As Will Hunting, a fictional favorite son of South Boston, once said, "Do you like apples? Well how do you like these apples?"

That is what the Boston Red Sox are saying to the rest of the world these days, as they emerge from a no-win situation with the phone number of the best-looking girl in the Harvard Square bar. The new owners have taken a badly beaten piece of fruit with worm holes made by the likes of Dan Duquette and "Mad Carl Disease" Everett, and polished it so that the diehard Sox fans - and they are legion, form coast to coast -- can gaze at the reflection of their forever hopeful faces.

OK, we know. We've heard it all before. This is the year. It's a new team. They have a new attitude. All the old excuses and promises are simply yesterday's news. Wipe the slate clean, this is a whole new ballclub. This is one hot date who isn't going to disappoint, even though it was mere months ago that she got drunk, embarrassed us in front of an entire restaurant, broke a heel on the way out, fell down the stairs, and went home with the waiter while we were getting the car.

But as you may hear in the bars and the streets, and certainly in the bleachers these days -- "No, really, honestly, no shit, I really mean it, this really is a different team! They can do it this yee-uh! Swea-uh to Gawd! Look, the owners are actually out on Yawkey Way on opening day, shaking hands with people and not checking their wristwatches at the same time. Did you see Pedro standing at the turnstile saying, `Hi,' to us on the way in? Duquette can kiss my ass, this is a great team!"

Well, you can't deny the focus is certainly on a franchise trying to wash away the sour taste left in fans' mouths by the previous proprietors, led by Denial Dan and the horrible little gollum, John Harrington, who hid behind the good graces of the Yawkey family legacy while scheming and dickering for dollars and screwing the patrons. And spare one back of the hand for the last year's players, who sandbagged Jimy Williams and turned their toes up down the stretch under the unfortunate Joe Kerrigan. Poor Joe might as well have just jumped into Mass Pike traffic from the Brookline Avenue bridge for all the chance he had to survive the situation into which he was lured by Duquette.

But this year is different, and the new ownership is certainly not shining shit. There are a few golden delicious apples in there, in the person of Pedro Martinez and Nomar Garciaparra. Think people nationwide aren't checking out how well the best pitcher in baseball and one of its top five hitters will recover from season-disrupting performances? One simple bad outing from Martinez the Messiah and it makes a double-truck photo spread in Sports Illustrated, which, 90 minutes into opening day at Fenway, questioned whether the world had ended in New England. And when Nomar didn't homer in his first at bat, you could hear seppuku swords being unsheathed from Portland to Pawtucket.

But fear not, faithful. Nomar has since hit a pair of dingers over his first five games, and he's already well over his customary .300. Pedro, whose seven earned runs in the opener engendered more overreaction than a Tom Ridge press conference, found on video that he wasn't sufficiently pushing off his legs and came back with a three-hit, five-K, one unearned run effort, over six innings, to beat Baltimore. After that performance, the only fear to be seen was in the eyes of American League hitters.

Now it's time for the others to shine as well. If one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch, then maybe the reverse is true. Jason Varitek, another casualty last season, is back behind the plate. While he gets little respect from the media, Jimy Williams last year bemoaned his loss to a broken elbow more than even Nomar or Pedro going down. The new kids on the block, Rickey Henderson (God, what an amazing ballplayer), Johnny Damon, Rey Sanchez, and Carlos Baerga are all great additions, real men who play the game right -- even if Rickey and Carlos are viejos who should by all rights be watching from the stands with a cold one in their hands. Tony Clark at first was a steal from the waiver wire last year. The accumulated presence of these guys not only makes the team more solid on and off the field, but it makes the atrocious Jose Offerman expendable. (Yeah, Lou Merloni sticks!) Add to them solid citizens like the totally underrated (yes, still) Trot Nixon, Brian Daubach, and "Double A Shea" Hillenbrand, and we have ourselves a pretty deep barrel from the orchard.

Oh, did I forget to mention Manny Ramirez? No. It's just that Manny needs to prove that he's the terror he started off as last year, not the sulker he became. Hey, Manny, funny how I didn't hear the Patriots complaining about the size of their locker room this year. The specter of the Pats' Three Musketeers attitude was not lost on the fans in New England this winter, so Manny would do very well to keep his mouth shut (which he enjoys, actually), and listen to the team's leaders -- especially those who habla Espanol -- and knuckle down to the task of knocking down walls over the AL, and particularly at Fenway. And let's leave left field to Rickey, que claro, amigo?

Finally, when we turn to pitching, we need some boys who won't get cored the four out of five starts that Pedro can't make, and who can bring home a game over the last three innings if the Sox can get that far with a lead. The new kids in town are already in trouble, with both John Burkett and now Dustin Hermanson less than 100 percent. This has forced Tim "Versatility Sucks" Wakefield back into the rotation, which is always a roll of the dice. I have great faith in Derek Lowe as starter, which he echoes, and Frank Castillo is dependable. But with that bullpen, which includes set-up man "El Guapo," Rich Garces, a traveling circus when he hits the mound, and Ugueth Urbina, the next best thing to defibrillator paddles as a closer, we're definitely trying to make apple cider out of the windfalls.

All this said, Boston once again looks ready to tantalize us until the final week. But this year, inspired by the new apple polishers in the owners' luxury boxes and the manager's office, and driven by that miracle down the road in Foxboro, which demands a response, the BoSox look good for the postseason as a wild card. They're never going to catch the Yankees over 162 games, not with New York's ridiculous pitching rotation of Clemens, Mussina, Pettite, Wells, and Hernandez, which is off the reality charts. But you never know what can happen in a single series, as Atlanta keeps finding out nearly every October.

Let's just hope this year it's the Yanks turn to bite the apple.

The picks

AMERICAN LEAGUE
AL East
New York -- Oh, pitching wins games?
Boston -- We'll get 'em in the playoffs
Toronto -- Ask Pedro if they can hit
Baltimore -- Nice ballpark
Tampa Bay -- PawSox South

AL Central
Cleveland -- They don't know they shouldn't win
Chicago -- Sooo close
Minnesota -- They don't know they should win
Kansas City -- Owners have given up
Detroit -- The Edsel had better years

AL West

Seattle -- Ichiro, Edgar, and Attitude
Oakland -- Young guns become young gunslingers
Anaheim -- No Mo, and Disney is still Mickey Mouse
Texas -- A-Rod, Rocker, and Everett: what's not to hate?

NATIONAL LEAGUE
NL East
Atlanta -- Yes, pitching does win games
New York -- Can money buy happiness? Maybe
Philadelphia -- Another surprise season
Montreal -- Just to piss off the owners
Florida -- Follow the bouncing team ERA

NL Central
St. Louis -- Simply solid; Teee-No!
Houston -- Jimy knows second
Chicago -- The city that loved Flash Gordon
Pittsburgh -- A little Deer Hunter approach
Cincinnati -- You just can't see Junior Griffey lose enough
Milwaukee -- Selig sucks!
(Pick one)

NL West
Arizona -- Stee-rike threee!
San Francisco -- Love him, hate him, count past 73
Los Angeles -- The glitz is gone
Colorado -- Rocky Mountain low
San Diego -- Sean Burroughs ain't Tony Gwynn

AL CHAMPS -- Boston

NL CHAMPS -- Atlanta

WORLD SERIES
Atlanta

Issue Date: April 12- 18, 2002