BOSTON — Today is Kid Nation Day at Fenway, a day where the little Red Sox fans get to hang out at the park and meet the players. Back in 1999, the cast of the WGBH kids program ZOOM got the chance of a lifetime — to perform the national anthem at Fenway. We were curious: where are they now?
 
 

The stands were filled with parents and pint-sized Red Sox fans eating Cracker Jacks and wearing baseball caps they’d eventually grow into. The field was filled with baseball greats like Pedro, Nomar and Wally the Green Monster, signing autographs and taking photos. The WGBH Archives has video footage from that day, shot by ZOOM producer Jim Johnston on his home video camera. Alisa, David, Jared, Lynese, Pablo and Zoe are wearing oversized matching jackets with the word ZOOM embroidered on them — and they're barely able to contain their excitement.

Looking back, "it was pretty surreal," Pablo Velez said. "The fact that I was singing the national anthem at Fenway Park was like a dream come true … I’m a huge baseball fan, and I’d never been to Fenway Park, and I got to do it with a group of friends."
 
So his very first experience at Fenway Park was in the field. "Yeah," Velez said, laughing. "That’s a pretty good way to go, first time around."
 
Sadly, not all the memories of this ZOOM family are that bright. In 2006, ZOOM cast member Jared Nathan was killed in a car accident. Nathan loved the Red Sox and Fenway Park so much that a friend bought a commemorative brick at the ballpark in his name.
 
Zoe Costello said she wasn't that nervous. "It's kind of hard to believe as I say that because I don’t have a singing voice for sure, but it was just too awesome to be nervous, if that makes any sense," she said. "I just remember sort of being in awe and standing there and looking at how green it was and how colorful it was, and there was such a warm reception of us being there."
 
To this day, it's one of her most magical experiences, she said. "I was just thinking at the time, like this is one of the coolest things that I’ve ever done. And it still is. I mean, I was 10 at the time and now I’m 25. And it still is."
 
Velez had similar emotions. "Never in my life had I experienced anything like that," he said. "To be at Fenway Park, singing the national anthem, and then to sign autographs, take pictures — it was just so crazy, so unbelievable. But it was a blast … I’ll never forget that moment."
 
p.s. Where are they? Velez is now working in film production in Los Angeles and Costello is an actress living in New York.

 
Greater Boston has partnered with the Boston Globe to bring you a weekly feature called "From the Archives." Each Wednesday on Greater Boston, we will show one to two photos from the newspaper's archives. This weekly feature offers a glimpse into Boston's past.
 
On June 13, we get a sneak peek of … the grand game in Brookline.  

June 14, 1988: Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman on the first tee of an opening practice round of the U.S. Open. Despite presently holding the record for most majors ever won at 18, and despite winning the U.S. Open as a rookie in 1962, Nicklaus did not make the cut at The Country Club in 1963 or 1988. Norman, one of the pre-tournament favorites, had to withdraw during the second round when he injured his wrist hitting a concealed rock on his third shot at the ninth hole.

Carl Beane with WGBH News reporter Ibby Caputo, showing off his World Series rings during an interview in 2010.

In a 2011 conversation with Emily Rooney, Beane said he began covering the Red Sox as a sports reporter in 1977 and got the unexpected opportunity to call Fenway games after a one-time audition during spring training.

"I'm sitting in the booth about a half an hour before the game, down in Florida, the place is full and I'm thinking to myself, 'What have I just talked myself into?', because my PA experience is zero," Beane said.

"It's kind of spooky talking to you," Rooney said during their interview. "That voice is just so familiar, and here you are talking like a regular person. We don't think of you as a regular person. You are that voice from the booth, like the voice of God."

LONG LIVE FENWAY PARK

Dick Flavin

For a hundred years she's stood here,
Heard cheering, seen our tears.
Through all the good times and the bad
Fenway perseveres.

She's baseball's great crown jewel,
A treasure — this is why.
Look out there on her field, you'll see
The ghosts of games gone by.

There's Babe Ruth standing on the mound,
Ted Williams at the plate.
And someone's great grandfather
Just came in through the gate.

That's Yaz patrolling in left field,
In center, Freddie Lynn;
Cronin's playing shortstop
But Pesky's coming in.

Luis Tiant whirls and spins
And then he lets it go.
There's another leaping catch
By Dom DiMaggio.

Jim Rice lines one off the wall,
Malzone comes in to score.
Pedroia makes a diving stop,
Or is that Bobby Doerr?

Fisk hits one deep into the night.
Will it be foul or fair?
It caroms off the foul pole
And the cheers still fill the air.

