Graffanino sparks Boston.(Sports) - Albany Times Union (Albany, NY)

Byline: HOWARD ULMAN Associated Press

Red Sox 11

Rangers 6

BOSTON - Tony Graffanino was the surprising star when the two highest-scoring teams in baseball met Monday night.

Graffanino, in his 14th game since being obtained from Kansas City on July 19, hit a rare home run that broke a tie and sparked the Boston Red Sox to an 11-6 win over the Texas Rangers.

'This was a lot of fun,' said Graffanino, who hit his first homer with Boston and fourth of the season. 'I think it was a lot of fun for everybody, really, but I had a good time.'

Boston's second baseman contributed with his hitting, fielding and running. He went 3-for-3 with a tiebreaking three-run homer in the fifth, drove in four runs, helped turn two double plays and slid ahead of two tags at home on a wild pitch and an infield single. He even was walked intentionally.

'This guy came in and has really helped solidify not just second base, but our ballclub,' manager Terry Francona said. 'He gives us some aspects, like going first to third, taking an extra base.'

Jeremi Gonzalez (2-1) pitched 22/3 scoreless innings in relief of Wade Miller as Boston won for the 10th time in 12 games. Steve Karsay (0-1) allowed four runs in two innings in his second appearance for Texas.

David Ortiz hit his 26th homer, but Boston got unusual contributions from the bottom four spots in its lineup, which combined for nine of the team's 12 hits. Graffanino, batting eighth, is hitting .333 for Boston. Kevin Millar, batting sixth, No. 7 Roberto Petagine and No. 9 Alex Cora each had two hits.

Texas manager Buck Showalter wasn't surprised by Boston's offense, even though its best hitters didn't contribute a lot.

'Maybe with most lineups, but not with this one,' he said. 'They've got a lot of good hitters sitting there.'

Boston led 4-3 after one inning, which wasn't shocking since it leads the majors with 620 runs - six ahead of second-place Texas.

'Everybody kind of expects this series to be high-scoring,' Texas' Michael Young said. 'It's tough to play the Red Sox here because they score a ton of runs.'

Graffanino scored three runs and has made it unlikely that Mark Bellhorn, on the disabled list since July 18 with a sprained left thumb, will reclaim his position when he's healthy.

'I can't control any of that stuff,' said Graffanino, who came close to signing with the Red Sox before last season, when they won the World Series, but felt he'd have a better chance to play in Kansas City.

'Obviously, if I would have known about the year that was going to happen last year, it would have been a no-brainer.'

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AMERICAN WANTS CHEERS IN BOSTON.(SPORTS) - Albany Times Union (Albany, NY)

Byline: BERT ROSENTHAL Associated Press -

BOSTON -- All David Morris has to show for being a one-time American record-holder in the marathon is a piece of paper.

He doesn't have the record anymore and he still doesn't have a marathon victory.

Morris hopes to change that today in his first appearance in the Boston Marathon.

``I would like to run faster,'' Morris said, referring to the U.S. record of 2 hours, 9 minutes, 32 seconds, he ran in finishing fourth at the 1999 Chicago Marathon, his career best by nearly six minutes.

Since that memorable race, in which Khalid Khannouchi set the world record of 2:05:42, Morris' performances have sagged. He is hopeful that the hills of Boston will provide him with an uplifting effort.

``I've heard it's a rough course because the downhills beat you up a lot,'' said Morris, a native of Eagle River, Alaska, now living in Missoula, Mont.

Being a newcomer on the demanding and exhausting course will not be beneficial to Morris, who will be facing a powerful field of tested foreigners. Included in the group of approximately 15,000 starters will be defending champion Elijah Lagat of Kenya, Olympic gold medalist and 2000 Boston runner-up Gezahegne Abera of Ethiopia, two-time Boston winner Moses Tanui of Kenya, 1996 Olympic silver medalist Bong-ju Lee of South Korea and 1999 Boston champion Joseph Chebet of Kenya.

The women's field also is strong, with defending champion and Chicago Marathon winner Catherine Ndereba of Kenya, three-time Boston champion Fatuma Roba of Ethiopia, New York City Marathon winner Ludmila Petrova of Russia and 20-kilometer world record-holder Lornah Kiplagat of Kenya.

Kenyan men have won the last 10 Boston Marathons. Ndereba was the first Kenyan woman to win.

When Khannouchi won the Chicago Marathon in 1999, he was representing his native Morocco. Since then, he has become a U.S. citizen, and his 2:07:01 in Chicago last year broke Morris' American record.

