Ellis Burks News

It used to be that a baseball team was only as good as its farm system, but it also used to be that if you wanted to buy a ticket for a plane trip, you called an airline and talked to a human being, not a human-being impersonator.

Mandatory Credit: Otto Greule Jr. /Allsport 8 MAY 1994: PITCHER DAVID NIED OF THE COLORADO ROCKIES AIMS A PITCH TOWARDS HOME AT SAN DIEGO JACK MURPHY STADIUM.

Back when Little Brad Dantzler actually was little, he stood in the outfield at a baseball park in Winter Haven, Fla., and shagged Jim Thome's fly balls during batting practice.

A decade ago, give or take a few years, I figured the closest I'd ever come to working at the Globe was coming down from Concord, N.H., to Morrissey Boulevard for the occasional media seminar.

I did, and yet sitting there in Section 24 two weeks ago, getting lit up for a documentary about Fenway Park's 100th anniversary, simply hoping the lighting behind me would do justice to my shining, bald dome, it seemed a silly statement.