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TUESDAY’S 1:05 matinee against cross-town rivals the Minnesota Twins is a more lackadaisical affair (an eighth-inning rally, culminating in a 7-4 win, notwithstanding). As the sun burns through early-morning clouds, crushes of fans gather expectantly along the third-base line, clamoring for pre-game autographs while players mostly ignore them.

The autograph seeker is a fascinating species. For some fans, it seems that getting a dashed-off signature on a shirt or a scrap of paper is much more important than the play on the field. Many players, like Jason Varitek, make it a rule to focus on kids, their pens dangling on string, their tiny hands thrust outward clutching pristine white baseballs. But the number of adults who act like kids the minute they get close to a ball player is striking. I could have sworn one petite, middle-aged woman in a pink Sox cap and Schilling T-shirt, jumping excitedly and shaking her Sharpie, was a little girl until I noticed her frosted hair and crow’s feet. As tots are borne aloft on their parents’ shoulders, reaching out in vain for a signature, adults in full regalia muscle their way forward, shouting.

After the game, Varitek again meets his public. Parked curbside by the players’ lot, he signs for a good 20 minutes as all ages line up. Most are respectful, congratulating him, thanking him, and moving on. Others want to engage him in conversation or try to get him to sign multiple items. Still others, like the fiftysomething man who turns his ass toward the car so Tek can sign the back of his T-shirt (Calvin micturating on a Yankees logo), are just embarrassing.

These people — eternally seeking souvenirs of their fleeting proximity to fame — live up to the word fan’s derivation from the word fanatic. But there’s also no denying that, when done right, autograph collecting can be a work of art. After the Phillies game, I meet Jim Benson, a reedy redhead from Pompano Beach via Providence, who’s a lifelong Sox fan but hasn’t been up to Fenway since 1983. "Here, you might enjoy this," he says as he unfurls a color poster of John Updike’s "lyric little bandbox." It’s covered — completely covered — with hundreds of blue signatures, everyone from "Broadway" Charlie Wagner, the oldest surviving Red Sox player, to Theo Epstein.

"I’ve been working on it since 1995," Benson says. "Bobby Doerr was the first one to sign it." His finger darts left and right, up and down, as he points out his latest acquisitions. "There’s Larry Lucchino. When John Henry signed, he got such a kick out of it. He held the pen and thought for a minute, and did some more stuff. See? Upside down, it almost looks like Xs and Os. But what he did was, he wrote how much he paid for the team: $660-plus million. I thought that was pretty cool." Others are cooler. Weirdo Bernie Carbo wrote GOD IS LOVE in gigantic letters. The Spaceman is there. So is hero Keith Foulke and goat Mike Torrez. Johnny Pesky and Ted Williams, too.

"I’m just deciding whether I can get everyone I want to get or whether to just fill it up with whoever comes first," Benson says. "But my mom keeps saying, ‘Are you ever gonna retire this and frame it and hang it over your big TV so I can see this thing done?’ I finally decided that next spring, either during or right after spring training, no matter who I haven’t gotten, it’s going to be retired. Never in my wildest dreams did I envision that it would end up like this." Benson’s also carting around a Red Sox team bat that’s "pretty well filled up from top to bottom," and another Louisville Slugger that’s graced with the John Hancocks of 68 Hall of Famers." "I have a passion for baseball," he admits, "but it’s not life or death."

SO THIS IS spring training in the Year of our Championship, 2005. Lazy. Enjoyable. But hardly epochal. Stewart O’Nan told me there was some genuine chaos a few weeks back, when players had just reported, many New England colleges were on spring break, and up to 3000 people were watching players do long tossing and fielding drills. It was a continuation of the celebration from last fall, he says. Since then, it’s sunk in. We’re world champs. They’re not. Now people are looking ahead, maybe using these warm Florida weeks as a much-needed breather before the quest to do it again begins up north on April 3.

That makes sense, says Jim Benson. "Everybody is more relaxed, now that they’ve won it. They feel great. I think they may be a little more laid-back right now because of that, but I think they’ll be gearing up as the season gets closer. It’s different — in a good way — having won it. It’s not quite the same as when you’re hungry, when you’re ready, from the get-go, from day one. Now you can lay back a little bit. But the biggest thing I’ve noticed is that it’s like a big weight off your shoulders. It’s just incredible."

Few sports are as plagued by cringe-worthy clichés and purple prose as baseball — especially Red Sox baseball. (After all, as John Cheever famously averred, "all literary men are Red Sox fans.") And few aspects of the writer’s sport lend themselves more to lyrical flights of fancy than spring training. When the warm February sun first floods its rays on emerald Floridian fields, when the players we remember from autumn evenings converge once again, stretching and jogging and fielding fungoes in the golden light of Gulf Coast afternoons, it’s a new beginning. A renaissance. A hopeful prelude to hazy summer days. (An article in the Sunday New York Times a couple weeks back was actually headlined THE LAND WHERE HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL. Springs! Get it?).

All the same, this purist’s heart flutters like a Tim Wakefield knuckleball whenever I read the sign-off Mike Farrell appends to his daily Fort Myers updates. Hackneyed? Sure. But sitting back in City of Palms park, watching those tomato-red uniforms on the vibrant verdant outfield, damned if it doesn’t seem true: "The sun is shining ... soft but cooling breezes prevail. Spring training has started, God is in heaven, and all is right with the world."

Of course, once the regular season kicks off, it’ll be a different story entirely.n

Mike Miliard can be reached at mmiliard[a]phx.com