Dewey Evans' rifle arm
Just cut a runner down.
There's Tony C, still young and strong,
The toast of his hometown.

Roberts steals another base
Pinch running for Millar.
There's Radatz, Lonborg, Jimmie Foxx,
And Pedro and Nomar.

Look closely. You can see them all.
They come here everyday.
Fenway was and is their home.
It's where her ghosts still play.

And in the dugout by first base,
There sits the current squad.
Someday they will take their place
With all the Fenway gods.

That's why this place is magic,
Why she's made such a mark.
She's one hundred and still going strong.
And long live Fenway Park!

 
BOSTON — This week, Christians observe Easter, Jews Passover and 80-plus percent of Massachusetts voters of all creeds celebrate Opening Day.
 
One year ago, all the on-lookers forecast a banner (or … pennant) year for the Sox. Before the first game, the Boston Herald declared them the "Best Team Ever!"
 
That was then. After the team's historic September collapse, followed by unsavory revelations about beer and fried chicken in the clubhouse and the departure of both general manager Theo Epstein and manager Terry Francona — predictions for this season are dire. (Except that hope springs eternal.)
 
Scott Lauber, Red Sox beat writer for the Boston Herald, said the pendulum of public opinion might have swung too far. "The core of the team is the same so probably expectations ought to be a little bit higher than they are," he said. Names on the starting roster Thursday include offensive stalwarts Ellsbury, Pedroia, Ortiz and Youk. Their bats were part of a 2011 lineup scored more runs than any other team, Lauber pointed out.
 
"Really the big new name" is manager Bobby Valentine, Lauber said. "He's very outspoken, he's got an opinion on just about everything and he's not afraid to share it. Which is great for us in the media … but it can provide some problems in the clubhouse."
 
He added that even Valentine's enemies consider him a very astute strategist with an unparalleled knowledge of the game.
 
Can they beat the Yanks? Maybe. "The Red Sox have got issues with their pitching in particular," Lauber said cautiously. "They can certainly hit with the Yankees."
 
In the end, despite a ninth-inning rally, the Sox fell to the Tigers 3-2. But it's just the first of the 162 games that will be played over the course of a long season.

 
BOSTON — The 2012 Red Sox season officially got under way Monday as pitchers and catchers completed their first workout at the team's new spring training facility in Fort Myers, Florida. Sox president/CEO Larry Lucchino talked to WGBH News about the team's prospects, players and new management.

Larry Lucchino

One player noticeably absent from camp is longtime team captain Jason Varitek. Varitek's last two seasons were cut short by injuries: He played in just 39 games in 2010 and 68 last year. The soon-to-be 40-year-old free agent has been offered a minor league contract and a chance to make this year's team. However, sources close to the catcher say he's leaning toward retirement instead.
 
Red Sox president and CEO Larry Lucchino said that either way, he sees Varitek in the Red Sox' future.
 
"He's been a tremendous leader on this team, a guy who bleeds Red Sox red," he said. "His loyalty to the organization is second to none and whatever he does, we're going to try to keep him a part of the Red Sox organization going forward."

While some have lowered their expectations for the home team in the wake of the turbulent off-season, Lucchino is not one of them, saying today that his expectations for this year's club couldn't be higher.  
 
"Last year we were everybody's heavy favorite but this year we are a bit of an underdog and I think our players have something to prove. I think our whole organization has something to prove," he said. While some would be cowed, Lucchino was quite the opposite: "I anticipate this season more than any I can remember."
 
The Red Sox open the regular season in Detroit on Thursday, Apr. 5, in an afternoon game against the Tigers.  

Hear further thoughts from Lucchino on "The Emily Rooney Show."

She said she’s always been a tomboy, playing football when she was younger and tagging along when her older brother took up boxing. But it was her behavior in school that landed her in the ring.
 
“My dad, he just saw me fighting in school and then he was like, you need to come to the gym. So he brought me and that’s how it started,” she said.
 
Every day, Ellis travels from Lynn to train at the Somerville Boxing Club in the basement of the Edgerly School. Over the years, the club's location has often changed, but it’s always been a safe haven for inner-city youth, including one famed boxer, John “The Quiet Man” Ruiz.
 
“We had taken this kid from Somerville Boxing Club all the way to the heavyweight championship of the world, which is an unbelievable feat in itself to get that — the ultimate prize,” said Ruiz’s long-time manager and trainer Norman “Stoney” Stone. He now runs the boxing club and said when he looks at Ellis, he sees history repeating itself.
 
“She’s unbelievable. She’s going to be a world champion,” said Stoney. “She’s going to be a world champion.”
 
