This story was excerpted from Ian Browne’s Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

The most-anticipated series of the season at Fenway Park will start on Friday night with a thunderous standing ovation for Dodgers leadoff man Mookie Betts.

The man of the hour -- the man of the weekend – will dig into that batter's box he once called home for the first time since Sept. 30, 2019.

And it will undoubtedly be as therapeutic for Red Sox fans as it is for Betts, whose 815-game run for Boston (including playoffs) ended with a trade to the Dodgers on Feb. 10, 2020.

Red Sox Nation never got a chance to give Betts a proper goodbye. And Betts never got the chance to doff his cap one last time to the adoring Fenway faithful.

Both sides get that chance on Friday.

Fittingly, the final act for Betts as a Red Sox player was an electrifying moment for one of the most explosive athletes in team history.

It was the season finale of the ’19 season when Rafael Devers hit a chopper that just made it past the glove of Baltimore infielder Richie Martin and into right field. Off with the pitch, Betts roared from first to third. After briefly stopping at third, Betts noticed the hesitation from right fielder Stevie Wilkerson and motored home head-first for a walk-off run.

With that run, a disappointing season ended in Boston less than a year after a World Series parade.

For an instant early that Sunday evening, everyone forgot about the letdown season for the Red Sox and reveled in the latest jolt of excitement provided by Betts.

As the crowd at Fenway celebrated, Betts let out a primal scream and hugged his long-time teammate Xander Bogaerts.

Who could have known it would take nearly four years after that mad dash into the offseason for Betts to return to Fenway?

The Red Sox selected Betts out of Overton (Tenn.) High School in the fifth round of the 2011 Draft.

Betts used his bat, arm, legs and work ethic to soar above the expected performance of a fifth-round Draft pick.

In his six seasons with the Red Sox, Betts won an American League Most Valuable Player Award, a World Series championship, three Silver Slugger Awards and four Gold Glove Awards while earning four trips to the All-Star Game.

His departure came down to business. The Red Sox made several long-term offers to Betts through the years. He turned those down, thinking he could do better -- he was right, it turned out -- as a free agent.

Unwilling to risk losing Betts for nothing more than Draft compensation if he left as a free agent after the ’20 season, the Red Sox, under new chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, made a preemptive strike by trading him to the Dodgers.

In return, the Red Sox got their current starting right fielder (Alex Verdugo), starting catcher (Connor Wong) and a prospect in Jeter Downs who didn’t live up to expectations and was designated for assignment back in January and landed with the Nationals.

Bloom’s feeling was that the Red Sox didn’t have enough of a foundation in the farm system to afford a huge contract for Betts and to build a championship team around him during his remaining prime years.

When the Red Sox extended Devers with a 10-year, $313.5 million contract that will kick in starting in ’24, Bloom expressed that the organizational foundation had improved enough to make such a financial commitment.

Betts has continued to be one of the best all-around players in the game with Los Angeles and picked up another World Series ring in ’20.

The Red Sox, who are fighting for the third AL Wild Card slot, are still in the process of trying to build their next championship core.

The business of baseball will take a backseat on Friday, though, when Betts finally comes home, even if it's only for the weekend.