The story was already good, but it was elevated to great in the late afternoon Back Bay gloom yesterday when Nick Green hit the first pitch thrown by Atlanta reliever Jeff Bennett high and deep over The Wall, across Lansdowne Street, over the Mass Pike and onto Commonwealth Avenue.
OK, that’s fictional. What Green did was hit about as short a home run as anyone can hit in major league baseball. It was a fly ball down the right-field line that landed just inside the Pesky Pole. It was 305 feet, 306 max.
But it gave the Red Sox a 6-5 win over the Braves, and nothing else matters.
“It was good to do something for the team,’’ he said. “No one wanted to play in the rain.’’
He swears he went to the plate not fully cognizant of the entire situation, that he knew it was a home run, but he didn’t know until he hit second base and saw all those guys in white uniforms gathered around home plate that he had hit a walkoff homer in front of the man who coined the phrase many years ago. (In case you’re new to this, that man would be The Eck, who was working the game for NESN.) He said this, and we believe him because he is the great Nick Green and he would never, ever lie to us.
It was actually the second walkoff homer of his career, and by now the truly sagacious among you have already guessed that the first was against - who else? - the Red Sox. That came on July 2, 2004, as a member of, naturally, the Atlanta Braves. And you didn’t think this could get any better, did you?
Blockbuster, I’m tellin’ ya. Think Marty Scorsese’s too busy to direct? If not, I’d be willing to settle for Ron Howard.
Does anyone remember the earth moving around here back on Jan. 27? It must have jiggled a little, because that’s the day Theo Epstein signed free agent Nick Green to a minor league contract. Alex Cora was gone, and the Red Sox were in the market for a utilityman. Note that: utilityman, not shortstop.
“I can’t tell you that on the first day of spring training I envisioned him playing shortstop for us,’’ said Terry Francona. “That’s not the case.’’
