It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment that Red Sox Nation realized their rookie Jacoby Ellsbury was the Baby Jesus in cleats. Was it during his third major league game, against the Rangers last summer, when he reached home all the way from second base on a wild pitch? Was it Game Three of the World Series, when he hit three doubles—and a single, just for the hell of it—en route to batting .438 in the Series? Or was it the bottom of the ninth inning in Game Four, two outs away from the title, when he chased down that missile of a fly ball from Jamey Carroll with a leaping catch into the left field wall, dashing the Colorado Rockies' final hopes?

Regardless of when it happened, Ellsbury has become the latest vessel for great expectations in Boston—a place that puts the "cult" in sports subculture—and his life will never be the same. "Going to the mall, normally I could just cruise through," he recalls. "Now, it's totally different. Girls will be shaking to meet me. It's unbelievable." The fresh-faced 24-year-old outfielder, clad in a T-shirt, jeans, and black windbreaker that make him look more superfan than superstar, is unwinding in an office at Velocity Sports, his gym and off-season sanctuary in Portland, Oregon, a few hours from the small farm town where he grew up. It's a world away from Fenway Park, but the World Series victory, which reignited hope of a dynasty for the first time in Boston since the Kennedys came to town, still lingers in the mind. "As a Little Leaguer, you put yourself in those situations, that ultimate stage," he says. "It was a dream come true."

More like a dream that Ellsbury made true. He started the 2007 season in dreary Double A, where careers can stall, and with quiet diligence, Hoover-like fielding, and that you-got-it-or-you-don't athletic X-factor, reached Triple A and, come October, snagged a spot on the playoff roster. Most remarkably, though, is that Ellsbury did it in so few major league at-bats (116) that he's still eligible for Rookie of the Year this season. "It's not the easiest thing in the world to come to Boston when you're a young kid and you've never been through it before," Sox manager Terry Francona tells me. "We put him in some pretty important situations, and he competed, and he didn't back down. Usually we live and die by the home run, but he brought a speed that we hadn't seen. He can fly."

Ellsbury doesn't so much steal bases as commit grand larceny, and it's easy to imagine him racking up 40 this season. He runs 60 yards in 6.27 seconds—just a hair slower than Carl Lewis—but even more impressive is his mental machinery, which blacks out the ballpark as soon as he bolts for second base. "I don't hear anything. I'm just thinking, 'Get there, get there, they don't have a shot,'" he says. "In the postseason, I ran faster than I've ever run before. I'm just"—he raises his arms and simulates a very powerful robot running—"choo-choo-choo-choo. And once I slide, that's when I hear the crowd and know that I've made it, when you hear that roar."