She’ll have her chance to be national champion when she competes in Colorado at the end of February. If she wins, she’ll be the youngest female national champion ever and will head to China for the world championship. She was two months too young to qualify for the 2012 Olympics.
 
“I feel good that I can do this because I train with boys. That’s why I’m like this now,” said Ellis. 
 
With a punch that can level almost any opponent, Ellis and the Somerville Boxing Club could see another title come their way in the next few weeks.

BOSTON — Biosensors and football: not an American tradition, but it did get inside the hearts and minds of Patriots fans. With the help of scientist Rich Fletcher, WGBH News tracked the emotional response of four fans throughout the Super Bowl.

On Sunday, Paul Taylor shouted and yelled when Tom Brady was called for intentional grounding and when Wes Welker couldn’t make that last-second catch. The sensor attached to Taylor's ankle showed a strong response.

Odd data emerge

No surprise there. But MIT’s Fletcher did find something unexpected during the Super Bowl.

"I noticed that for a few of the people, they had some signal during part of the game, but as the game went along, their signal got weaker, and then went completely flat," Fletcher said. "This puzzled me because for most people the signal gets much bigger as the game goes along."

For the three other fans, the motion sensors detected their movement but there was almost no electro-dermal activity. Their emotional responses, whether it was cheering or yelling, while obvious to the casual observer, didn’t show up on the sensors at all.

That left Taylor as the only fan with a strong response.

And that, according to Fletcher, is all because of … beer. Taylor was the only one who didn't drink it.

"Alcohol suppresses your galvanic skin response or electro-dermal activity," Fletcher said. Even though the other fans only drank a few beers, it was enough to hinder their emotional signals.
 
Sensing alcohol and drugs for health

Fletcher's team is looking at using this sensor technology to monitor people with drug addictions and learn how the drugs or different substances affect the physiology.

"By monitoring physiology, we’re able to detect — if we see some abnormality— like if you’re sweating when you’re not supposed to be sweating, or you’re not sweating when you should be sweating — then we suspect that something else might be involved," Fletcher said. "A lot of these technologies are tools that we use in our research to help not only study the science of drug addiction but also to develop better treatments and therapies for that."

Advancing science through sports

While Fletcher previously suspected that alcohol would have some impact on how emotion is measured, this experiment confirmed it.

"This project illustrated a very interesting use of these sensors for monitoring physiology and the effect of medications, alcohol and other drugs on your physiology," he said. "I wasn’t expecting to explore this as part of this project but interestingly enough, we discovered it by accident, so it was kind of fun. … We may actually get some useful data that we can build other research on."

So even though some of us are still nursing our wounds from Sunday’s defeat, we can at least take comfort in knowing we may have helped advance the cause of science and healing. It might not have anything to do with football, but we wouldn’t have made this discovery without the love of the game. 

At least there was one consolation left: At the depressing end of the game, we had the fun of watching the halftime show. On YouTube.

Note: We asked NBC for traffic stats and an explanation for the different commercials and the lack of the Madonna performance. No response yet.

 
BOSTON — As sports fans watched the Patriots-Giants Super Bowl in record numbers Sunday, Indianapolis police, taxi drivers and private security were keeping a close eye on venues where trafficking might take place, mainly hotels.   

A scene from Oakland, Calif. (Youth Radio News via NPR)

Police and the FBI say that a public event such as the Super Bowl, which brings in millions upon millions of dollars, also attracts organized sex trafficking rings. Anti-trafficking activists believe that an undetermined number of victims may have been transported to Indianapolis in advance of the Super Bowl. Some say the reports of underage trafficking is nothing more than urban myth. Still, police say it is important to be diligent given the general increase in human trafficking in the U.S. and abroad.

Days before the Super Bowl, Indiana's governor signed a bill making it easier to prosecute anyone who forces kids into the commercial sex trade. This weekend, Boston hosted a Human Trafficking Film Festival. The keynote speaker was Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., cochair of the Congressional human trafficking caucus. "I think it's an excellent idea. I look forward to reading the Indiana law and seeing if we can strengthen it to a federal law," she said.
 
Maloney praised Massachusetts for passing an anti-trafficking law last year, but said federal laws must be strengthened too. One bill she has in would empower the IRS to go after kingpins in the trafficking business. "We could never convict Al Capone," she said, "The way they finally got him was on the tax code. And I gotta believe that these pimps and traffickers aren't paying their taxes, and I think that would be a good way that we could raise the money for these victims and to try to help rehab them and give more resources to our prosecutors and police to combat this."
 
