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Getting to Know Nick Green
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Mary Paoletti wrote this 8 months ago | Permalink |
Today's Boston baseball stories--"Green Party", "Green Day for Red Sox", etc.--had a common denominator: Bad puns. With a verb/adjective name combination poor Nick Green never stood a chance No doubt, the media has been drooling over the utility man all season, hoping his play would turn from solid to spectacular so they could manhandle his tag with poor plays on words. Yesterday's 9th inning heroics by Green gave them that chance. Consequently, I ended up choking on my morning coffee to read "Just in the Nick of Time".
Come on now.
But as a writer I can admit to indulging in cheeseball leads sometimes. So whose line did I bite on? Bob Ryan's feature in the Boston Globe, "Story line was sealed with a mist". It was a tempting tag. Ryan's opener promised a backdrop for the soft spoken shortstop: "Coming soon to a theater near you: “The Nick Green Story.” This guaranteed blockbuster would be a full-blown biopic, the rags-to-riches story of a career spare part who lands in Boston and becomes a folk hero.” So I settled into my seat with high hopes for an entertaining show.
Result? Fourth fail of my summer. There was nothing in 1. “The Hangover” 2. “The Taking of 123 Pelham” 3. “Year One” and 4. "Story line was sealed with a mist." that I didn’t already know from 1. Eavesdropping on a bunch of broskis as they recap a completely hyperbolic weekend 2. Imagining worst-case scenarios on my morning Green Line commute 3. Sleeping through Sunday School and 4. Watching the Sox for nearly three months.
I wanted the dirt on Green. I wanted the “full-blown biopic” that details what it felt like the first time he picked up a baseball bat, his most embarrassing biff, how annoying it is when people tell him he looks like Wes Welker (but doesn’t he?), and more than two sentences on what he suffered while in MLB exile as a Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankee last season.
But maybe Bob’s not to blame.
For a guy who’s been in and out of the majors since 2004 there’s surprisingly little said about our Nick Green. Even my 2009 Red Sox media guide--the most grossly informative tome published annually (e.g. In 1913 outfielder Harry Hooper pitched two innings against Washington for two hits, zero ER, one walk, and zero strikeouts. Clutch.)--offers only bare bones.
And I think Green likes it this way.
The idea of professional athletes living in relative obscurity is almost as funny as Brad Penny pitching with the barn door open. But some do their best to keep their heads down, keep their flies zipped up, and just play the game. Green exudes such quiet contentment which first struck me at the Pitching in for Kids charity auction.
The disparity between the athletes and average Joes wasn’t subtle. As the auction wrapped up the Sox stars beat it to the back room for a VIP poker tournament, complete with curtained entry and large man toting a clipboard. Those not on the large man’s list congregated around the outer room’s bar and a we-might-as-well-get-wasted atmosphere settled over the crowd. This is where I saw Nick Green. He was encircled by some swooning women but otherwise un-mobbed. When an event volunteer approached him with an easy escape from his fan club; “Nick we need more celebrities to play poker,” Green simply smiled, refused, and returned to his conversation.
For me the highlight of meeting him was simple: He introduced himself.
“Mary? Hi, I’m Nick.”
No I-know-you-know-me attitude. No air of inapproachability. Just refreshing sincerity that vaulted me from being a fan of Nick Green the athlete to being a fan of him as a person. Hence my effort to choke down whatever lame witticisms that are written, quite literally, in his name. It's way too easy:
“Just in the nick of time Sox shortstop is given green light but nicks Green Day frontman & Green Party member, Billie Joe, with walk-off home run ball.”
Like I said, he never stood a chance.
-Mary Paoletti
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