Morris finished seventh at 2:12, blaming his subpar performance on lack of motivation. He had flopped at the U.S. Olympic Trials, finishing 38th at 2:29:26, the slowest time of his seven-race marathon career. He started to cramp up at mile two and never recovered.

Morris blamed the disheartening performance on too much training and too much heat on race day.

``It was very disappointing,'' he said. ``I had trained harder for that race than for any race in my life.''

About a month later, Morris competed in the Olympic trials 10,000 meters, but did not finish. He took a few weeks off to regain his composure, before preparing for Chicago.

``I did the same workouts I did before Chicago in 1999, but I didn't feel good except six weeks before the race,'' he said. ``When I finish my workouts, I always feel I can go faster. Last year, I didn't feel that way. I felt like I was struggling.

``In 1999, I developed a good base in Japan. Then I ran for two months in Boulder (Colo.). I didn't have that base last year for the trials or for Chicago.''

Now, Morris has a different attitude. He has been training at low altitude in Albuquerque, N.M., and Missoula, concentrating on his speed and combining part of the Japanese philosophy he learned while training there with a corporate team that went undefeated in 14 relay races in 1999.

``They train more for endurance,'' Morris said. ``When we did workout training for a race, we started long and slow. As the race got closer, we started getting faster. In the United States, we do shorter intervals.''

Morris' training for Boston was interrupted in December and early January by minor injuries, costing him a strong base and forcing him to run a lot of miles in late January and February.

``I didn't do a lot of speed work until March,'' he said, ``and my legs got sore. Maybe I crammed too much.''

BEDLAM REIGNS OVER BOSTON.(Sports) - The Cincinnati Post (Cincinnati, OH)

Byline: Elizabeth Mehren and David Wharton Los Angeles Times

BOSTON -- For one night, at least, Red Sox fans could dance in the streets.

Their long-suffering team did not win the World Series, did not break the curse that -- by local legend -- dates back to 1918. But the Red Sox did the next best thing.

They earned a chance to play for the title by defeating their nemesis, the New York Yankees, in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series at New York's Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night.

The 10-3 victory was not only convincing, it was unprecedented. Boston had trailed this best-of-seven playoff by three games to none. No team in Major League Baseball had ever come back from such a deficit.

'We've been waiting our whole lives for this moment, this game,' said John Bohan, a 27-year-old construction worker pressed into the crowd watching the game at a bar just south of the city.

His buddy, 28-year-old truck driver Mike Caporale, said: 'This is historic. My father didn't see it, my grandfather didn't see it, but I'm going to see it.'

After four straight wins, the Red Sox will face either the Houston Astros or St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series beginning Saturday. They will have a chance to end their legendary dry spell, their last championship coming in the midst of World War I.

Well past midnight, thousands of fans celebrated in Kenmore Square and on the streets around Fenway Park, waving flags and lighting fireworks. There was cheering, shouting and hugging as cordons of police officers looked on.

'Going to Fenway is almost a religious thing,' said Bohan, who joined the crowds there after the game. 'It's like going to witness a miracle.'

How much does baseball mean to this city and the rest of New England?

'It's intangible, this thing about why we love the Red Sox,' Boston mayor Tom Menino said before Wednesday's game. 'But it is something special, something we breathe, something we were brought up on.'

Harvard professor Dudley Herschbach recalled that he won the Nobel Prize for chemistry on the same day the Red Sox clinched the 1986 American League pennant.

There was no question as to which event was more important. 'The Red Sox, of course,' he said. 'People get Nobel Prizes all the time, but how often do the Red Sox go to the World Series?'

Yet his team lost to the New York Mets in a heartbreaking seven-game series that year. Much like rooting for the Chicago Cubs -- who have not won a championship since 1908 -- being a Red Sox fan has meant courting disappointment.

Joseph Conforti, a professor of American and New England studies at the University of Southern Maine, said that years of losing have provided appropriate suffering for a people whose Puritan roots 'always told them they are condemned to hell.'

Losing has spawned its own mythology: The Curse of the Bambino.

One year after their last World Series victory in 1918, the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees. Since then, they have not only struggled but also watched their rival win 26 championships.

'The so-called curse and struggle,' said Los Angeles Dodger owner Frank McCourt, who grew up in Boston. 'The fans take an approach of what's going to happen next? There's a sort of dread.'

All of which rose to the forefront when the team lost the first three games of this American League playoff.

