BOSTON -- Josh Tomlin started to play T-ball when he was three-and-a-half years old.
He and his dad would play catch in their backyard in Whitehouse, Texas, and Tomlin would utter those magical words.
Full count. Bases loaded.
"That whole thing every kid does when they're a baseball player," Tomlin said.
It's every kid's dream. For so many, it never materializes. For a select few, it does. And when that moment arrives, it's important to take notice.
So, Tomlin paced around the back of the mound in the bottom of the fifth inning on Monday night, as the Boston faithful at Fenway Park, longing for some reassurance that the Red Sox bats had not slipped into early hibernation for the winter, started to chant his name.