He had lifted his fist rounding first base and shot an imaginary arrow at home plate and wiggled his hips like Elvis on his way into the home dugout at Fenway Park — and still Eduardo Nunez howled in shock when a Red Sox teammate dumped a cooler full of blue Gatorade over his head on a chilly Tuesday night.
Nunez had sent a thrill through the sellout Boston crowd some 30 minutes earlier. He scooped a breaking ball out from near his ankles and golfed it. The pitch carved a parabola in the sky and soared over the Green Monster in left field in the seventh inning of a one-run ballgame.