"This is our best day of the year - until we get to the [College] World Series in Omaha, that is," said Boston College lefthander Steve Cadoret.
It wasn't the Eagles' best day on the diamond. The awe was evident as the nervous collegians had trouble throwing strikes (BC walked 15 batters) and catching baseballs falling from the high Florida sky. The pasty Eagles and Huskies have been working indoors for the last several weeks, and the rust and jitters were obvious all day/night.
Though the temperature was unseasonably chilly (57 degrees at 1 p.m.) and the competition soft, the Sox nearly filled City of Palms twice. It's been four months since the magic Sunday night in Denver, and Red Sox Nation is hungry for hardball. We are, after all, the only baseball town that would dare put two hours of pitchers' fielding practice on live television.
And when you put starstruck college kids around a batting cage populated by the likes of Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis, and Mike Lowell . . . there will be photos. And autographs.
BC's Cadoret, from Sterling, Mass., was one of the college players who broke the ice with the champs late in the morning. Before you could say, "Boola-boola," the college players were posing for photos and offering balls and hats to be signed by the Sox. Ortiz, naturally, was a magnet, and he made the kids feel at ease, telling one Eagle, "I got to take you to my barber, man." Youkilis, meanwhile, told the guys he likes to get Chinese takeout at Rice Valley in Newtonville.
There were stars everywhere you looked when the Sox and Eagles got loose for the first game. Curt Schilling sat in the third base dugout, wearing a headset, doing a live radio interview back to the Hub. Boston's Mayor Tom Menino - trying to avoid having his picture taken with a palm tree in the background - did the meet-and-greet in front of the Sox dugout while "60 Minutes" man Morley Safer interviewed Red Sox owners for a piece on Bill James. Underneath the stands, the World Series trophies were available for photo opportunities.