Fans were looking at yet another collapse against the pinstriped team from New York whose controversial owner, George Steinbrenner, had bankrolled a $182-million roster of all stars.

Though his team carries a hefty $131-million payroll, Boston owner John W. Henry complained before the season: 'It will suffice to say that we have a spending limit and the Yankees don't. Baseball doesn't have an answer for the Yankees.'

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Red Sox's demise.

Down by three games -- down to its last three outs in Game 4 --the team started winning. And the fans got nervous.

When Game 7 finally came around, the streets of Boston emptied as the people shuttered inside with their television sets.

The game began with the stuff of their worst nightmares, outfielder Johnny Damon tagged out at home plate in the first inning. But moments later, designated hitter David Ortiz hit a home run into the right field stands and Boston took a 2-0 lead.

For the Red Sox, it only got better from there.

They chased Yankee starter Kevin Brown out of the game midway through the second inning and Damon, the next batter, got his revenge with a grand slam, giving his team a 6-0 lead.

Of course -- as any Red Sox fan could tell you -- Boston led New York, 5-2, in the eighth inning of Game 7 in last season's league championship and lost in extra innings.

There would be no such letdown this time.

Mehren reported from Boston, Wharton from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Bill Shaikin contributed to this report.

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JED JACOBSOHN/Getty Images

100TH RUNNING OF MARATHON MEANS BIG BUSINESS IN BOSTON.(Sports) - Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)

Byline: David M. Halbfinger The Boston Globe

BOSTON -- It's bigger than a papal visit. Taller than the Tall Ships. More powerful than the World Cup.

Well, it's big, anyway.

It's - the economic impact of the 100th Boston Marathon.

Amid growing hype about the April 15 race, marathon officials have turned on the hyperbole, projecting a splendiferous $140 million in spending by runners and spectators visiting the city.

``The tide is rolling in, and we are not going to stop it,'' gushed Guy Morse, head of the Boston Athletic Association, organizer of the race, during a breakfast briefing last month at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel.

``If you took the NCAA Final Four, the NFL Super Bowl, then added on top of that Mardi Gras, probably then you could begin to measure the impact of what's going on,'' said Patrick B. Moscaritolo, president of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Moscaritolo later said he was exaggerating for effect. But he also said he expects the marathon weekend to inject more business into the local economy, in a shorter time, than a number of big tourist events in Boston's recent history.

``The Tall Ships celebration in 1992 was spread out over 10 days. The World Cup in '94 was spread over four weeks,'' he said. ``The pope's visit in 1979 lasted three hours, but it wasn't a big economic generator.''

He called this year's marathon ``the largest single event, in terms of economic impact to the visitor and tourist industry, that the city has ever seen.''

Last year's race contributed an estimated $45 million to local businesses, he said. But the marathon's centennial has drawn unusually high interest.

About 1.5 million people are expected to line the 26.2-mile race course, giving vendors and local businesses a big boost.

Of the 37,500 official entrants this year, about 5,500 are from Massachusetts, 22,000 from other states, and 10,000 from foreign countries. Runners are expected to bring another 38,000 guests.

Beverly Browning, a 46-year-old writer from Gainesville, Fla., who heads up a 100-member road racing club in that city, said she expects a large contingent of runners from Jacksonville to Ocala will come to Boston in April.

At her request, Moscaritolo is sending an emissary to Gainesville this month to brief the north Florida runners.

``We're going to have a meeting in March, with baked beans and Sam Adams beer, and find out what restaurants to eat in and what to do in Boston,'' she said.

Browning said her group makes an event of its annual trips to the New York City Marathon, spending an average of $1,000 per person per day over a full week. ``It'll be exactly like that in Boston,'' she said.

But her group may not be typical.

Moscaritolo, who drafted the economic impact report, cautioned that it rests on several key assumptions that were somewhat arbitrary, including a much larger figure than the Convention and Visitors Bureau normally uses to measure indirect spending.

Economists generally take all such so-called multipliers with heavy doses of skepticism.

Still, Moscaritolo's estimates did not include state receipts of income and sales taxes, $300,000 that the Athletic Association is paying to municipalities along the race route, and hotel taxes, which vary among municipalities.

All the hotels in Boston and Cambridge are already booked for the marathon, despite a minimum four-night stay, Moscaritolo said.

Marathon Tours and Travel, which is operating a hotel hotline for out-of-town visitors, has already begun booking rooms as far away as Brockton, Shrewsbury and Marlborough, said owner Tom Gilligan. ``Hopefully, we don't have to go out of state. But we're moving in that direction,'' he said.

