By Steve Buckley
Waiting outside were more than 35,000 hard-core Boston sports fans, along with representatives from virtually every media outlet in New England.

But here, under the Fenway Park [map] grandstand, Kevin Garnett was twisting and contorting his 6-foot, 11-inch body in order to fit himself into the batting cage behind the first base dugout.

“Watch your head,” warned Coco Crisp [stats], who, at an even 6 feet, slid neatly and quickly into the chamber.

“It’s all cool,” said Garnett. “I just want to take some throws. I want to get this down.”

The newest member of the Celtics [team stats] was getting ready for his close-up. In a few minutes he would step outside and into the embrace of all those fans, his smile and his words recorded by all those cameras. He would be throwing out the first pitch prior to last night’s Red Sox [team stats]-Orioles game at the old ballpark, but it came down to this:

Before the fans had a chance to warm up to him, he was going to warm up his arm.

“Here’s my sidearm delivery,” he said, beaming, as he kicked and delivered a pitch that was more submarine than sidearm, transforming himself into an elongated, right-handed Mike Myers.

Nervous? No. Excited?

 

“Yes, excited,” he said, but he also understood the symbolism of what was to take place. Though first-pitch ceremonies have been reduced to rather pedestrian affairs over the years - a lot like getting the key to the city or a knighthood from the queen - this was going to be Kevin Garnett’s first real taste of Boston.

This was not a press conference or a radio interview.

No, this was a first date - the newest basketball superstar and Boston’s ever-passionate sports fandom saying their how-do-you-dos to each other in the most unlikely of settings: Fenway Park.

So, no, this was no ordinary first pitch. Amid all this continued blathering that Boston remains racially on edge, here now was an African-American man poised to receive a standing ovation as a guest of a baseball team once known for its grudging acceptance of integration.

It’s one thing for edgy Bostonians to wring their hands and insist that Dodge has been cleaned up, that the racial issues of the past are just that - in the past. But better to hear it from a newly minted Bostonian who just happens to be black.

“That’s just a cliche,” he said, when asked about the persistent rumbling that Boston is “a racist city.”

“People say a lot of things, but to experience something is totally different,” he said. “Antoine (Walker) told me a lot of good things about this city, and I think he was very honest, along with Gary Payton. They were brutally honest about the fans and the people here.”

Racism, in Kevin Garnett’s view, “shouldn’t be what Boston’s known for. It should be their fans and their love, and I’m embracing that.”

You have every right to say to yourself, “This is Kevin Garnett’s first day in Boston. Who is he to announce that Boston is not a racist city?”

To be sure, Boston has a troubled past when it comes to race relations. From the fallout over the explosive “Walker’s Appeal,” written in 1829 by freed slave David Walker, to the sham 1945 tryout staged by the Sox, then right on through court-ordered school segregation, Boston has had its issues.

But look at it another way: If professional athletes can be given a forum to proclaim that Boston is a racist city - hello there, Carl Everett - then that same forum should be opened up to professional athletes with an opposing point of view.

Just before stepping out of the batting cage and into the collective embrace of all those Boston sports fans, Kevin Garnett was asked if it’s true that history is a subject that is near and dear to him. His answer: Yes. Absolutely. Loves history.