MADRAS, Ore. (AP) – Boston Red Sox rookie Jacoby Ellsbury came home to a hero’s welcome Saturday after a fairytale season in which he rose from playing Double-A ball to World Series champion.

“I need a basketball,” the 24-year-old Ellsbury said before wading into the roaring crowd that filled the gym of Madras High School, where the newly minted big-league star lettered in basketball, football, track and baseball.

“Yeah, but there were never this many people,” high school teammate Jake Jaca reminded him before a grinning Ellsbury started shaking hands and waving to the pressing crowd of some 3,000 people, many decked out in Red Sox hats and shirts.

Ellsbury is widely believed to be the first Navajo to play major league baseball, but was born and grew up in this small farming town on the Oregon high desert, where his mother, Marjorie Ellsbury, moved from her home in Arizona to become a special education teacher for the nearby Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs.

Here she met Jim Ellsbury, a forester for the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, and they raised four sons. Jacoby is the oldest. He is an enrolled member of the Colorado River Indian Tribes in Arizona.

“I’m really proud of Jacoby, coming out of the Navajo Nation,” said Ken Man, a member of the Warm Springs tribes who called the radio play-by-play of Ellsbury’s high school basketball games. “He could have been in the NBA, too, he’s that good.”

Man wore a Red Sox cap he bought at Fenway Park last August, and a red T-shirt emblazoned with a white buffalo, the Madras High School mascot, wearing four red socks and branded with Ellsbury’s No. 46.

Though the day was rainy, the sun broke out just long enough for Ellsbury to sit on the back deck of a black Corvette convertible for a parade through town, where the sidewalks were packed with cheering fans.

“The parade in Boston was amazing, but this is even better,” he told the crowd to cheers. “You guys are incredible.”

Drafted by the Red Sox in the first round in 2005 out of Oregon State University, Ellsbury started 2007 with Double-A Portland, Maine, and moved up to Triple-A Pawtucket, R.I., before being called up to Boston to fill in for injured center fielder Coco Crisp in June.

When slugger Manny Ramirez pulled a muscle in his side in August, Ellsbury took over left field. He ended the regular season batting .353 with three home runs, 18 RBIs and went 9-for-9 on stolen bases after 116 at bats. With Ramirez healthy, Ellsbury was back on the bench for the playoffs.

With the Red Sox down three games to one in the American League Championship Series and Crisp slumping, manager Terry Francona put Ellsbury back in, and he helped the Sox win the World Series.

Ellsbury won’t get his World Series ring until opening day in Fenway, but the Eagle Thunder drumming group played an honor song and Delvis Heath of the Warm Springs tribes, wearing an eagle feather headdress, beaded vest and leather gauntlets, presented him with a beaded medallion depicting a baseball batter that said, “World Series 2007.” Ellsbury draped it over his neck.

“We are all proud of you in Indian Country,” Heath said to cheers.

Ellsbury wiped away a tear as Madras Mayor Jason Hale proclaimed it Jacoby Ellsbury Day. He recalled being so nervous he almost threw up driving to the ballpark for his first start for the Red Sox, and pitcher Josh Beckett advising him, “Just don’t screw it up.”

Asked what advice he had for kids who wanted to follow in his footsteps, Ellsbury said, “I kept my nose clean and worked hard. They can do that.”

AP-ES-11-17-07 1809EST