BOSTON – In a game described by Derek Jeter as “flat ugly,” there was one unsightly element that exceeded all others. More than the Jeter caught stealing that wasn’t. More than the Chuck Knoblauch catch that wasn’t. More than the 150-foot, Carl Everett bloop that somehow became a triple, in part, because Alfonso Soriano kicked it.

Randy Choate did not impact the Red Sox’s 5-4 victory over the Yankees much yesterday, he may not have much of an influence on this whole season. But for one gruesome warm-up in front of 32,127 taunting, teasing Fenway critics and for five Calista Flockhart pitches – they were nowhere near a plate – Choate became, of all things, the “Cursed” Yankee in this historic, heated rivalry.

“I don’t know if I can really explain it,” Choate said.

How could he? How could anybody? He entered his first-ever Yankee-Red Sox game mostly unknown, and left mocked, pitied and a storyline. As the 11th pitcher on the Yankees’ 11-man staff, he normally has the anonymity of a Witness Protection member. Yesterday, however, there was no place to hide.

Not when the Fenway fans saw him begin plunking the backstop while warming up in the seventh inning with two out and a runner on first. Not when none of his five pitches would have been strikes even if the Commissioner’s Office mandated the high strike, the low strike and the wide strike. Not when his first major media moment was trying to put into words how this happened.

The Fenway visiting clubhouse is a claustrophobic’s nightmare of bunched lockers and tight aisles. But Choate looked particularly caged when uncomfortably talking to reporters. Freshly out of a shower, Choate was quickly soaked anew in sweat. His face turned crimson, his eyes stared mostly down, his fidgety body made it obvious this ordeal was not much better than the one that brought the attention.

He said he was not nervous. He said the balls were slick, but not so much so as to trigger the problem. He said he was aware of the hooting crowd (“when there are 32,000 people screaming at the top of their lungs, it is hard not to hear it”), but that it did not bother him. He said he would not be reading accounts today and vowed to get beyond this by spending time last night with his wife.

“This was the first time [for such control problems] and hopefully the last,” Choate said.

But who knows? He has an unorthodox delivery – not just submarine, but uncorked from a near straight posture with a whip-like action. Yet, Choate said he has never experienced this kind of wildness previously. He said this will be quickly remedied after watching tape, he said, that showed him releasing the ball prematurely. Joe Torre, however, said “we’ll watch it.” Perhaps most interesting was the response of Mike Stanton.

Normally – in good times or bad – Stanton will discuss any topic fully, thoughtfully and without challenge. But when asked if he had or would speak to Choate, Stanton was clipped in saying, “He had a bad outing. That’s all I’m going to say about that. It was the Yankees and Red Sox for nine innings. You can find something else to talk about. That had absolutely no bearing on the game whatsoever.”

The response was rather understandable. The Yankees lived with Knoblauch’s throwing woes for better than three years. It had begun to wear on them on the field and with reporters. Putting Knoblauch in left has brought, at least, a temporary closure to the issue. And now here were the Yankees, following this regrettable team performance, having to talk about another teammate who could not throw straight, having to hear questions with the names Knoblauch and Rick Ankiel in them.

“His command was good all spring so I do not see any red flags here,” Stottlemyre said.

Maybe Choate was just doing his part in a game that – like Friday and Saturday at Fenway – was decided by one run, but unlike those games lacked aesthetic pleasures. Both teams bumbled and bobbled though this game, but Jeter said, “it was uglier for us because we lost.” Umpire Tim Tschida also messed up when he ruled a ball Knoblauch made a terrific catch on was trapped to help Boston take a 2-1 lead in the fifth. In the sixth, Jeter was trapped between first and second, but Hideo Nomo threw a ball away, so Jeter was credited with a caught stealing, yet awarded third base and Paul O’Neill homered for a 3-2 Yankee advantage.

In the seventh, Soriano would get a late break on Everett’s bloop triple and Posada would be tagged with his third passed ball in as many games. Yet, it all would be overshadowed when Choate entered.

He began hitting the backstop in warmups. The attentive Fenway faithful noticed and screamed mercilessly. Facing Trot Nixon, Choate bounced a pitch, nearly hit Nixon, then did hit him. Stottlemyre went out to see if there was an injury problem. When Choate threw two more balls to Darren Lewis, one a wild pitch and one that could have been, Torre removed the situational lefty.

“I’m not going to think about this [today],” Choate said. “If you start thinking about it, that’s how it mushrooms.”

Of course, here in the real world, we wonder how he will be thinking about anything else.