What you saw tonight with Jonathan Papelbon-The High School Years-was five months in the making.

In May Rob Bradford, then of the Boston Herald currently of WEEI.COM, told me that Sheila Papelbon (Jonathan’s mom) had a video tape of her son and the rest of his high school teamates in heels, dresses and wigs at high school rally. We later learned the tape also showed Pap playing the role of Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing with his best friend then and now playing the role of Jennifer Grey.

As soon as Rob told me about it, I knew we HAD TO HAVE IT! So, the always helpful Rob Bradford gave me Sheila Papelbon’s number.

Now, Jonathan speaks highly of his mother who played division one softball in the SEC. Once, I spoke with her I knew why. She is as much fun as he is, if not more. She is also a great practical joker with her sons often being the victims. Furthermore, thanks to the dish, she and her husband Jon, rarely miss a Cinco Ocho appearance on Sports Tonight.

I told her of a plan that was cooked up during a high level meeting with CSN photographer, Bill "Moose" Messina. She loved it and was all in. During her next trip to Boston she would stop by the studio and bring in the tape so we could make a copy. In the age of You Tube, it is understandable that she did not want the tape to end up in the wrong hands. 

Unfortunately, I was in LA covering the Celtics in NBA finals, so I could not be there to meet her and her husband. Mark Weir and Jim Aberdale were gracious hosts to Sheila and Jon. We made our copy and operation Dirty Danco Ocho was underway.

Then the raw tape was handed over to ace digital editor, Greg Del Rossi who embraced the project. He put the song "I’m a Barbie GIrl in a Barbie World" in for background music, put a graphic saying it was a Pedroia and Large Father Production and placed arrows in the video pointing at Papelbon legs in a dress.  Great job by Greg.

Then the package was handed over to ace field producer Jim Aberdale who then executed the perfect plan with Moose. Abs made things cool with the Red Sox and Dustin Pedroia and Moose brought David Ortiz into the fold. As it turned out, Ortiz managed to a great MC.

But, we could not just go to Fenway an do this anytime we wanted. Abs and Moose discussed this with Pookie Jackson-assistant equipment manager. It was decided the timing had to be right. It could not come after a loss or a get away game. Pookie and Ortiz would decide when to pull this off. With the rain washing away batting practice on Monday afternoon it was decided this was the time to pounce. Pookie readied the dvd player and clubhouse plasma TV’s and Ortiz called a team meeting. The rest will be seen on Mohegan Sun Sports Tonight and later on Comcast Sportsnet.com.

It took work, patience and coordination but in the end it was worth it. I talked with Sheila and she said, "we got him."

Make sure you tune in tonight at 6:30 and 10pm to see how we got him.