A representative of the Boston Athletic Association said the World Trade Center has already begun cooking and freezing in preparation for the ``pasta load,'' sponsored by Ronzoni, on the eve of the Marathon. It could draw as many as 30,000 runners seeking a carbohydrate buildup.

But Browning, of Gainesville, said her group will avoid the crush and the pressure of being ``surrounded by a lot of really neurotic people.''

``We like to go out, take over a restaurant, and drink wine,'' she said.

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MEYER PASSES PR EXAM AT BOSTON.(Sports) - The Capital Times

Doug Meyer earned the distinction last week of being Dane County's fastest finisher in the 100th Boston Marathon. With an effort of 2 hours, 35 minutes, 32 seconds, he finished 190th overall in a field of more than 38,000 runners.

And now that the historic race is behind him, he will return to his medical studies before he returns to the starting line of another marathon.

A second-year medical student at University of Wisconsin, the 25-year-old Meyer is only an occasional marathoner. He is a runner at heart, but ran Boston only to be part of marathoning's biggest moment ever.

Unlike many Madison-area runners who are dedicated to the 26-mile distance, for whom Boston was a hallmark homecoming, Meyer is still a marathon novice. Boston was just his third marathon, ever after a pair of Minnesota marathons last year -- Grandma's (2:37:24) in June and Twin Cities (2:39:06) in October.

``I am still on top of the world,'' Meyer said last week after he returned to the medical student's life of libraries and labs. ``That was the best running experience I ever had. And that was the best running event I've ever participated in.

``It was the best race of my life. Nothing compares to it.''

Meyer's Wisconsin Track Club teammates know him as a solid 10K runner capable of winning local races. He has a 10K best of 31:55 on the track. Last year he won the Meriter Nurses 10K, the Canterbury 10K and the Jingle Bell 10K, all in Madison.

But he won't be back for the next Meriter Nurses race on May 9, because he'll be catching up on school work. And it may well be another two years before he runs another marathon. Then, it may be in a place like New York or San Francisco rather than Boston again: He likes marathons for their travel aspect.

``Maybe I'll do another in my fourth year of medical school,'' he said. ``But my third year will be hectic, and it won't allow me to train much.''

A former runner for UW-La Crosse, Meyer has been running since high school in Mequon. He managed this marathon PR off of a dozen 65-mile weeks. His studies, he said, took a slight back seat as he focused on Boston. He ran seven days a week, between 7 and 13 miles each afternoon.

``I'm kind of paying for that now,'' he said.

He turned to the marathon a year ago after managing 6-minute pace in the 20-mile Syttende Mai Run, when he placed fifth overall. The lure of being part of the 100th Boston, once he realized it was around the corner, was too much to pass up.

Once in Boston, he wore bib number 1,505. He took just 12 seconds to cross the starting line after imagining it might take him a full minute.

``From talking to others who had been to Boston, I thought it would be a real zoo,'' he said. ``They said don't try to run a good race because of the crowd, but I wanted a PR. I already had my airfare and my entry, and I really wanted to do my best race, with the crowd or not.''

Being the Boston novice, he didn't realize that the infamous Heartbreak Hill at 20 miles was the third in a series of hills, rather than the first. But he crested it well and scored the PR he was after.

``I think I've found my race (the marathon),'' he said. ``I enjoy it more than any other distance. You are able to go most of the way without pain. I think I've got some potential for it.''

But right now, Doug Meyer also has medical school.

Area Boston Marathon Finishers

Following are the names, ages, times and places of the Dane County runners who finished the 100th Boston Marathon on April 15, the oldest and most prestigious race, with 38,706 starters. These results are from the Official B.A.A. Boston Marathon home page on the Internet (http://www.bostonmarathon.org).

Black Earth: Wesley Geringer, 58, 3:55:10 (16,340th).

Cottage Grove: Timothy Carew, 40, 3:24:31 (7,127th); Herb Thompson, 40, 3:36:04 (10,386th); Thomas Nordland, 41, 4:54:43 (29,966th).

DeForest: Michael Kirchner, 35, 3:52:43 (15,541th); Melanie McManus, 34,4:28:01 (25,197th); Kevin Hoey, 33, 4:45:43 (28,451st).

