Celebrity ball

As the white ball arced majestically through the September night, 10-year-old Tommy Valeriani craned his head upward and suddenly felt like the only person at Fenway Park.

``I saw it coming right at me. It was coming and coming," he said of David Ortiz's record-shattering 52d home run of the season. ``It was like it was headed straight only for me. I thought I might have a chance to get it."

He got it.

Tommy left home in Boxford for Fenway Park on Thursday night just another Red Sox fan, but he came home a star, or at least the coolest kid in the fourth grade.

``Everyone in school was, like, `How did you get the ball?' " said Tommy, who attends Spofford Pond Elementary. ``My teacher was really happy for me."

A local television crew interviewed Tommy yesterday at school. He told classmates his tale so many times he grew tired of it, he said. The Globe, of course, asked him to tell it again.

The seventh-inning home run ball whizzed over his head, hit the back of his bleacher seat, and lodged there, said Tommy.

``Everyone started trying to grab it," he said.

His father, Frank Valeriani, 40, elaborated: ``There were hands everywhere. Someone actually took it from him. Then, people shouted to give the kid the ball back, and he got it back."

Fenway security whisked father and son away, and after watching the remainder of the game in a luxury suite, the two found themselves face to face with Big Papi.

``He was cool," said Tommy.

Red Sox management had asked the boy to return the record-setting ball so Ortiz could donate it to charity. Tommy was torn.

``I wanted to keep it," he said. ``But then I heard they're giving it to charity, and I thought I'm just going to give the ball to charity, because I don't really need it."

Ortiz gave him Sox jerseys and signed baseballs in return.

Frank Valeriani said the player's reputation as a gentle giant was genuine. ``He made Tommy feel at ease," he said. ``He's on cloud nine. If there was a cloud 10, he'd be there."

In the first inning, Joel McGrath, 29, of Waltham caught the ball that broke Jimmie Foxx's 1938 Red Sox single-season record of 50 home runs. He gave that ball back, as well. Six innings later, Tommy Valeriani had his moment.

Tommy recognized that Big Papi's feat was something of a silver lining to the season: ``It's a really rough season," he said. ``It's not that I don't believe in them, but they're not probably going to win the championship."

In fact, the slumping Sox appear certain to sit out the postseason.

Still, for a 10-year-old boy from Boxford, it was the greatest season of all.

``It was cool," said Tommy, ``so cool."