone for this franchise moving forward. After all, with $130 million still owed to him, he certainly would have been the cornerstone.

Crawford and Beckett are a lot easier to cope with. The Sox bit the bullet on Gonzalez simply to get these players off their hands. Let's start with Crawford, the much less loathed of the two. It just didn't work for Crawford in Boston. He, too, couldn't handle the pressure of this city. Injuries didn't help him, I know. But for Crawford and Gonzalez both, I see situations that just sucked all around. The expectations were too high for Crawford — he was never worth $20 million a year. If Theo Epstein had inked him for $12 million a year over 5 years instead of $20 million a year over 7, we wouldn't even be having these talks.

But Josh Beckett is what makes the Red Sox winners in this trade. Beckett is the piece that needed to go. He's the one who solidified the uncoachable, uncontrollable clubhouse culture that developed over the last few years in Boston. He's the one who inspired the mindset — assumed by many of the guys around him, of course — that, in turn, inspires the rant I'm about to make regarding the disgraces of the old Red Sox team.

Who are you, as an MLB player, to go behind your manager's back and tell ownership he needs to go? What happened to the culture in sports that saw a manager being the boss of his players? The culture that saw the players putting the team before themselves? The desire to win over everything else? The entire way of life has changed in professional sports, and the Red Sox took it to the next level. These players feel like they're above the rest of the organization. They feel like they have the final authority. They feel entitled to way too much. This trade is the first step in setting that law straight. As a player, you're just one of the pieces on the game board. As management, the message is clear — we will have the final say in all matters. Hopefully Ben Cherington will continue to lay down the law and make his players aware that the team comes before their own personal interest.

And Johnny Pesky's funeral? The one that only four players — David Ortiz, Clay Buchholz, Vicente Padilla and Jarrod Saltalamacchia — managed to attend? That wasn't so important to everyone else. The bigger event on that day was Josh Beckett's charity event, where most of them went to party, have a good time and raise some money for charity. Ownership had busses and shuttles ready to take Boston's players to the funeral that morning. Four of them went to pay their respects to the great Johnny Pesky. Four of them. Four.

The attendance sheet couldn't even reach Pesky's retired number six. Hell, it couldn't even reach Nomar Garciaparra's old number five, but Nomar himself was able to fly in from across the country to honor the Sox legend. Unfortunately our beloved team couldn't make the trip from within the state.

It has been a frustrating year, and we'll have a clearer outlook when the dust settles this offseason. It may be a tough road back to success for the Red Sox. But if you want the honest truth, I'm not even demanding a championship right away.

All I want is for Red Sox baseball to return. I want to be proud of being a Red Sox fan. I want a team full of players who realize how special the Cathedral of Boston is with its monstrous green wall. I want a group of guys who love the game and love their team. I want players who consider their manager to be the boss, a boss that they would lay everything on the line for. I want players who want to be legends. Players who want to write a page in the Red Sox history book, and not a page stained with disgrace and failure.

The 86 years of failure were hard-fought years. The Red Sox and Yankees had a sizzling rivalry. Our talent was homegrown, and that homegrown system eventually churned out a championship.

If the championship comes, I'll be thrilled. But until then say hello to the Red Sox — hopefully a team full of youthful, energetic players that would give anything to give Red Sox Nation the world.