Madison men: Douglas Meyer, 25, 2:35:32 (190th); Joseph Guenther, 26, 2:46:13 (665th); Mark Gajewski, 41, 2:48:26 (832nd); David Meisinger, 26, 2:52:51 (1,200th); Holger Cordes, 32, 2:53:14 (1,231st); Michael Stewart, 29, 2:54:34 (1,369th); Charles Possin, 47, 2:54:48 (1,420th); Thomas Kelly, 41, 2:56:46 (1,674th); Russ Fiebig, 25, 3:02:09 (2,508th); Robert Landrum, 30, 3:03:22 (2,673rd); Edward Lynch, 40, 3:03:46 (2,732nd); David Kasuboski, 53, 3:06:48 (3,212th); Dan Rindfleisch, 41, 3:13:42 (4,554th); Gregory Ingermann, 24, 3:15:58 (5,050th); Peter Wadsack, 51, 3:18:09 (5,552nd); Mark Wolfgram, 43, 3:18:52 (5,735th); Michael Gotzler, 25, 3:20:31 (6,177th); Daniel Stark, 45, 3:20:35 (6,197th); Ken Woodford, 32, 3:21:08 (6,320th); David Brander, 34, 3:23:16 (6,809th); Jim Stangel, 41, 3:23:22 (6,840th); Peter Daly, 3:23:55 (6,995th); Robert Norcross, 42, 3:24:36 (7,148th); Jeffrey Pearman, 41, 3:27:02 (7,799th); William Herbert, 40, 3:28:29 (8,183rd); Ronnie Carda, 42, 3:28:54 (8,312nd); Tod Jensen, 27, 3:28:54 (8,313rd); Paul Stetka, 34, 3:28:54 (8,314th); Bart Hobson, 47, 3:28:55 (8,317th); Michael Duckwitz, 47, 3:31:03 (8,937th); Daithi Wolfe, 33, 3:33:29 (9,9619th); Terry Shelton, 44, 3:35:31 (10,197th); Ralph Willis, 42, 3:36:03 (10,382nd); David Zimmermann, 43, 3:37:06 (10,713th); David Hantz, 46, 3:37:51 (10,965th); Joe Ballmer, 42, 3:37:51 (10,961st); Gregory Krohm, 49, 3:39:34 (11,456th); Cary Segall, 46, 3:40:49 (11,828th); Michael Weifel, 40, 3:45:19 (13,231st); Mark Beatty, 44, 3:45:27 (13,296th); Donald Nolan, 46, 3:48:58 (14,363rd); Kurt Kelly, 24, 3:51:30 (15,148th); Douglas Dulli, 44, 3:54:42 (16,159th); David Kirby, 52, 3:55:26 (16,411th); Steven Reese, 42, 3:56:14 (16,665th); Daniel Barker, 25, 4:05:18 (19,448th); John Markson, 41, 4:15:12 (22,183rd).

Paul Lundsten, 40, 4:15:12 (22,181st); Jason Dorgan, 30, 4:15:12 (22,182nd); Frank Burgess, 53, 4:31:49 (25,966th); Stanley Woods, 60, 4:33:36 (26,329th); Tom Rice, 50, 4:34:55 (26,596th); John Schmitz, 42, 4:35:12 (26,657th); Paul Withington, 61, 4:48:22 (28,928th); Jeff Berg, 52, 4:49:00 (29,038th); Thomas Brei, 48, 5:01:11 (30,850th); Kenneth Williams, 56, 5:02:24 (30,984th); Roy Prange, 50, 5:18:47 (32,689th); Jim Salerno, 48, 5:22:37 (33,036th).

Madison women: Jane Moser, 37, 3:07:43 (3,380th); Kit McCaffrey, 25, 3:27:54 (8,044th); Denise Marino, 36, 3:42:24 (12,291st); Stephanie Vaudreuil, 39, 3:46:59 (13,804th); Laura MacAulay, 27, 3:47:38 (14,005th); Heidi Lindh, 25,3:50:39 (14,884th); Ann Hayes, 29, 3:53:08 (15,650th); Stephanie McAndrew, 20, 3:54:28 (16,073rd); Carol Swain, 48, 3:55:39 (16,488th); Madeline Gotkowitz, 31,4:04:41 (19,236th); Linda Garnett, 45, 4:07:24 (20,042nd); Jill Karofsky, 29, 4:15:11 (22,177th); Joy Jones, 46, 4:19:49 (23,256th); Nadine Kerr, 22, 4:22:11 (23,806th); Peggy Brooks, 44, 4:27:43 (25,146th); Susan Fafard, 54, 4:32:30 (26,099th); FayeRoels, 28, 4:50:20 (29,277th); Teri Johnson, 42, 6:07:36 (35,096th).

