A coach said the Sox "wound up, I guess you would say, the second greatest team in baseball."

"NO!" the crowd yelled, playing the Greek chorus.

Bob Heise, Doug Griffin and the pitching coach, Stan Williams, all came forward to say how great the Sox are and how great the Boston fans are and how great an honor it is...

And the crowd cheered at every opportunity, until Ned Martin had only one player left to introduce. "The space cowboy from California...," Martin said, and the plaza rocked with applause.

Bill Lee stepped forward with a Will Rogers, aw-shucks shuffle. He grinned. It was a beautiful day, and the fans who had ridden him only several weeks earlier, when he couldn't seem to do anything right, were cheering him now. He had pitched two fine World Series games, even if he didn't win either.

The fans cheered, and Bill Lee might have thought about how the losers' share of the World Series purse isn't that much smaller than the winners', you know. And he might have thought about the off-season coming up, and all the time he'll have to spend the money and grow his beard and eat health food and avoid reporters. It could be worse.

So Bill Lee stepped up to the microphone and looked out over that huge gathering. "Uh," he said, "thank you." Lee paused. He shrugged. "Uh," he said, "What the heck?"

The fans cheered.