It was a perfect time for David Ortiz to step into the batter's box.
Thousands of young adults this week moved to Boston, and no doubt many of them wondered about the nonstop fuss regarding all things Red Sox. Some of them were at Fenway Park for the first time last night while others watched from local dormitories and campus centers.
And then, in an instant, in the bottom of the ninth inning, Big Papi was there to baptize them and welcome them to Red Sox Nation.
Ortiz is Mr. Walkoff, just as Julius Erving was Mr. Slamdunk. Big Papi did not invent the game-ending homer, but nobody does it better or more often than the giant slugger with the pajama-bottom trousers.
It must be confusing for those in other parts of the country who don't pay attention to every single Red Sox game. They flip on ''SportsCenter" and hear ''the Red Sox won on David Ortiz's walkoff homer," and they see video of Boston's big teddy bear getting mobbed at home plate by 20 or more of his cartoon character teammates.
After a while, the game-winning hits blend together, like the old days when Kennedys were always winning elections and the Celtics were always winning championships.
But if you live in Boston in this new century, it never gets old and each one is special. In three short years, Ortiz has officially displaced Carl Yastrzemski as the greatest Red Sox clutch hitter of them all, and last night he did it again, his walkoff shot against the Angels on a 3-and-2 pitch in the ninth. This one was a monstrous solo smash into the bleacher-grandstand gap in right field. It was a powerful and perfect parabola, well in excess of 430 feet. It is a feeling most of us will never know.
Ortiz did his best to describe the walkoff sensation.
''It feels good," he started. ''I know I'm going to go home and spend more time with my kids and not have to play extra innings. It's good. It's a good feeling, especially when you have a guy like [Tim] Wakefield out there pitching the way he did tonight. You want to do something for the guy."
When Ortiz struck against reliever Scot Shields, Angels right fielder Vladimir Guerrero did not bother to move.
''He's coming home with me tonight," Ortiz said when asked about Guerrero. ''I'll ask him how far it went."
He might also want to talk to Vladdy about a little thing called the American League MVP award. Guerrero won the trophy last year and Ortiz, who now has 38 homers, is making a bid to take it in 2005.
''I don't think about it," Ortiz said. ''They don't see me as a regular player. Because I'm a DH, I guess my numbers have to be way over everybody's."