In the catacombs of the old ballpark, a few players are lounging around the Red Sox clubhouse four hours before the first pitch will be thrown, laughing at Adam Sandler and the movie Big Daddy being shown on a TV located 10 feet from where Nomar Garciaparra sits on a folding chair, his back to the screen, talking to a visitor about a few of the things that define the shortstop's life. As he speaks, the team's traveling secretary, a retired Boston cop named Jack McCormick, comes through the door with monthly pay stubs and begins handing them out to the guys, who are already preparing for another night's work, this time against the Royals.

"Hey, Nomar," McCormick says, smiling, as he waves the tissue-thin envelope in the air. "This one's heavier than the others. Must be more in it, huh?"

"Yeah, right," Garciaparra replies, with a hint of near-embarrassment in his voice.

"Let me tell you something," McCormick points out to the visitor. "This guy is absolutely no maintenance at all. Not low maintenance. No maintenance! And you know why? Upbringing. He's got that good upbringing."

"Hey, Jack," the shortstop says, laughing. "Did I mention all the tickets I'm going to need when we get to Anaheim?"

Garciaparra, who will be 27 on July 23, was born in Whittier, Calif., during the long-gone summer of 1973, when another son of that town was in the final innings of his dysfunctional presidency. Richard Nixon's game was politics, but he never had the same respect for the rules, the routines, the rhythm or the history of his sport that Garciaparra brings to his.

He is among the brightest stars in a constellation of incredible athletes playing major league shortstop today. He is a shy perfectionist performing in a small town of big baseball dreams, a place where fans feel as if they have been kept-actually, cheated-out of the true hardball heaven of a World Series. Now, as the Red Sox battle the Yankees yet again, the Hub turns its lonely eyes to its own Number 5.

"Watch him in batting practice," says Joe Mooney. "Watch him take ground balls. That's where you can really tell about a kid." Head groundskeeper at the fading Basilica in Boston's Back Bay the last 31 years, Mooney has the eyes and common sense of a veteran scout. Before coming to Fenway, he worked in Washington, tending to RFK Stadium for a taskmaster named Vince Lombardi.

"Lombardi would've loved this kid," Mooney says. "All the guys who know how the game ought to be played love this kid. Know who he reminds me of? Frank Robinson. And Robinson, when he was playing, was a miserable human being. This kid's not. But like Frank, this kid hustles all the time, plays hard all the time. You couldn't tell watchin' him if they were 10 runs up or 10 runs down. I think it's because of how he was raised. He's a real good kid."

"You see him and you see the way it used to be," says Johnny Pesky, 80 years old now and once a great infielder for the Red Sox in two decades. "I remember hitting him ground balls in spring training a couple years ago and thinking to myself, 'Geez, if this kid was around when I was playing, my butt would be on the bench, and I'd be doing what I'm doing today: watching in amazement at how good he is and how many things he can do.'" Sandler causes a corner of the room to erupt in laughter, and Garciaparra glances over and grins at the fun his teammates are having. He is, in a way, the star of his own film, playing a part defined for him more than two decades ago: the sincere son of a dedicated dad, a 21st-century shortstop who, in the blink of an eye, can be imagined strolling through the shadowy stalks of a cornfield onto today's stage, lugging all the tools of an old-school culture.

"My life growing up was like a movie," Garciaparra points out. "I remember when I was about 4 or 5 years old playing with my dad at his office. [A graphic artist, Ramon Garciaparra, now owns his own business.] There was this long corridor there, and he would take me into it and toss a ball to me. I'd use part of a vacuum cleaner hose for a bat, the light part so I could swing fast. My dad taught me everything. He coached me. He saw almost every Little League game I ever played. Once, when I was about 9 or 10, I lost my temper and threw my hat and my helmet. My dad told me to never do that because somebody would see me acting like a jerk instead of playing the game. I never forgot that."

For someone named out of a sense of whimsy-Nomar is Ramon backward-Garciaparra is remarkably no-nonsense. He has the sculpted physique of a Navy Seal and the daily routines of a rest home resident. "It's not superstition," Nomar explains with a smile. "It's a routine. I've even changed some of them. I used to have a chicken sandwich every afternoon before a game. I have different kinds of sandwiches now. I must be loosening up, huh?"

At his locker, he assembles himself slowly, methodically, stopping after putting on his socks and his game-day T-shirt to address all the conjecture about home runs and a juiced ball: "Everybody always points out that hitters are bigger and stronger than ever, that they are in better physical condition. But you never hear people say the same thing about pitchers: They're bigger and better-conditioned too. And if they are throwing the ball harder than ever, it stands to reason that when a hitter connects, the ball is going to go farther. I mean, it's physics, isn't it?"

