It's simply an accepted part of life as a follower or fan of baseball, learned in Little League - when the team all but automatically plugs its best player into the position - and largely reinforced at each level up the ladder. It's a product of the incredible athleticism required by those who play it best, and a suggestion perpetuated in this generation by a series of stars who have taken those individual expectations to even another level.

It's the idea that the shortstop is the most important position player on a baseball field, and strength at that spot is a critical component to a club's success.

But it's simply not true.

Such a suggestion became apropos in these parts this spring, when Jed Lowrie was

injured, Julio Lugo was ineffective, and the job became occupied by lifelong journeyman Nick Green, the Plan C who came to spring training merely hoping for a shot to play every day at Triple-A. And it's likely to pop up again in the next few weeks, too, as the trade deadline approaches and the know-it-alls of Red Sox Nation propose exchanging some of their team's excess pitching for an upgrade in the middle of the infield.

History, however, says Theo Epstein shouldn't waste his time, talent or resources worrying about the situation at shortstop - because it won't really much matter.

Whether based on Boston's run of the past six years, on baseball's recent decades, or even broadly on the results of the last century, statistics reveal little correlation between the quality of a team's shortstop and its ability to compete for a world title.

The underwhelming list of ring-wearing shortstops since 2001 - Tony Womack, David Eckstein (twice), Alex Gonzalez, Orlando Cabrera, Juan Uribe, Lugo and Jimmy Rollins - is a good place to start, but it's hardly the only evidence that the position should be more of a piece than a priority in teambuilding. Or that a lineup listing Nick Green as its infield anchor is no less a contender. Consider:

• The Baseball Hall of Fame includes 25 inductees considered to have been shortstops. Those players combined to win 23 titles, including the seven won by former Yankee Phil Rizzuto. The Scooter did it four times - on teams that also included Yogi Berra as well as either Joe DiMaggio or Mickey Mantle, by the way - but only three other Hall of Fame shortstops were worthy of an all-star selection in the same year they became a champion. Those were Lou Boudreau (1948), Ozzie Smith (1982) and Cal Ripken (1983).

• It's also been 26 years since Ripken became the last shortstop to win a championship after winning an MVP in either league, and also the last to be crowned after being named the AL's Silver Slugger at the position. Barry Larkin, in 1990, was the NL's last Silver-Slugging shortstop to win the Series.

• Defense doesn't seem to matter all that much, either. Before Rollins last year, no Gold-Glove shortstop had won a title since Alan Trammell with the 1984 Tigers.

• Of the last five full seasons, 2006 was the best defensive season for Red Sox shortstops, by measure of fielding percentage and range factor. That's the only year Boston missed the playoffs.

• As the four most decorated of all-time, Smith, Omar Vizquel, Luis Aparicio and Mark Belanger had 41 Gold Glove seasons between them - and won just two World Series.

• Rollins received MVP votes in four straight seasons, and won the NL award in 2007. In 2008 he didn't get a single vote, and his Phillies were world champions.

• Since Larkin in 1990, only once has the best shortstop in the game - a title based on highest MVP finish that year - won a World Series. That was Derek Jeter in 1999.

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