The boys of spring After a Sunshine State tune-up, the Red Sox are poised to defend in 2005 BY IAN DONNIS

EVEN UNDER A pleasantly blazing Florida sun, there are times when it can be a tad frustrating to be a Red Sox fan.

Being in Fort Myers for three games during the penultimate week of spring training is a dose of delight for a baseball junkie craving a fix after winter’s seemingly endless void. The ritual in which the PA announcer compares the local forecast (80 degrees) with the one back in Boston (28 degrees) rouses the crowd of more than 7000 at City of Palms Park. Just the chance to be within shouting distance of the Sox squad that won it all after that infamous 86-year drought is pretty damn sweet.

But old New England habits are slow to die. When Boston’s A-team of Johnny Damon, Edgar Renteria, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Jason Varitek, Kevin Millar, and company — supplanted in the late innings by a cast of slightly familiar hopefuls and unknowns — manages to collectively score only six runs during a trio of losses to the Reds, Orioles, and Twins, it can cause a slight bit of trepidation, not to mention a passing bout of awfulization, for even the most ardent fan.

What if this lack of hitting continues, like it did for three months of .500 ball in the early mid-season of 2004? What if Opening Day starter David Wells (going into the last week of camp with a 7.94 ERA) proves a flop? What if the magnificent heights of 2004 — capped by a remarkable and historic comeback, against all odds, versus the arch-nemesis Yankees in the American League Championship Series — proves but a fleeting bit of glory? The Sox teams anchored by Ted Williams in the late 1940s, after all, were terrific on paper, but after losing the 1946 World Series to the Cardinals, it was 21 long years before Boston returned to (lose) another Fall Classic.

Well, that’s why they play the games. And that’s why experienced baseball hands regard spring training matches, and even the performance of individual players (let’s recall that ace closer Keith Foulke, who was terrific last year in the post-season, had a horrendous spring in 2004) with all the concern attached to a wayward fungo.

"During the spring training, I don’t worry too much about what we’ve been doing here," former Sox pitcher Luis Tiant tells me in his trademark heavily accented Cuban English prior to a March 25 game against the Twins. "We’re losing, somebody gets hit — it makes no difference. In spring training, you come here to get in shape for the season. You see a lot of guy get somebody out, a lot of guy hitting him, then when you say ‘play ball,’ they no do anything, and they might be in triple-A. I no worry about it. The key is going to be if those guys we get this year, they’re doing the job. If they’re doing the job, do what we expect for them to do, we’ll be fine."

LINGERING FRUSTRATIONS in Red Sox Nation relate more to the accompanying byproduct of the team’s more recent success, like the growing challenge of scoring tickets to Fenway Park, particularly those coveted ones for the wildly anticipated April 11 home opener against the Yankees.

Back in Fort Myers, tickets are far more easily obtained, although a transplant from near Springfield, Massachusetts, laments how they could be bought on the day of the game as recently as three years ago. Nowadays, ticket brokers get into the action, prime seats for games against the Yankees go for a few hundred dollars, and the Sox’ booming popularity has boosted attendance at City of Palms Park, a small venue not unlike Pawtucket’s McCoy Stadium, with the notable exception of the palm trees ringing the place. Thanks to a Christmas gift from my thoughtful girlfriend, Kathy — who snared three pairs of tickets online, not long after they went on sale in December — I had a few months to anticipate my first-ever visit to spring training.

Fighting Fort Myers’ considerable traffic to arrive shortly before the start of a March 22 evening game against the Cincinnati Reds, it was more than a little intoxicating to be reunited with fellow Sox partisans, many of them from various points throughout New England or transplants to Florida. Enterprising homeowners near the ballpark turn their backyards into impromptu parking lots, charging $5 for the privilege. As the game begins, I think back to the Big Red Machine of the mid-’70s, the formidable Cincinnati team of Pete Rose and Johnny Bench that bested Boston in the riveting 1975 World Series. But when the Reds score a runner from first on a double returned to the infield by Johnny Damon, more contemporary concerns resurface. As one fan jibes about our charismatic and longhaired centerfielder, "You know what they say? He looks like Jesus, and throws like Mary."

The Reds pile on with a two-run jack off Tim Wakefield by slugger Adam Dunn, as our attention turns to a father seated behind us schooling his son, about four, and younger daughter in the ways of the game: "Tell mommy where left field is." It’s hard not to feel affection for Wakefield, the longest serving of the current Sox and a good guy devoted to charitable endeavors. But the way in which the knuckleballer is hard hit, departing after 3-2/3 innings, is sadly reminiscent of a few visits to Fenway last year, particularly a mid-season blowout by the Dodgers. Foulke comes in to put out the fire, and the Sox score three, keyed by a 450-foot David Ortiz bomb that hits high off the batters’ eye screen in straightaway center. In the end, though, despite good relief appearances by Lenny DiNardo and spring training invitee Jack Cressand, it’s too little, too late, and the Reds win, 6-4.

After the game, I rendezvous with Mike Riley, a friend of a friend back in Rhode Island. Riley, the director of operations for Providence’s Westcott Properties, is involved with Latin American baseball leagues and says he has aided Sox newcomers Renteria and Ramon Vazquez to line up some real estate in Boston. Following Riley’s lead, we gain admittance to a pathway leading to the player’s parking lot, waiting for a pre-arranged interview with Vazquez, a utility infielder who came over from the Padres with Jay Payton in the Dave Roberts deal.

For Sox fans, any loss can be a little disappointing. But the springtime setback pales in comparison to the opportunity for Vazquez, a soft-spoken 28-year-old Puerto Rican native, who looks surprisingly mortal in his street clothes, to be even a utility guy in Boston. "This is one of the organizations you’re always proud to be with," he says. "When they wanted me in a trade after they won the World Series, it’s pretty amazing. I’m really happy to be here."