McFarland: Jack Paschke, 30, 3:43:57 (12,827th).

Middleton: David Babler, 41, 3:24:36 (7,152nd).

Monona: Beverly Lampe, 64, 5:15:30 (32,405th).

Mount Horeb: Keith Dalby, 50, 7:11:17 (35,733rd).

Oregon: Jerry Bollig, 46, 3:37:51 (10,962nd); Tim Yanacheck, 48, 3:40:09(11,638th); Darrell Barth, 53, 4:40:40 (27,601st).

Sun Prairie: Daryl Ketterhagen, 37, 2:57:40 (1,805th); Peter Chermak, 40, 3:22:19 (6,605th); Bill Detra, 55, 4:04:05 (19,052nd); Thomas Huss, 50, 4:16:35 (22,514th).

Verona: Hugh Hauser, 36, 3:42:02 (12,195th).

RUNNERS REVVED UP FOR BOSTON.(Sports) - Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)

Byline: Larry Tye Boston Globe

They're doing it in Hawaii, on the big island and the little ones.

They're doing it in the bayous of Baton Rouge, in Gainesville gator country and in New York's Central Park.

And they were doing it here in Washington over Presidents Day weekend, from the White House to Capitol Hill and back again.

Training for the Boston Marathon, that is. April's 100th rendition has inspired runners all across America, pumping up attendance at other marathons where people sought to qualify for Boston and sparking a boom in all levels of running the likes of which hasn't been seen in America in a decade or more.

'For me, it's something I have to do, pure and simple,' explains Joe Ector, who did a 12-mile training run on Washington's ice-crusted streets Sunday.

'Boston is the mecca of running,' adds Ector, an Argentine-born commodities trader who has run Boston twice and qualified for this year's run with a 2:55 in the New York City Marathon. 'I'm in love with Boston, everything about the Boston race, from the city to the weather to race organizers to the people who cheer for you.'

Ector isn't alone in his anticipation and adulation. Linda Honikman, who tracks road race attendance at USA Track & Field's Road Running Information Center, says, 'There's no question that Boston's 100th running has spurred interest in marathons all over the country. It's also had a positive impact on products related to running and on races of all distances.

'The key is whether we can sustain this after Boston and the Olympics, but right now it's fantastic.'

Bostonians have always prided themselves on having the nation's oldest marathon, and have always assumed it was the best. What has become clear the last several months is that much of the running world agrees.

Take the Club South Runners in Baton Rouge, a part of the country not known to relish things Yankee.

'The 100th Boston is an event none of us feel we can afford to miss - it's the run of the century,' says club president Brent Bruser, who is leading a delegation to Boston that will include at least 50 runners and another 25 or so family and friends.

'We'll want to reflect on it 20 years from now. We'll want to say we were there,' adds Bruser, who started his planning 18 months ago, blocking out 50 hotel rooms in Boston, reserving 100 airline seats and planning for his group's four-day stay in the city.

Beverly Browning also is coming to Boston to run, and bringing a lot of others. Her group from Florida's Gainesville-Jacksonville-Ocala region is so big, in fact, and so fired up, that the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau is sending a representative down next month to brief them on what else to do in Boston.

'We're a traveling Visa card - we want to spend megabucks,' explains Browning. 'We not only want to party hard, we want to eat in every restaurant, visit every museum and shop in every store.'

What about the race itself? Browning (who got her Boston number through the Boston Athletic Association's lottery, a touch of luck she calls 'a gift from the gods') says she and her fellow Floridians have been training hard, 'but our problem is we don't have any hills here. Heartbreak Hill is a big deal to a Florida runner. We're in absolutely flat terrain. We have no hope of handling Heartbreak.'

Hills aren't a problem for runners in Hawaii.

'We have some wonderful hills here, deep valleys and high ridges,' says Nancy Goglia, who runs with the Faerbers Fliers Track Club in Honolulu and views her trip to Boston as a homecoming, since she went to school in Boston and taught in Newton.

In Los Angeles, meanwhile, LA Marathon coach Pat Connelly is training 25 runners bound for Boston, a substantial increase from the two or three who normally head East for the classic.

'Those who have been accepted are just ecstatic,' says Connelly. 'They say their feet don't touch the ground when they work out as they think about participating in the 100th running of Boston. All of us look up to the Boston Marathon as the genesis of our marathons.

