Benefit draws some super bowlers

Walking the red carpet laid down in front of Town Line Ten Pin in Malden, former Sox pitcher Bill Lee asked the obvious. "Why are we here?" said the southpaw known as Spaceman. "How'd they pick this place?" Not ungrateful to be a guest at last night's Beckett Bowl, Lee was just curious. "Is this where Nomar [ Garciaparra] used to hang out?" asked Lee. "No wonder we traded him." In fact, the Town Line lanes are where Nomar held his ballyhooed Nomar Bowl fund-raisers, and Josh Beckett's carrying on the tradition. A benefit for Children's Hospital Boston, last night's fete attracted more than a few familiar faces, including Beckett's buddies Big Papi and wife Tiffany, Kyle Snyder, Jason Varitek, John Lester, Julio Lugo, Jonathan Papelbon, and Royce Clayton; Pats Sammy Morris, Kevin Faulk, Lonie Paxton, Vince Wilfork, Stephen Neal, and Kelley Washington; Bruins Marc Savard, Phil Kessel, Zdeno Chara, and Patrice Bergeron; Celtics Paul Pierce, Glen "Big Baby" Davis, and Leon Powe; chef Michael Schlow; Sox owners John Henry and Tom Werner; designer Joseph Abboud; State Room skipper Jim Apteker; author Ben Mezrich and his wife, Tonya; former Nomar Bowl organizer Soosie Lazenby; and NESN's Hazel Mae. Beckett, who arrived as Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack" was blaring, admitted he isn't much of a bowler, but said he'd try his best. "A lot of money will be raised tonight just because these guys came here," said Beckett. "All I had to do was ask." The evening's other special guest, "Entourage" actor Adrian Grenier, arrived later and played at the after-party with his band, the Honey Brothers.

It's apparently not true that former Sox third baseman Wade Boggs (inset) threw a fit at a Florida fishing tournament. Initial reports had the Hall of Famer so furious that he didn't win a fishing derby in Key West that he ran off with the trophy. "Nah," says Captain Gary Ellis, who founded the Redbone Celebrity Tournament Series with the Splendid Splinter Ted Williams. "Wade was just goofing around. The reporter who was there played it a little too harsh." The ballplayer's alleged outburst came after former Denver Bronco Mark Cooper was crowned the tourney's celebrity grand champ - even though Boggs caught two fish to Cooper's one. "That was my mistake, and we've since corrected it," Ellis told us yesterday. "Wade was just joking around when he grabbed the trophy and ran out of the room dramatically." Not completely convinced, we called Wade. He just laughed. "This is so crazy," Boggsie said. "The guy from the Key West paper said I was irate, but the crowd knew it was a joke. . . . It was a hoot, completely hilarious. . . . Maybe the newspaper needs to reevaluate the guy's writing prowess."

For years, Jeannette Walls (inset) hid the reality of her childhood, even from her husband. Now it's required reading at Boston College. Weird, right? "When I was writing ['The Glass Castle'], I thought, 'Why am I sharing all these embarrassing stories with strangers?"' the onetime gossip columnist told us yesterday. "But then I thought, 'If there's some kid who doesn't know what it's like to do without, then it's worthwhile." There were more than a few of those kids among the 2,500 freshmen Walls addressed last night at BC's annual First Year Academic Convocation. Walls writes in her best-selling memoir about being homeless and scavenging for food in the garbage. "What I've realized is that experiences like that make you a survivor and give you perspective," she said. How have her celebrity friends reacted to her story? "Only with compassion," she said. "Most of these people are haunted as well . . . I mean, look at their childhoods. Tom Cruise's father was abusive and neglectful." Even though she doesn't work the rumor mill anymore, we couldn't resist asking Walls about Pats playboy Tom Brady and his supermodel sweetheart Gisele Bundchen. Will they marry? "Yes," she said.

The cloud over "Grey's Anatomy" has lifted, and it appears the hit ABC show's cast has put a turbulent year that included the firing of actor Isaiah Washington over a homophobic remark behind them. "It does feel different," Ellen Pompeo (inset) told People magazine. "It feels nice, and there's new beginnings for everybody and it feels great," the Everett native said as she arrived at LA Confidential magazine's annual pre-Emmy Awards party. Pompeo - who was joined on the red carpet by her fiance, Boston-bred music exec Chris Ivery - debunked reports that they are hard at work planning their wedding. "To me a wedding is a piece of paper," she told People. "I don't think it's going to change how we feel about each other. Every day is like a wedding when I wake up with him."

You'll be able to pick out Paulina Neely at tonight's black-tie opening for the new Neiman Marcus at the Natick Collection. The wife of Bruins Hall-of-Famer Cam Neely will be sporting a pair of one-of-kind emerald and diamond earrings worth a cool $1.9 million - with two burly bodyguards by her side. Others on the guest list for the $250-per-person posh party are rocker Don Henley and his wife, Sharon; Boston real estate hotshot Beth Dickerson; and Blue Ginger chef/owner Ming Tsai and his wife, Polly. (The nonprofits benefiting from the fete are Neely's foundation for cancer care, Henley's Walden Woods Project, the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, and Natick's Center for the Arts.) The Neiman Marcus folks know the Sox-Yankees game at Fenway might prove to be a distraction for some. So there will be two large-screen TVs in the men's furnishings department and the gala's menu now includes "haute" dogs and "glam" chowder.

The building that once housed legendary recording studio Fort Apache is on the market, and guess who's got the listing? Bill Janovitz, the Buffalo Tom singer-turned-real estate broker. The 3,750-square-foot former warehouse on Edmund Street in North Cambridge is a hip loft-style residence now, but back in the day it played host to some rock heavyweights. Acts who recorded or just wandered through include David Bowie, Sheryl Crow, Lenny Kravitz (who once had a bodyguard escort him to the bathroom), Warren Zevon, Weezer, Tanya Donelly, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Juliana Hatfield, Morphine, Elliott Smith, Sebadoh, and Natalie Merchant. (Fort Apache's earlier digs, in Roxbury and Cambridge, were frequented by Radiohead, the Pixies, Hole, and Dinosaur Jr.) These days, the sweet pad has 2 1/2 baths, glass doors opening to a private, walled garden; and off-street, gated parking for five cars. There are vestiges of the studio, including a soundproofed control room and a stage. Says Janovitz: "If I carefully considered the sad irony of me brokering the sale of a building in which so many of our wannabe rock star alt-rock 'hits' were recorded, my head would explode."

Focusing on a cause

The lovely and talented teen star Joanna "JoJo" Levesque was among the local celebs taking part in a photo shoot this week for the Alzheimer's Association. JoJo, who hails from Foxborough, was snapped yesterday in Waltham. Others posing for the cause include author Keith Ablow, state Senator Scott Brown, humanitarians Ray Hammond and Gloria White-Hammond, "Chronicle" co-host Mary Richardson, and Bruin Marc Savard, among others.

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