Anchorage Daily News

From pitching for the Anchorage Bucs in front of a few dozen people on a rainy weeknight at Mulcahy Stadium to starting the World Series opener with a millions worldwide watching -- that's the journey of Jeff Francis over the last five years.

Francis is scheduled to oppose Boston ace Josh Beckett when the World Series gets under way at Fenway Park on Wednesday.

Back in 2001, Francis arrived for the ABL season in as a relatively unknown pitcher from British Columbia. That didn't last. Francis earned the All-Alaska player of the year honors with a 7-1 record and 1.20 earned run average. He pitched for the Anchorage Glacier Pilots in the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita, Kan., that year.

Less than a year later, he was a millionaire, signing a $1.85 million bonus after the Rockies drafted him in the first round, the ninth pick overall of the 2002 Major League Baseball draft.

Francis isn't the only former ABL player on baseball's biggest stage. Two of Red Sox played here too -- young star Jacoby Ellsbury with the Pilots and J.D. Drew with the Peninsula Oilers.

Francis went 17-9 this season with a 4.22 ERA -- and proceeded to improve those numbers in the playoffs. He's 2-0 with a 2.13 ERA in the postseason.

Born in Vancouver, Francis went to college in British Columbia. The 6-foot-5 lefty has a career regular season record of 47-34.

Below are selected questions from an interview on the MLB.com Web site.

Q. What's it feel like being the poster boy for Canadian baseball these days?

A. I don't know if I have that honor. There's a lot of Canadians doing some good things in baseball. I'm just one of them who's proud to be from Canada and making a lot of people back home proud.

Q. I don't think there's been too many guys that have turned down big scholarship offers from NCAA schools to remain home to play in Canada at a Canadian school. Can you talk about what your thinking was at that time. Was it a difficult decision to make?

A. I don't think it was. I really didn't have a lot to turn down. I really couldn't afford to go to school down south. That wasn't much of a prospect. The decision was almost made for me.

Q. There were no scholarship offers coming your way?

A. Not any significant ones to where it was a good athletic opportunity.

Q. When you were growing up watching LCS games and World Series games they always talk about the No. 1 pitcher. Still being a young guy, does it almost feel surreal that you are the No. 1 guy for your team?

A. Yeah, I mean, you could label it that way. I mean, the nice thing about it is we've got a team of guys in there that really don't worry about labels like that. I mean, I happen to be pitching Game 1, yeah, but it could be any one of us, really. I don't think anybody has any concern about those types of things. And it's a comforting feeling knowing that as a team we kind of approach it that way.