'Most of my runners are running the LA Marathon on March 3 as a dress rehearsal for Boston. They're using that as an off-Broadway test to get ready for Boston.'

FOREIGN ACCENT IN BOSTON.(Sports) - Albany Times Union (Albany, NY)

Byline: Tim Layden Staff writer

Twelve years ago, Jack Fultz was a graduate student at Georgetown and a Olympic hopeful in need of a qualifying time for the U.S. marathon trials.

Twice he had failed in attempts, so he would try again on the third Monday in April, at the Boston Marathon.

The requisite time to run to make the 1976 trials was 2 hours, 23 minutes and Fultz was certain his preparation was sufficient. 'I didn't question my ability to do it,' Fultz says now, remembering the day.

That year, Patriots' Day, the Massachusetts holiday on which the Boston Marathon is run each year (and on which the Red Sox play a morning game so as to allow their fans time to spill into Kenmore Square and watch the runners), felt like July. The temperature reached into the 90s, with direct sun and choking humidity.

Jack Fultz still rolled his mark: he ran 2:20:19, and qualified for the Olympic Trials.

He also won the race. First place. Laurel wreath, interviews, the works. 'It wasn't that much of a shock,' Fultz says. 'I knew I'd be in the top 10, no matter what.'

But except to the cognoscenti, he was a shock.

Fultz' victory on that oppressive afternoon in '76 - on the up slope of a curve that would lead to the peak of the running boom roughly five years hence - highlighted a profile of the Boston Marathon which can be traced through the last half-century.

Since 1942, the Boston Marathon has been won only 16 times by Americans, including only 10 of the last 25. The last four race winners (Toshihiko Seko of Japan, Rob deCastella of Australia and Geoff Smith of Great Britain, twice) have been foreign runners.

Of the 10 victories in the last quarter-century by Americans four were by the same runner: Bill Rodgers.

Foreign dominance (and conversely, American weakness) has always been most evident during Olympic years, when U.S. runners traditionally skip the Boston Marathon in order to rest for the trials, which traditionally take place within weeks of the third Monday in April.

Fultz' victory in '72 came in the absence of Shorter and Rodgers, who ran 1-2 at the Olympic Trials, and of Don Kardong, who ran third and finished fourth at the Montreal Olympics. Ambrose Burfoot, an American, won in '68 (in a time of 2:22:17, the slowest in the last 26 years), under similar circumstances.

Rodgers won in 1980, but in that year an American boycott of the Moscow Olympics was virtually assured and Rodgers also then possessed an allegiance to Boston.

More typical was 1984, when Geoff Smith ran 2:10:34 to beat a field virtually devoid of top U.S. marathoners.

And if '84 was typical, '88 stands to become the signature edition of the Boston Marathon as a foreign affair.

Monday's 92nd renewal of the most storied marathon in the world will serve as the Olympic Trials for Finland, Kenya and Tanzania. Great Britain, Japan, Italy and Djibouti will carefully assess performances from Boston in choosing their teams.

The United States, meanwhile, will run its trials just six days after the Boston Marathon, as part of the New Jersey Waterfront Marathon.

The trials will be televised by a major network (ABC); Boston will not.

The trials will be comprised entirely of American runners; the best open American at Boston is Darrick May of Balboa, Calif., a competent runner who is not expected to run near the front.

In simple terms, the delineation has never been clearer.

'The irony of the entire situation,' says Fultz, who now serves as the elite athletes' liason for Boston, 'is that we've probably got one of the strongest fields in Boston history. But not having Americans here hurts. It hurts any race, but particularly Boston, with the tradition of the race.'

Dan Schlesinger, an elite marathoner who would have been among the favorites in the trials until incurring a back injury three weeks ago, says, 'This way, instead of one quality race at the end of April, you're got two, with all of the best marathoners in the world.'

And clearly, the foreigners are in Boston and the Americans are in New Jersey.

More than two years ago, the men's long distance running committee of The Athletics Congress began the process of locating a site for the 1988 Olympic marathon trials. The '84 trials were run in Buffalo, in late May.

There would be two principal changes - in addition to the site - for '88: the date would be moved back to better accommodate runners preparing for the Olympics and the trials would be run in conjunction with a major (read: corporate-sponsored) marathon.

'There were two suggestions we received after the '84 trials,' says Kardong, chairman of the U.S. men's LDR committee and a fourth-place finisher in the '76 Olympic marathon. 'The strongest was that it was foolish to run the trials two months before the Olympics. The second was that we should put a good chunk of money on trials.'

