Five area runners completed the 107th running of the Boston Marathon on Monday. John Sovocool of Richfield Springs was running for the fourth time in Boston, which he called the "crown jewel" of all marathons.

"Just getting there is such a treat," he said.

Sovocool put in 800 miles during training for the Boston Marathon, and had the fastest time of the five local runners, finishing the 26 miles in just under three hours and three minutes.

Another local runner was Bob Scrafford of Cooperstown, who was competing in his first Boston Marathon.

The other three local runners were Mike Coccoma, Schatzi Hall and Paula Huntsman.

To qualify for the Boston Marathon, runners must meet a qualifying time in another marathon the year before. We salute these five runners for reaching every long distance runner's goal of running in Boston.

The other news coming out of Boston this week came from former Cooperstown resident Jamie Bordley, who caught the first home run hit into the newly installed seats which sit on top of Fenway Park's Green Monster, the famous nearly 40 foot tall left field wall.

Bordley graduated from Cooperstown High School, and said he had a premonition he was going to catch the home run. The home run ball had been requested in advance by Hall of Fame vice-president Jeff Idelson, and the irony of a Cooperstown native catching the ball was not lost on Idelson after the fact.

"It's bizarre. It really is a small world," said Idelson, who was born in Boston and worked for the Red Sox from 1980-88. "I called Jamie over the weekend and he's trying to decide whether to give the ball to us or to the Jimmy Fund, the Red Sox charity which raises money for cancer research. He's trying to do the most philanthropic thing."

With much of the news lately being about SARS, or terrorism, or the war on Iraq, it's refreshing to report on local people doing positive things.