Plan is to make it Boomtown again

The only thing missing is Curt Schilling's presence on the mound. There would have been some nice symmetry seeing Schilling take the hill where he bled in October. Big Curt is the proper bookend for the Big Unit. They were, after all, Sports Illustrated's Sportsmen of the Year for 2001, when the Diamondbacks dethroned the Yankees. There's even speculation that Randy felt the same way about Curt that Pedro Martinez did.

But there will be no Curt Schilling and so it will be Boomer Wells, all 41 years and 260 pounds of him. Boston is the eighth (and final?) stop on the Boomer Across America tour, and we know he's a guy who likes to pitch in big games.

New York is the place where Boomer became truly famous. It's where he pitched his perfect game and wrote his "Perfect, I'm Not" book and where he owned the front and back pages of the tabloids during his two terms of office with the Steinbrenner AC. So yes, in the absence of Schilling, Boomer Wells is certainly a nice substitution to honor the sheer enormity of this First Night.

"It's a great honor to get the nod for Opening Day," said Wells, who pitched six innings (six runs on 11 hits and one walk, three strikeouts, 79 pitches, 54 strikes) against the Orioles in another tuneup yesterday. "I don't have any problem going out and pitching despite the elements of what's going on. It's going to be crazy. I wasn't part of that rivalry last year, so it's probably easier for me to go in there."