In the stands with the Red Sox, you can’t lose

Like pizza and sex, there is no really bad baseball.

You could watch a CYO (look it up), high school, Park League, college or professional baseball game and always find something special, something you don’t see every day, something that justifies sitting in the sun for three or four hours.

Like that would ever need justification.

And you will remember that it is a Cobb Manor axiom that your life is extended by every moment you spend in a ballpark. Any ballpark. Anywhere.

Take last Saturday with the Philadelphia Phillies playing the beloved Red Sox. In case you forgot, I have moved my observation platform to Fort Myers, Fla., where the (beloved) Red Sox hold spring training.

You might think that the first game after the premiere of Red Sox phenomenon Dice K (Daisuke Matsuzaka) would be a routine affair, hardly worth attending. You might be wrong.

Spring training games can be hazardous to the attention. For someone used to the coverage of radio or television commentators telling you everything but the political leanings of the players, concentrating on the game without that electronic guidance can be difficult.

I must confess that often I stare off into the middle distance and watch the hawks doing their hunting. If someone tapped me on the shoulder and asked me what the count was, what the score was, who was up, who was pitching, I would feign a violent coughing fit to cover the fact that I had no idea at all.

I am a pretender. As long as I am sitting in Florida sweating out a heat wave while my unfortunate friends in Maine are shoveling frozen cats out of their living rooms, I am happy. Baseball is just the cherry on the hot fudge sundae.

First there was Brandon Moss, the outfielder who batted .285 for the Portland Sea Dogs last year. I was not really that familiar with him before Saturday. But he had a sensational afternoon making a running, sliding catch in right field followed by a strong throw to the infield. Sue me. I love watching the throws from the outfield or deep shortstop. Plus he hit a home run and threw out the potential winning run at the plate in the ninth inning.

I love this guy. It could have been that once-in-a-lifetime game that players have, but Moss is my sleeper this year, my “pick to click” to make a major impact on the Boston team.

You heard it here first.

We all have our prejudices. I myself hate knuckleball pitcher Tim Wakefield and the games when he takes the mound. The games seem to last for an entire week. But on Saturday, “Wake” was followed on the mound by a Sox favorite, Jonathan Papelbon, who pitched as well as anyone from the bullpen last year until his arm fell off. This year, the team is thinking of taking him from the bullpen to the starting rotation.

Papelbon took the mound for two innings and blanked the Phillies, ending one inning by striking out the fearsome National League MVP, the Bunyanesque Ryan Howard.

A golden moment, even at spring training.

I can now tell my grandchildren (if they would ever listen to me) that I saw Manny Ramirez hustling around the bases and making an all-out, skidding slide into third base. Safe!

One must not be parochial at any baseball game, even spring training.

One must give equal (almost) applause when Phillies shortstop Abraham Nunez takes a grounder deep in the hole and makes a miraculous throw to first to nab the Sox runner.

One must praise the perfect bunt dropped by speedy Phillies right fielder Michael Bourn, a bunt that left Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell and catcher Doug Mirabelli staring in amazement as Bourn tore down the line to first.

All right, the Red Sox lost 12-9. But even the worst baseball game, even a losing game at spring training, is better than the best day at work, or almost any day in frigid New England, for that matter.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.