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MacMullan talks to Terry Francona, Red Sox manager.

Over the years, Barkley has talked with MacMullan about the agony of a back injury: "Eating a Big Mac hurts." About the ability of young athletes, including himself, to squander millions. And even about his true height: "OK, so maybe I'm 6 foot 5."

MacMullan's career has continued to evolve since that day in 1993 when Don Skwar told her she could keep her job without having to be on the road all the time. Two years later, she started covering the NBA for Sports Illustrated. While she was there, Larry Bird invited her to collaborate on his 1999 memoir, Bird Watching. After leaving the magazine in 2000, she took two years off to be home with her family before returning to the Globe to take her current job as a sports columnist and executive editor. She also makes regular appearances on television as a correspondent for ESPN, NESN and Boston's WHDH-TV. From time to time, she's a panelist on two ESPN sports talk shows, "Cold Pizza" and "Around the Horn." But she thoroughly enjoyed a weeklong stint at UNH as a visiting journalist last year and may try teaching full time in the future.

MacMullan chats with Curt Schilling in a gold cart.

The television work has earned MacMullan a status her niece jokingly describes as "marginally famous." MacMullan downplays the glamorous aspects of her job, though, and she's careful to keep her family and professional lives separate, going by Jackie Boyle outside of work. "My kids didn't sign up for this," she says.

MacMullan knew early on that she wanted to have a family, and she wanted to be part of that family--not the kind of parent who could never make it to her children's events. There weren't many role models for her to emulate at work. "You don't find too many well-rounded people in the sports department," acknowledges Skwar. "People are extremely dedicated to one aspect of their lives and become consumed with that aspect. She's able to balance a lot of aspects of her life."

The Boyles live in an old white farmhouse with low ceilings and exposed beams. MacMullan is up before her children to get a head start on her work. When she can, she conducts interviews and writes during the day, finishing in time to meet their afternoon bus. Her office is the kitchen table, where two portable phones sit next to her laptop, and school projects hang on the refrigerator. Since she only needs to travel when a Boston team makes it into major playoffs or a national series, she can usually attend the events that are important to Alyson, now 15, who plays basketball and field hockey and runs track, and 10-year-old Doug, who has more of a theatrical and musical bent.

Still there is no escaping the "on call" aspect of her job. In the middle of a dinner party at a friend's house last December, she got word that Red Auerbach had died. She sequestered herself in a bedroom for more than an hour in order to write a tribute to the legendary basketball coach and give ESPN a live telephone interview.

Red Sox outfielder Manny Ramirez in the batting cage.

Through all the night and weekend games, the years of extensive travel, and the need to be on call day and night, husband Michael Boyle has been, in MacMullan's words, a "very important, quiet background guy." So much in the background, in fact, that when she was pregnant, Charles Barkley used to tease her about her imaginary husband--Sasquatch, he called him. (Last fall, when Barkley was inducted into the Hall of Fame, the two finally met, and Barkley gave the elusive Bigfoot a bear hug.)

MacMullan particularly appreciates her husband's ability to remain unfazed by her semi-celebrity and her interaction with some of the most famous athletes in the country. Which is not to say that he's immune to the gravitational pull of sports. After Buckner's error in 1986, he vowed never to root for the Red Sox again. Nevertheless, there he was back on the couch on Oct. 27, 2004, watching the World Series as MacMullan covered it out in St. Louis.

The game ends at 11:40 p.m. and the Red Sox have won the World Series for the first time in 86 years. Down in the clubhouse the athletes are dousing each other in champagne, beer and tears of joy. Up on the field the fans are dancing in full Red Sox regalia beneath a moon tinged, yes, red by a lunar eclipse. MacMullan's fingers are dancing on her laptop.

It's the happiest story in Boston sports history--and she has 18 minutes to write it. ~

Patrick McClary '06 graduated from UNH with a degree in journalism. He is now a sportswriter for the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel. Virginia Stuart '75, '80G is an associate co-editor of this magazine.

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