Playing in Boston: Some can and some can't

FORT MYERS, Fla. - Joel Pineiro is honest.

He is one of seven players who will be calling Fenway Park home for the first time in their professional baseball careers, and he truly doesn't know what awaits in the leviathan that is Red Sox baseball.

Pineiro has come to realize that there is Major League Baseball reality and then there is Boston.

"You have some people you know wouldn't make it," he said.

Pineiro has uncovered clues as to what awaits, such as pitching two innings in the 2001 playoffs against the Yankees. And, more recently, he received another hint courtesy of his time playing for Puerto Rico in last March's World Baseball Classic game against the Dominican Republic.

"(The WBC) was huge. (David) Ortiz said, 'That's like every day in Boston,'" Pineiro said. "I know every game feels like a playoff game. I'm really looking forward to it."

As former Red Sox player and current NESN analyst Jerry Remy recently said, "Playing in Boston can either make you or break you."

So now the time has come once again to discover who has found his big break and who will simply be broken.

"You can see why it would be tough," said Red Sox infielder Eric Hinske. "If you like the low-key atmosphere, I wouldn't recommend Boston."

"No way," said Sox pitcher Kyle Snyder when asked if someone with a fear of failure could play in Boston. "Impossible."

"Some guys can be affected by it," Boston third baseman Mike Lowell added.

The consensus among those who have weathered the Boston storm point to the media attention as one of the biggest albatrosses. The perception among the players is that the passion of the fans can be fueled one way or another by what is one of baseball's largest media contingents and, because of it, the guys in uniform had better be ready.

Some aren't.

"It is what you make of it," said Sox pitcher Josh Beckett. "If you let all the negative things dictate the way you feel coming to the field, and let all that stuff in, then it can definitely make it more difficult. You can't worry about all that stuff. People are going to say what they're going to say, and people are going to think what they are going to think. Actually, people are going to think what the media says, because that's the only way they have to form that opinion."

"If you're a big league player, you can play, but some guys don't like it and some guys maybe try and change because of it," Lowell explained. "When you're in a big market, you tend to be analyzed a lot and some guys don't like it. Personally, I didn't mind it because I appreciated the following. It was a nice change from the place I was used to (Florida)."

...

Procuring players who are certain to handle the Boston spotlight hasn't become - unfortunately for the Red Sox - an exact science. Last year, the organization didn't deem the certainty of Johnny Damon's big market approach worthy of upping its $40 million offer, and subsequently rolled the dice on the ability of affable center fielder Coco Crisp to fill the void.

Crisp appeared to initially embrace his new surroundings - a dynamic some newcomers never seem to acquire. But then came a broken finger, and soon after he discovered the challenge that is living life in the major leagues' smallest home clubhouse.

Even though the finger never fully healed, the outfielder continued to play, which, in the world of the rabid Sox fans, was the mandatory course of action for the man who replaced Damon.

Rondell White, who played 10 seasons in the bizarro Boston - Montreal - before being employed by the big-market Yankees, knows the kind of pressure that Crisp endured. After starting strong in the 2002 season and soaking in all the accolades that went with his newfound attention, the outfielder suffered a damaged finger. With an injury history in tow, he was going to show the tabloids of New York this wasn't going to be a back-page storyline.

But, like Crisp, the performance never quite caught up with the intentions, and White ended up hitting .130 for the month of August. Suddenly, he found out what it truly meant to underachieve in a place like Boston or New York.

"You always have to deal with the frustration and the fans getting on you, but it's more in Boston and New York. It's definitely different," said White, who is now with Minnesota. "You have to be able to say 'Whatever!' It's almost like you can't care too much. You have to go out there and feel like the script is already written, and it just has to play out."

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Correctly identifying those who are willing to accept the ups and downs has become an ongoing quest for the Red Sox, whose analysis isn't limited to just big league acquisitions.

When Boston was on the verge of drafting pitcher Clay Buchholz, who had been arrested the previous year for stealing laptop computers, they weighed in the prospect's entire dossier. First came a 21/2-hour conversation with one of the team's psychologists, and then a heart-to-heart with Boston general manager Theo Epstein and amateur scouting director Jason McLeod on the Fenway warning track while dodging batting practice bombs off the bat of David Ortiz.

But the Red Sox are also realistic. They understand it isn't easy to decipher how pitching under the spotlight of a Friday night game in the Southeastern Conference translates to the weight of playing on the Fenway stage.

"It's something that comes up in conversation, but we almost try and go away from it unless there is some glaring off-field issue," McLeod said. "There are certain cases where it would come up, but it's not an ultimate decision maker."

But some say that the Red Sox should start prioritizing their personality profiles even more than they have.

"I think you have to do that," said former Red Sox second baseman Mark Loretta. "It would be hard to evaluate without the player actually being there. It would be a tough determination to make other than interviewing people who have played with the player or managed him before.

"But instead of looking at it as, 'Will this guy be able to play?', maybe they should value it a little more if a guy has proven he can do it. From a business standpoint, it means a lot to the fans. They sell a lot of tickets, but the perception of the organization could be a little better in that regard."

So the question now is whether this crop of seven newcomers is up to the task. While concerns hovered around J.D. Drew's ability to thrive in Boston, many feel the big stage is just what Daisuke Matsuzaka is looking for. The Japanese pitcher's history suggests the more heat the better, as evidenced by both his successes on the international stage and his relative ineffectiveness against the bottom three hitters in his opposition's batting order.

Grapefruit League success aside, until they do it in Boston, it doesn't count.

"Certain guys you can look at and say, 'Yeah, everything needs to go right for him to play really well in Boston.' or maybe they prefer to play in a little bit more of a low-key environment," Lowell said. "It's not like most places."

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