Manny salutes Sox fan

Ramirez delivers high-five to Boston rooter after making catch in Baltimore

The baseball fans who have earned 15 minutes of fame by stretching out a hand in the middle of a game make for a list of rogues and walking curses, depending on your point of view. There was Jeffrey Maier, who helped the Yankees tie Game 1 of the 1996 American League Championship Series against the Baltimore Orioles when he deflected a live ball into the right-field stands. Steve Bartman became the scourge of the Chicago Cubs after he prevented Moises Alou from making a critical out in Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series against the Florida Marlins. But there is no blame to pin on a Red Sox fan named Randy Dunning.

Earlier this season, Dunning, 24, traveled to Baltimore from Oklahoma to visit his parents. As a gift, they took him to Camden Yards to see the Orioles play the Red Sox. It was his first major league game, Dunning said, a chance to do "one last fun thing" before reporting to Officer Candidate School at Fort Meade, S.D.

All it took that sunny May day was a moment of pure Manny Ramirez.

It began when Kevin Millar hit a sharp line drive to left field just short of the warning track. Ramirez ran under the ball, grabbed it and kept running to the wall, where he planted his cleats and reached into the stands. Dunning just happened to be sitting there in the first row watching Ramirez, his favorite player. Their hands met for a quick slap, then Ramirez wheeled around to fire the ball back to the infield to catch a runner at first base who had not tagged up.

The score sheet will always read 7-4-3. But that is because there is no baseball notation for a high-five double play.

"He just threw his hand up," Dunning said by phone this week. "Initially I thought he was going to do a Lambeau Leap or something like that. So I reached out to try and pull him, and he ended up just slapping my hand instead, kind of like a low-five."

Surrounded by Orioles fans, Dunning did not make too much of it. It was only after some people next to him told him that the radio announcers were raving about the play that he realized he would probably be watching himself on the highlight reels that night.

Ramirez later told Boston reporters to ask the fan to write to him. A month later, Dunning did just that, promising to cast an All-Star ballot for the Red Sox slugger.

"It said, 'Thank you for putting me on ESPN,' " Ramirez told The Boston Herald last month.

Dunning said he hoped to be back in the same seats for Boston's next trip to Camden Yards in August. Then again, it might conflict with his commissioning as an officer in the Army National Guard, the beginning of six years of active duty. After that, he said, he did not know when he would get to see his beloved Red Sox again. He is likely to be deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan before they start spring training.