Dotted with stars, Red Sox lineup takes on universal appeal

Boston’s offensive display against the Orioles in the four-game set that concluded Monday night will not be taken lightly by the rest of the league. This is the Red Sox team the rest of baseball feared would show up, and it has.

Baltimore, a team for which I broadcast, continues its rebuilding process and is not the toughest test the Sox will have, but the Orioles battle and the Sox, in winning the series, showed the divergence in talent between a defending champion/contender and a remodeling project.

It is not for just this year that opponents shake their heads when facing the Sox. One of my Oriole broadcast partners, Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer, refers to the Sox makeup as the “suns around which revolve a lot of stars.”

David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez are the suns for now, but, oh those stars.

Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, Jonathan Papelbon and a well-stocked farm system speak of years of dominance.

Even better, those suns like to wade in space dust.

Mike Lowell, Kevin Youkilis, Ellsbury and Pedroia are to die for if you are putting a team together. They are fight personified – and talented.

Pedroia is the first out of the clubhouse and on the bench everyday. He carries his bat and glove with him – a kid looking for a game. He wasn’t supposed to be this good.

Sunday against the Orioles he added highlight-reel defensive plays to his quality play.

Bob Schaefer, a former Red Sox coach now with the Dodgers, told me Sunday, “When I was with the Sox, scouts kept telling me all the reasons he couldn’t make it. But Joe Morgan [former Sox manager] told me, ‘Watch this kid. He’s going to be a player.'”

Pedroia lives off challenge. He is one of those people who will be better as soon as you tell him he can’t do it.

“Yeah, I’ve always been like that, I guess,” says Pedroia.

“Don’t say that about my college grades, though,” he laughs. “They told me I didn’t have very good grades,” and his voice tails off as he wrinkles his face and laughs again.

There was a rumor that he kept a list of those who said he would never make it. “No, he laughs,” sitting on the bench before the game last night. “I didn’t keep a list, well, in my head I did.” He smiles again.

He didn’t start Monday night’s game. Would he like to start 162? “You bet,” he says. “I want to play every day.”

The grind of a baseball season cannot be overstated. The stars who can keep revolving and evolving around the suns in the course of the spring, summer and fall are worth their weight in gold, even in this day of fantasy salaries.

The Sox have managed to align those stars in a celestial formation that resembles a championship trophy.

bdnsports@bangordailynews.net