The finalists were the New York City, Boston, Pittsburgh and New Jersey Waterfront marathons.

'We knew we were the dramatic underdog,' says Tim McLoone, director of the Jersey race. 'Boston and New York were more well-known and Pittsburgh, we had heard, was the favorite son of the LDR committee.'

McLoone, whose marathon functions, with outside sponsorship from private corporations, as an arm of the New Jersey State Athletic Commission, submitted a sealed bid which he says was $250,000. The money would go to TAC and the U.S. Olympic Committee.

He didn't expect to be awarded the trials, but he was.

There were problems with Boston and New York.

Boston possesses a strong international field, many of whom are paid six-figure, multi-year contracts by John Hancock Financial Services.

At the insistence of TAC, the U.S. Trials would be a U.S.-only race, which would have left Boston in a delicate - to say nothing of financially crippling - position with its contract athletes. 'If you held the trials in Boston,' Kardong says, 'you'd have many problems with the international field.'

New York is a fall marathon and would have to move to the spring in order to host the trials. 'I don't think their bid was serious,' Kardong said. 'They were basically a back-up bid.'

The money issue was a revolutionary one, at least in disclosure if not in reality. The Olympics haven't been a purely amateur competition in decades, not with Eastern bloc subsidization of teams and individuals and not with American corporate sponsorship of training centers and programs in more recent years.

However, the '88 Olympic marathon trials will be the first Olympic-related event to award prize money. The total is $150,000, with $50,000 to first place. The first three finishers make the U.S. Olympic team, but prize money goes 20 deep.

The New Jersey Waterfront Marathon delivered on each of the requisite counts. And on one other: 'We put into effect a plan, over several years, of catering to the American runners,' McLoone said. 'Some races said, 'We'll take care of the Americans.' We did it.'

And it worked.

'Our real goal,' Kardong says, 'is to provide a site which would showcase American runners.'

McLoone, a former high school and college runner whose first marathon was Boston, speaks generally with praise for the Boston Marathon. However, he says, 'the Boston Marathon is very important to the sport, but they tend to be very New England in their approach.'

On Thursday, the Ethiopian delegation, which would have been among the strongest at Boston, withdrew from the race in favor of the Rotterdam Marathon. Abebe Mekkonen, who won the Tokyo Marathon in 2:08:33, could cautiously have been called a favorite at Boston.

In his absence, ostensibly there is no favorite. There is depth. Britain has Geoff Smith and Steve Jones, Kenya has New York Marathon winner Ibrahim Hussein, Gabriel Kamau, Joseph Kipsang, Geoffrey Koech, Sulieman Nyambui and even Steve Kogo, who lived for two years in Albany and finished 10th recently in the Cherry Blossom 10-mile in Washington, D.C.

Italy has two former New York winners: Orlando Pizzolato and Gianni Poli, Mexico has 36-year-old Rodolfo Gomez, Finland has Tommy Ekblom. There are several quality Japanese runners, attempting to reach the upper echelon in their running-mad country.

'Clearly,' Kardong says, 'they have an incredibly strong international race. They aren't going to suffer much at all at the lack of Americans.'

Rodgers, who turned 40 this year, will be running his first Boston as a masters runner. 'And he's not the favorite in the masters at all,' Fultz says. Michael Hurd of Great Britain and Kjell Erik-Stahl of Sweden are both over 40 and have both broken 2:14.

Still, the possibility exists that Rodgers could be the first American finisher.

'That would be pretty funny,' Rodgers said Thursday in a press conference for the marathon, 'because I'm going to be a long ways back.'

Meanwhile, back in New Jersey ...

It has become de rigueur to bemoan the lack of quality marathoners in America and in many ways, justifiably so. While 2:09 is considered the gauge for a truly superb marathon, no American broke 2:11 in 1987. Not since Alberto Salazar, who held the world record in 1983, has America had a truly dominant marathoner.

The favorites in New Jersey - if favorites must be named - will be sorts like Pat Peterson and Pete Pfitzinger (who won the '84 trials by outkicking Salazar) and Bill Donakowski. They will be on national television and they will win money.

Boston, meanwhile, will run in relative quiet. Exceptional international quiet, but still quiet.

Except, as Jack Fultz can explain better than most, for the American who, inexplicably, comes to Boston - and comes to run well.

'For me,' Fultz says, 'it was a pleasant surprise. The people along the course didn't expect to see an American. They were waving flags, getting very excited. They made a lot of it.'