Two women who were arrested right before the Super Bowl on charges of prostitution told police that they had been coerced to work by a pimp. The report was directed to the FBI. Boston and national activists attending the trafficking film festival this year planned to announce a major public service campaign to make more Americans aware of the problem of sex trafficking that is often right in their midst.    

BOSTON —  There’s no need to relive the crushing defeat of the Patriots in Sunday's Super Bowl, but if anything, the game was testament to the emotional roller coaster many of us experience during large televised sporting events. Although it’s just a game, many people take their sports very seriously … to the point of endangering their health.

There’s even a study in the "Journal of Emergency Medicine" that found that significantly fewer people go to the emergency room during the Super Bowl. Massachusetts General Hospital saw an average 17 percent drop in the number of ER visits during the 2005 and 2008 Super Bowls.
 
So that means even if someone is experiencing some potentially life-threatening symptoms, that person is willing to sacrifice his health just so he can watch Brady throw a Hail Mary pass to Gronkowski. I mean, how sick is that?
 
It's a question of "intentional focus," said Susan Krauss Whitbourne, a professor of psychology at UMass Amherst, where a dozen people's "focus" led to arrests after the game. "When you’re engrossed in an emotionally compelling situation, you’re going to ignore what’s going on inside your body."
 
Although most people don't realize it, sports games are actually "kind of high on the stress scale of life events," she said. "The more intensely affected you are by the game and the more your identity rests on the game, the more it’s going to be as if it were an actual stressful life event in your own life."

With a record number of viewers expected last night for the Super Bowl, that meant millions of people all over the country sitting around their televisions would be screaming or cheering at the same time. WGBH News was curious to learn how to measure those fluctuating emotions, so we went to Rich Fletcher, an MIT research scientist and an expert on wireless sensors and mobile health. He makes biosensors that monitor people’s emotions. They work through galvanic skin response, he said, "which we call electro dermal activity, which measures what your skin is doing. And your skin — the pores in your skin, specifically the sweat glands, are tied to what’s known as the sympathetic nervous system."

The sympathetic nervous system affects the parts of our body and brain that we can’t consciously control, like heart rate, perspiration and goose bumps. The way the biosensor works is similar to a lie detector. By monitoring heartbeat, temperature and skin resistance, it tracks how we respond to certain situations.
 
WGBH thought, what better place to get the pulse of a true Patriots fan than in the town of Foxboro, Mass, home of Gillette Stadium.

George and Fran Bell decorated their home in honor of the Patriots. From the helium-filled Patriots balloons, to the folding metal chairs and table they brought inside for full tailgate effect, to the red-silver-and-blue bead necklaces that served as festive good luck charms, no one could argue: This is the home of true Pats fans. WGBH strapped the biosensors onto the left ankles of the Bells and two guests, Paul and Sean. Inside the black bands were the sensors, which were wired to the two metal buttons that came into contact with the skin.

From there, the data was sent wirelessly via Bluetooth to this reporter's smartphone. So when Paul shouted at the screen in the tense third quarter, the graph on the phone spiked up.

Now, this wasn't the first time biosensors were used during the Super Bowl. Advertisers have been using them in experiments for the past few years to see how people respond during the commercial breaks.  But Fletcher saw the potential for using this technology in healthcare.

"Another very important area, which is an area that I’ve been pushing very hard on is using mobile phones and the internet to create therapy. Not just measure when you’re stressed, but to do something about it," he said.

Fletcher is managing a program at the VA Hospital in Bedford where he works with patients who have PTSD and drug addiction. "We built a system where they have a sensor that they put on their ankle and they carry around their phone," he said. "And when they’re feeling stressed or aroused, the phone will pop up a message, and the idea is to create some therapeutic messages that will help them think about their drug craving and hopefully help resist taking drugs."
 
The messages might be text, a picture, etc. The idea is for the patient to learn how to cope with feelings of stress and anxiety. A doctor could prescribe particular messages or images instead of prescription drugs — or someone could use this application to treat himself.

"The sensor bands make your physiology much more visible and it makes you more aware of what you’re doing and how you’re feeling," Fletcher said. "Over time, once you learn to recognize that on your own, you won’t need a sensor band anymore. You can still carry around your phone, but you won’t need to phone to automatically feed those messages to you when you’re feeling stressed."
 
While we may not need a biosensor to tell us when we’re excited during the Super Bowl, it might come in handy when someone like Paul, completely losing it during the fourth, needs to be reminded that it’s time to take a deep breath and relax. 

