Model behavior seen at friendly Fenway
WHAT AN ARM Brazilian-born supermodel Gisele Bundchen is not just another pretty face. Visiting Fenway Park yesterday, Vogue's model of the millennium said there's more to her than copper-tone curves and a boyfriend named DiCaprio. (The 23-year-old cover girl, who'll be at the Victoria's Secret store in Copley Place today, was at the ballpark to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.) Baseball isn't something she's that comfortable with. "I just learned how to throw the ball. I hope I don't make a crazy [mistake]," she said just before heading down to the field. "I have no idea about baseball because I don't watch TV." She doesn't watch TV except for "American Idol," because she wants to see who wins. "I hope Fantasia wins," Bundchen admitted. But as she prepares for her big-screen debut in "Taxi," starring Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah, Bundchen is mindful that supermodels -- she prefers the term "model" -- have not always made great movies. (Exhibit A: Cindy Crawford in "Fair Game.") "Then again, Cameron Diaz was a model, Charlize [Theron] was a model, but nobody talks about them," Bundchen said. "I'm never concerned about what people think of me. If it's good for me, I do it."
CRATING AWARENESS One of the largest cheers of the evening at the Farm Sanctuary's gala last weekend at the Plaza Hotel in New York City came when the animal rights organization's cofounder, Gene Bauston, and actress Mary Tyler Moore, the event's chair, announced that a measure to ban farm animal confinement had passed in the Massachusetts Senate. The measure, which seeks to ban confining pigs in gestation crates and calves in veal crates, was sponsored by state Senator Steven Tolman. "Most farmers in the state choose to not use them," Bauston said. "But it is important to have the legislation in place as bordering states where there is heavy usage of the crates [ban them] so that it doesn't become a problem in Massachusetts." The event, which was attended by 500 people, was underwritten by the Boston-based Archibald Family Charitable Foundation.
NICE LEGS For someone who's finished 116 marathons, competed in eight triathlons, and done 5,000 consecutive sit-ups, it's nothing to run across the country. North Andover's Dave McGillivray has done it twice now, once in 1978 and again this spring as a member of the Trek USA team. Running for charity, the gang set out from San Francisco on May 1 and finished yesterday at Fenway Park, where McGillivray shared first-pitch duties with a certain supermodel. . . . And we're told that WCVB weatherguy Dick Albert has been practicing throwing some heat as he prepares to take the mound for tonight's ceremonial first pitch at Fenway.
THE WAY IT IS The Most Trusted Man in America is becoming the most unpredictable. A story in yesterday's Newsday reported that the next assignment for 87-year-old newsman Walter Cronkite might be covering the Democratic and Republican conventions -- for MTV. (The Martha's Vineyard resident, who won't say if he's ever watched MTV, is already appearing on the music channel's show "Choose or Lose: Work It.") "That'd be interesting certainly," Cronkite said of a possible on-air role during the presidential campaign. "If they call upon me to be the senior citizen, I'll be the senior citizen."
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