01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, September 28, 2003

The Red Sox were getting mauled by Texas on April 24.

But when the Rangers' Carl Everett ripped a hard shot down the third-base line, Bill Mueller reacted with the intense concentration and desire he brings to every game in every inning in the field and in every at-bat.

He dove to his right, backhanded the ball, quickly got up and threw out Everett at first, robbing him of an extra-base hit in a game that already had been decided.

It's the only way Bill Mueller knows how to play the game, as he showed the Red Sox and their fans this season.

Certainly, his strong run for the American League batting title was a surprise to the Sox. So was his power, which included a solo homer and back-to-back grand slams, one from each side of the plate, in a July 29 game, also at Texas. He posted career highs by a large margin in batting average, home runs and RBI.

But it was his grit that prompted the Sox to give him a two-year deal as a free agent last winter. And he didn't disappoint in that regard, either, showing enough early on that Boston traded incumbent third baseman Shea Hillenbrand and made Mueller, who was splitting time between second base and third base, the permanent resident at third.

"He's a team player," said Boston catcher Doug Mirabelli, Mueller's teammate in San Francisco. "He's a grinder. He's the definition of a baseball player."

The Sox should have known. While Mueller, 32, is a man of few words, at least to the media, he offered an apt self-introduction in spring training.

"I'm a firm believer that talk is cheap," he said in March. "I'll compete and let my play speak for me. And I'll be unselfish. I'll think only of the name on the front of the uniform (Red Sox) and not of the one on the back (Mueller)."

In so doing, Bill Mueller made quite a name for himself in Boston.

-- STEVEN KRASNER