If you’re still reeling from Sunday's loss, Whitbourne said, "Put it in perspective. It hurts. Everybody knows it hurts. There’s no getting around that fact. Life will go on. There’s next year. And consider taking it slow today, she said. "They’ve done studies to find that the day after a team loses, you make poor decisions, so maybe don’t make any decisions that could backfire — even at work. Your cognitive function is worse after a game where you’ve lost."

So forget about the intentional grounding, the 12 men on the field, Brady getting sacked. There’s always next year, but if it’s too soon to say that, well … pitchers and catchers report to spring training in 13 days.

BOSTON — Would you rather win and be hated, or lose and be loved? The country of football fans is standing as one against New England for the Super Bowl this year, said sportscaster Bob Lobel.
 
The longtime commentator and curmudgeon has warning words for New England fans: Though bookmakers favor the Pats, the Giants, he said, are the better team. In fact, "I was feeling so much more comfortable about the last Super Bowl than this one."
 
And no one outside of New England is rooting for the Pats, Lobel opined. "Most people hope the Patriots lose because we're hated," Lobel said. "There's a great part of the country that both envies us and is jealous of the success — not only of the Patriots but all of the other teams." Bill Belichick? Rasputin. Tom Brady? Too perfect (and look at his wife).
 
Even President Barack Obama has gotten into the act, saying, "Enough already, Boston!" Spoken, Lobel said, "like a true guy from Chicago."
 
That said, the Patriots probably care more about this game — longing to avenge the agonizing late-quarter loss of 2008 — which could give them the necessary power.
 
"We expect to win, it's all part of our DNA at the moment, and you might as well enjoy it as long as we can. Who knows when they're going to get back there," Lobel said.
 
Because after all, in the end everyone loves a winner — and Valentine's Day is after the game.

Hear more of Lobel's predictions for the game.

BOSTON — It’s late afternoon at Starbucks in Brighton off Soldiers Field Road and Tyler Harris, a 24-year-old with an easy smile, greets regulars at the start of his shift.

Now, Harris knows quite a few people here by name, but they don't know his alter ego. Harris could be likened to a comic book super hero: a mild mannered Starbucks store manager at night … but when the sun comes up, he changes into a skin-tight costume and transforms into a world-class skater, gliding what seems effortlessly across the ice at the Skating Club of Boston.
 
Just about every day, Harris is here from early morning to 3:00 p.m. pursuing a dream. He and his skating partner Kloe Bautista have their sights on competing in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

"Standing out in front of a stadium of people… there's no way of emulating that," he said. "It's a great feeling."

But making the U.S. team is tough. So their bright idea?"One day she just said to me, 'Hey, you know, we could represent the Philippines because I'm Filipino,'" Harris said.

Bautista explained, "I've always thought about skating for the Philippines because I am a dual citizen. With the Philippines we can get senior grand prix and we would be the only senior pair team." It would give them, she said, a "better chance of getting on the Olympic team."
 
So Tyler Harris, an Irish American kid from Indiana living in Massachusetts, is applying to become an honorary citizen of the Philippines.
 

"From what we've been seeing so far it would be a very viable and doable option" to get that honorary citizenship, he said. "If we get that I'm fairly confident that we will be at the Olympics."
 
"I wouldn't say it's not fair but it gives us a better opportunity," Bautista said.
 
It takes a team to become an Olympian. The skaters have three coaches, including Carrie Walls, who urged Harris and Bautista to take the Philippines route. The idea, she said, is to get them the team affiliation and then to "compete, hopefully, at the world championships next year."
 
If they make the team, Harris and Bautista won't be the first U.S. athletes to find a new country. Others have done it — and have been criticized. 
 
Joe Blount, president of the Skating Club of Boston, said, "Any country can send a skater to the Olympics and the skill level can be up and down. You just don't know. It's a lot of pressure on them to do well and they take it to heart but they're good kids and they represent this club very well."
 
Harris and Bautista are not required to live in the Philippines to compete but they will have to earn a spot with the Philippines Olympic skating team. The trials will be held in the fall.
 
From there, "we have to place at a high enough scoring level at a qualifying event against other people in the world," Harris explained. "We would have to place higher than some teams from say Israel, higher than teams from Croatia or something like that in order to go to the Olympics. So if we're going, it's going to be rightfully earned."
 
On Jan. 29, Bautista and Harris finished 12th of the 13 senior pairs in this weekend's national skating championship. By this time next year the costumes they wear will likely sport the red, white and blue flag of … the Philippines.
 
Additional reporting by Danielle Dreilinger.

BOSTON — Las Vegas oddsmakers are giving the Patriots a three-point edge in the Super Bowl. Carl Beane, the "Voice of Fenway," agreed that New England can take home the trophy.