The moment represents a landmark in the career of Lars Anderson.
For the Red Sox prospect, the opportunity to play against the Athletics in Oakland will underscore the reality of the fact that he is now a big leaguer. Anderson was born in Oakland and grew up in Sacramento, a couple of hours from the home of the A’s.

Now 22, Anderson remembers fondly the excursions to Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum to root for players who became familiar nemeses of the Red Sox in the late-'80s and early-'90s.

“Growing up, I was a huge A’s fan,” he explained. “I used to go to the field to watch Mark McGwire, Dave Stewart, Dave Henderson, Rickey Henderson and all those guys play. It’s pretty wild to go back there. A little hectic — you’re trying to entertain some people, too. But I’m also really excited to see my family and see home.”

This will not, however, be the first time that Anderson hits against big league pitching on the field where he grew up attending games. He has done so one other time in his life. And that experience helped to convince him to become a member of the Boston Red Sox.

In Anderson's senior year of high school in 2006, much of the baseball world was convinced that there was little to be gained by drafting Anderson, a 4.0 student with a strong commitment to Berkeley. The word in the scouting community was that it might take $1 million to sign him away from Cal, a sum that seemed out of line with his performance as a senior, when Anderson had struggled at times with his hitting during his senior year, changing his batting stance several times.

The Sox had evaluated Anderson as a third-round talent, but because he was considered a lock to go to college, the team did not scout him heavily. Neither scouting director Jason McLeod nor national cross-checker Dave Finley had been sent to see Anderson.

Even so, when the power-hitting first baseman remained on the board at the end of the first day of the draft, the Red Sox decided to expend their last pick of the day on Anderson.

“We’re sitting in the draft room toward the end of that first day, I think [GM Theo Epstein] might have said, ‘Let’s take the tough-sign kid here,’ ” McLeod, now the assistant GM for the Padres, recalled earlier this summer. “We didn’t really earmark Lars Anderson. We just said, ‘Let’s take the Anderson kid with our next pick.’ So we took him. And even when we took him, I thought, 'Well, we’ll get to know him and see him in three years when he [is again draft eligible after college].' ”

The Sox took advantage of the summer to get to know Anderson. They scouted him in wood-bat tournaments, where he turned in dominant performances that convinced them that his talent was significant. Perhaps even more importantly, they used the summer to get to know Anderson and his family. Through that process, the team learned not only that the family had never thrown around a hard-and-fast $1 million figure, but also more about the player’s desire to pursue a baseball career.

“I don’t think it was any secret that I really wanted to play,” Anderson said. “My goal since I was a kid was to play professional baseball, but I don’t know what was going through the minds of front offices four years ago.”

The Sox found out Anderson’s interest in playing that summer, at the same time that they had the opportunity to educate the player in what it would mean to turn pro. While he had been enamored of the idea of beginning his pro career, Anderson and his family became increasingly convinced of the merits of a career in the Red Sox organization.

“They kept sending different guys out there, explaining the pros and cons. They were real honest and open about explaining the whole signing situation. It just became more familiar and less foreign,” Anderson said. “The idea of playing professional baseball, I’d always wanted to, but then it became a reality. It was kind of shocking at first, but then I was comfortable with it. They made me comfortable about the decision.”

One element of that familiarizing process was a workout at the Oakland Coliseum. On July 24, 2006, the Sox were visiting the Athletics, and they had Anderson join them for a workout.

The circumstances for the 18-year-old were unique. The Sox had a pair of major leaguers — David Wells and Keith Foulke — who were working their way back from injuries by throwing simulated games. While it is common for draftees to take batting practice on a big league field at some point, Anderson’s opportunity was unique. He would take some hacks against a pair of former All-Star pitchers.

“I remember hitting one ball well off of Wells, out of about 20. That was it,” Anderson recalled with amusement. “[The experience was] very cool. [The decision about whether to sign] was up in the air at that point. That definitely helped sway my decision toward signing, among many things.”

Anderson hit and took some grounders, and in addition to hitting against Foulke and Wells, he also had the opportunity to meet Sox manager Terry Francona.

“All in all,” reflected Francona, “I think it was a very productive experience.”

That appears to have been the case for both sides. Anderson ended up signing with the Sox for $825,000 — a handsome sum, to be sure, in line with a player selected in the supplemental first round, several times what a typical 18th-rounder might get. But to this point, that investment has shown every sign of paying off handsomely, with Anderson having emerged as one of the top prospects in the Sox system en route to his big league debut this week.

And now, Anderson will have the chance to play in front of his family and friends on the same field where his dreams of a big league future were hatched as a child and solidified as a teenager in a workout for the Sox four years ago. It will be a homecoming that also hearkens to the origin of Anderson’s professional career.