After this, feeling safe is ruled out

Angels pitcher Joe Saunders knows the landscape at Virginia Tech. It's where he pitched and went to class and held hands with his fiancee. It's where he walked around with books under his arm, thinking about maybe pitching someday in the big leagues. It's where he went to the dining hall. It's where he made friends he'll have for the rest of his life.

It's where he went to college.

It's where he always felt safe.

That's the way it's supposed to be. College is a place where you smile and struggle and laugh and cry and grow and learn.

It's where you feel safe.

The safety of Virginia Tech was shattered for Saunders and the rest of America yesterday. While the Red Sox and Angels were gathered for nine more innings of cold, wet baseball, the deadliest shooting rampage in American history unfolded on the sleepy campus in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

"I love that school," Saunders said as he sat in front of a plate of untouched food in the visitors' clubhouse at Fenway. "I will always love that school. It's part of our family. For this to happen there . . .

"We're a quiet school. We like to have fun, but I could never imagine anything like this happening there. I mean, how do you go right into a dorm and shoot people and then go into a classroom and open fire two hours later?"

Saunders's father went to Virginia Tech, helped design the football stadium, and is still involved in projects on campus. Saunders's mother went to Virginia Tech, as did his fiancee, Shanel.

Saunders went 27-7 in three seasons with the Hokies before he was drafted by the Angels with the 12th overall pick in 2002.

He was in the third base dugout at Fenway, watching the Angels' 7-2 Marathon Day loss, when a teammate told him about the shootings that left 33 dead on the Blacksburg campus. He did what anybody would do. He called home.

"My dad was supposed to be there Tuesday for a meeting," said the somber lefthander. "He's safe. But I was blown away by this. The whole thing is unbelievable."

A consumer science major who hopes to someday go back and earn his degree, Saunders is familiar with West Ambler Johnston and Norris Halls -- sites of the shootings.

"Ambler Johnston was mostly a girls' dorm when I was there," he said. "And Norris Hall is part of the engineering school. It's right across from the building you usually see in the pictures of Virginia Tech. It's about a 10-minute walk from one building to the other."

Saunders did not pitch this weekend in Boston. He's 1-0 in two starts with a 2.92 ERA this season. He's expected to make his next start Friday at home against the Mariners. He'll be on the phone a lot until then.

Early after the shootings it was difficult for anyone to absorb the magnitude of the heinous act. While joyous Sox fans filed into Back Bay and intrepid runners made their way through Kenmore Square, dozens of families were being informed of the loss of a loved one.

This was a senseless carnage that took place not on foreign soil after a declaration of war. These young people were gunned down while doing what college kids do -- sitting in dorm rooms and classrooms. Safe havens, we thought.

Folks at Chestnut Hill are plenty familiar with Virginia Tech. The Hokies, formerly of the Atlantic 10 and Big East, are part of the Atlantic Coast Conference with Boston College. Last year, BC baseball coach Peter Hughes, left the Heights for Blacksburg.

Reached on vacation in Italy, BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo said, "I feel just awful. Our hearts and thoughts and prayers are with all of the people and their families at Virginia Tech. We've been there a lot in the last 10 years and it's a wonderful institution of class people."

Virginia Tech sporting events were cancelled yesterday and the school website said there would be a campus gathering today at Cassell Coliseum at 2 p.m. The baseball team is scheduled to play three games at BC April 27-29.

" I haven't been back there for a while," said Saunders, who was born in Falls Church, Va., "but I was planning on going to some football games there in the fall."

"It's a pretty quiet place," he added. "We stay to ourselves. I remember hearing about Columbine and thinking nothing like that could ever happen in Virginia. This is tough. I haven't had time to digest all of this. It's going to end up being a lot of kids from Virginia. About 75 percent of the kids who go there are from Virginia."

Kids of parents who send their children off to college believing they will be safe.

But today it feels like there is no safe place. Not anymore.

Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is dshaughnessy@globe.com.