FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) – Adam Stern grew up playing baseball in a hockey country, a warm-weather athlete in a land of winter sports.

The Canadian outfielder with the Boston Red Sox did shoot the puck on ponds with his buddies. He skied the Alps and even aspires to compete in the bobsled at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver if his career in the National Pastime fizzles.

But he’s never participated in curling, one of Canada’s most popular pastimes and the sport in which its men won a gold medal and its women took a bronze in the Olympics that ended Sunday.

Stern knows he’s a misfit and jokes freely about it.

“I was a castoff. I was a sellout of the country,” he said with a smile that rarely leaves his face. “I actually got mad at my parents this offseason, going, “What the heck. Why wasn’t I in hockey?’ “

He was busy running track and playing baseball instead, a regimen that paid off with Boston taking him from Atlanta in last year’s Rule 5 draft, primarily for his speed and fielding ability. Rule 5 picks must spend the season after they were chosen in the majors or be offered back to their previous team.

Stern, 26, still must spend the first 18 days of the coming season in the majors, since stints on the disabled list left him short of the time requirement.

“Last year was kind of a throwaway year with the injuries and I didn’t get a lot of at bats,” he said. “I’m here to play, and whatever role they put me in I’m happy with. But if I need to go down to Triple-A then that’s not a problem for me.”

Manager Terry Francona said the team will consider that requirement when deciding whether to put Stern on the opening day roster.

“We’re not going to make our team out today,” Francona said, “but we have a responsibility to know that (rule) and to understand that and try to keep him here.”

The native of London, Ontario, spent about two months in Canada during the offseason, probably his longest stay there in the past eight years. But he has a strong feeling about his homeland. He played baseball in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and is looking forward to playing in the 16-nation World Baseball Classic, which runs from March 3 to 20.

“I’m pumped,” he said. “We’re not known as a baseball country and, hopefully, we can surprise some people in the WBC.”

It was no surprise that Canada’s curling teams did well in the Olympics in Turin, but Stern was too busy throwing baseballs to watch his countrymen and women slide the stone.

He was at a workout with the Red Sox when the men’s gold-medal performance was telecast. Stern has never watched his father Joseph curl but has seen the trophies his father won in the sport.

“Those were the only trophies” in the house, said Stern, who joked with his father about them. “I was like, “you call yourself an athlete? You have curling trophies. So it was kind of funny. My brother and I were track guys. We had the track stuff and he had the curling.”

Stern did ask his father to take him curling.

“He kind of brushed it off,” said Stern, who, to this day, still hasn’t played the sport.

Stern can’t remember meeting many curlers from Canada.

“It’s not like someone comes out and says “I’m a curler,’ ” Stern said. “They probably just do it recreation-wise.”

In high school, Stern was away at a baseball tournament when his gym class took up curling. Now, trying to get his baseball career going, he’s not eager to try the sport and “go on the ice and wipe out.”

He was Atlanta’s Double-A player of the year in 2004. Last season, he fractured his right thumb in spring training, reinjured it and went just 2-for-15 in 36 games for Boston. In 20 games at Triple-A Pawtucket, he batted .321.

Despite his potential in baseball, he still gets a twinge about never having curled.

“With these Olympics, I kind of miss it,” Stern said. “Any kind of winter sport like that you wish you were good at, but I can’t complain where I am today.”

Notes:Monday was the fourth anniversary of John Henry and his ownership team taking over the Red Sox. … Closer Keith Foulke hasn’t pitched off a mound in training camp but “we’re counting on this guy to carry a big load,” Francona said. … RHP Julian Tavarez tried to play a joke on Manny Ramirez by removing the leftfielder’s nameplate from above his locker. Ramirez isn’t in camp after receiving permission from the team to report Wednesday, one day after the mandatory date.

AP-ES-02-27-06 1857EST