Dare to dream A born-again baseball obsessive ponders whether Boston’s dirt dogs can twit fate and win it all BY IAN DONNIS

LIKE GREEK GODS witnessing another metaphysical battle, the sportswriters occupy the highest perch high above and behind home plate at Fenway Park. The oversized rectangular windows framing the field from the press box muffle the sounds of the crowd, imposing a sense of distance and seeming impartiality for the knights of the keyboard. Still, as Pedro Martinez worked from the mound in the early innings of his second 2004 start on Saturday, April 10, the scribes — like the Fenway faithful themselves — couldn’t help wondering about the fragile Dominican dandy: Was his fastball — which in spring training seemed a shadow of its former high 90s glory — perilously on the wane?

It was a question that, writ large, hinted at all the other Sox uncertainties for the fresh and eagerly anticipated season: Would injuries to Nomar Garciaparra, Trot Nixon, and others relegate the team to also-ran status? Would the Sox squander what might be, for now, their last, best opportunity to win it all before losing such unsigned stars as Pedro, Nomar, Jason Varitek, and Derek Lowe? Would the psychic weight of Boston’s star-crossed history, ratcheted up a few more searing notches when Grady Little made the fateful decision to leave in a tiring Pedro against the Yankees last October — simply prove too oppressive?

Pedro, pitching during the 66th consecutive home sellout, was having none of it. So what if Roy Halladay of the Blue Jays was slinging his fastball to Boston batsman at a sizzling 95 mph, generally mystifying Sox hitters and fanning six through the first five innings? After a slightly uncertain debut during his first outing in Baltimore, Pedro was even more masterful, mixing his curve and changeup with a heater that topped out at a respectable 91. And for all the juice on Halladay’s fastball, the 2003 AL Cy Young Award winner was the one who made the decisive mistake, serving a juicy curveball that David Ortiz knocked for a two-run homer in the sixth inning, putting the Sox on the path to a 4-1 victory.

After the game, the denizens of Sox Nation moved like a gigantic, high-spirited amoeba, pouring out of the ballpark and onto the surrounding blocks, savoring the moment after Pedro’s win raised Boston’s record to an even .500 (3-3). It was good — no, excellent — to be a part of this scene, clustered among fellow fans and the signature aroma of grilled sausages. After maintaining my journalistic reserve in the press box (revealing partisan feelings only in letting out an involuntary "Yes!" when Cesar Crespo sparked the Boston’s sixth inning breakthrough by safely sliding into first on an infield hit), I was free to be me — a zealous Sox fan and born-again baseball obsessive.

Although Pedro’s performance put to rest questions about his command, there were other causes for concern. The next day, after Curt Schilling surrendered a 4-2 lead to the Blue Jays, Varitek and Gabe Kapler whiffed with the bases loaded in the eighth inning, continuing the Sox’s early season difficulty in getting clutch hits. With the bullpen stretched thin by extra-inning games and a charter plane problem in Baltimore, Bobby "Stranger to the Strike Zone" Jones was summoned to issue two walks. But showing some of the Sox 2003-style élan, Crespo and Mark Bellhorn tied it up in the ninth, rookie Mark Malaska dealt bravura relief work, and Ortiz, the gentle giant, delivered once again, mashing a walk-off homer into the monster seats in the 12th for a 6-4 win. (Although it was too early in the season for it to really mean anything, the hated Yankees were having their problems, their vaunted A-Rod-augmented offense proving quiet in a pair of weekend losses to the White Sox.)

The first week of the new season proved something of a grinder for manager Terry Francona and Co. But even with the injuries and other hassles, the Sox sat atop the AL East, tied with Tampa Bay, offering some justification for spring’s eternal sense of optimism, perhaps something more like guarded hope for Sox fans. Looking out over the 162-game slog, there are so many variables to come. But if the Sox could fare this well so far — lacking Trot and Nomar, and not playing their best — well, you know, this could be the year.

MY BUDDING INTEREST in the national pastime as a kid in New Jersey soared when my dad took me to my first Major League game at Shea Stadium in 1970. The Mets, who compiled the worst record during their inaugural reason in 1962, had achieved the miraculous by beating the Orioles in the 1969 World Series, and anything seemed possible. It was sweet relief for those, like my father, who had adopted the Mets after the Brooklyn Dodgers migrated to California amid the post-World War II boom years. We sat way up in the upper deck at Shea, and the entire experience had the touch of wonder — from the majestic green luster of the outfield grass, and the seemingly stratospheric level of our seats, to the Jackie Robison-like dash with which Tommie Agee scored on what I recall as an audacious steal of home plate.

Like countless others, my childhood DNA meshed with baseball, imbued by the timeless verities — playing catch with dad, scouring the sports pages and related books, buying baseball cards, and faithfully cheering on my favorite team, the Mets. Little matter that the improbable win in the ’69 Series would prove to be the club’s high-water mark for 17 years. Baseball was the constant, the ballast in my life when my parents split, the fire for my imagination as I envisioned a novel about a charismatic AA team in the ’50s, populated by scrappy newcomers and sage veterans, in Weehawken, New Jersey. In my universe of knowledge as an adolescent, the ghosts of Christy Mathewson and Honus Wagner mingled with Jerry Koosman and Ed Kranepool.

The Red Sox came on my radar screen when I traveled with my mom and stepfather to visit some family friends north of Boston in the early summer of 1975. The kids there were flush with excitement about their club, particularly two rookie standouts, Fred Lynn and Jim Rice, and I kept my eyes on the Sox for the remainder of the season, yielding my usual National League loyalty to pull for them against Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine during the electric World Series to come. The Sox, as personified by the cockeyed pitching delivery and heavily accented English of Luis Tiant, seemed irresistible, poignant competitors with a tragic touch.

The late ’70s and early ’80s marked the apex of my enthusiasm for the Mets, even though the team suffered from bad management (M. Donald Grant traded away Tom Seaver in 1977 after the ace had the temerity to want $250,000) and staggered through some awful seasons. A decisive change was set in motion, however, when I went to college at Boston University. As a senior, my appreciation for the Sox was such that I penned an empathetic feature in the student-run Daily Free Press after Boston got off to a 4-1 start in 1985 ("The three-game sweep of the Yankees was the latest and sweetest installment in baseball’s best rivalry, one that dates to a time when an ignoble Sox exec sold the Yanks someone named George Herman Ruth. More recently, Sox fans still recoil at the thought of Bucky Dent’s home run flying into the screen and the Yankees winning a one-game playoff to culminate a dramatic come-from-behind season in 1978. The race continues today as New Yorkers, real or imagined, show up at Fenway, their hated blue and white caps dotting the predominantly red and blue landscape.").