"Look at him," says Pedro Martinez. "I would love to be him. If I could play shortstop like him, that's what I would like to do."

"Who's pitching for K.C. tonight?" teammate Brian Daubach asks.

"Don't know," Garciaparra answers.

"You really don't know who's pitching?" a visitor asks.

"No," he replies.

"You don't check to see?"

"Not really. I don't want this to sound arrogant, but it's about me, not the pitcher. It's what I have to do, not what he might do."

Garciaparra is a parochial school product grounded in discipline and order. He does indeed play every day with the same comfortable soft shoe of a glove he's had his whole career É does unconsciously tug at his batting gloves and kick each foot in the dust of the batter's box during each at-bat É does place both feet on the dugout steps every time before bounding out on to the field. It is a signature pattern of behavior that reflects his absorption in the details and nuances of his craft.

In Little League, he is asked, did he make the sign of the cross in the dirt?

"With my bat," he replies with a smile. "Before every at-bat, too. I don't do it that way anymore, but I still do it."

Still go to Mass? "Absolutely."

	Nomar is a baseball perfectionist.

His faith has evolved to the point where much of it is currently invested in his own natural abilities. Yet it is rooted in a respect he was taught sitting around a happy kitchen table as well as on the smaller diamonds of his youth. And his ultimate routine is one of a self-confidence expressed without an ounce of boasting.

"I know what I can do," Garciaparra explains. "I know what I'm capable of doing, too. That's why I almost-almost-threw my bat that Sunday night in Yankee Stadium after Clemens struck me out the last time. I failed. And I hate failure. I hate excuses, too.

"That's one of the reasons it's fun to play in Boston. And New York. Both places are very demanding, and a lot of guys don't want to play here. Or they couldn't play here, because the fans won't accept excuses. I love Anaheim. It's home. But you look up in the stands there in the sixth inning, and people are leaving. Here, you look up in the bottom of the ninth, and it doesn't matter what the score is, everybody's still there. That makes it great. That's why it's going to be great when we win everything. That's what I want to do, win it all. That's why we play: to win."

Those words, spoken with such matter-of-fact assurance, would make a believer out of the most embittered Sox fan. This shortstop with the black hair and brown eyes just might be able to do what Ted and Yaz and Rice tried so long, so mightily to do-but couldn't.

"I know how lucky I am," Garciaparra is now saying. "I know I've been blessed with things. I have quick feet and quick hands. I can't tell you why. I never did anything to make myself quicker. It's just that I know that my hands and feet will do the right things.

"I also think I have a respect for this game that some guys don't. That's because of my dad. He made me play every position so I would learn every one and have respect for the other kids playing them. There was none of that 'worst kid in rightfield' stuff with him. My dad and I would sit down at supper, and he would draw diagrams of a diamond on a paper napkin and outline different game situations for me. We'd sit there, me and him, and he'd say, 'Okay, one out, men on first and third, you're catching, runner goes, what are you going to do?' He would teach me the right thing to do.

"That's my biggest blessing," Garciaparra continues. "My parents. My mother and my father. My whole family. My brother, Michael, he's 17. You should see him play. He's awesome. He plays baseball, football and soccer. And he is going to be able to do anything he wants. My sisters, Monique and Yvette; they're all great. They're my family. They are what is really important to me.

"And I will tell you what's better than any statistic: My parents just moved into a new house. They went from one bathroom to six. And I was able to help them do it. When I first got to the majors, I looked around and thought, 'Hey this is nice. This is good. I like this.' But the longer I am here, the more I realize what it took to get here and all the help I had, and I realize more and more that what would really mean something is being the kind of parent my mom and dad were. Then, I'd really be a lucky man.

"I mean, I know I'm lucky now. I still have a lot of friends I've had all my life. I don't think I've changed a whole lot either. My life has changed. I know that. I don't have the kind of privacy I used to, but I can deal with that. And if I did change, my friends would tell me. They'd say, 'Hey, you're becoming a jerk.' And I'd listen. You can't forget who you are or where you come from."

Now, Nomar Garciaparra, a 26-year-old throwback, a figure of routine excellence, is fully dressed in his work clothes and ready for another evening's performance. Big Daddy has ended. The locker room buzzes with the chatter of men who get paid to play a boy's game. And the shortstop who would play hard forever, simply because that is who he is, walks down the dark runway onto a field sparkling in the late afternoon sunshine, carrying his glove, a deep respect for the game he loves and the whole history of a team.

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