Lazy fly balls.

That was my first thought yesterday afternoon as I watched snowboarders hovering in the air over Fenway Park: They looked like lazy fly balls.

My second thought was that Hanley Ramirez would have dropped every one of them.

But we can forgive that. Hanley is moving to first base this season. And the “Big Air at Fenway” event scheduled for today and tomorrow is a showcase for skiing and snowboarding, not baseball.

And whether or not you’re into skiing and/or snowboarding, you’ll want to get out to Kenmore Square to inhale some of this Big Air. This is serious bucket-list stuff, a chance to see the old ballyard tricked out as never before.

We’ve seen the joint turned into a hockey rink so the Bruins could play the Philadelphia Flyers in the Winter Classic. We’ve seen a gridiron pressed into the Fenway sod, most recently in November when Notre Dame hosted what’s left of the Boston College football program in its “Shamrock Series.” We’ve seen concert stages, wrestling rings, soccer pitches. They even installed a 20-foot-high sledding and tubing ramp a couple years ago.

Now there’s a 140-foot-high ski jump out in center field. And yesterday, for the first time, athletes from all across the country took part in practice runs for today’s event.

I found a couple of interesting local angles, even if you wouldn’t consider snowboarders Lyon Farrell and Ryan Stassel to be “local angles” if you were to limit your research to the information provided by press releases and the U.S. Ski and Snowboarding Association. Lyon Farrell is from the island of Maui in Hawaii. Ryan Stassel is from Anchorage, Alaska.

Where’s the local angle?

Let’s begin with 17-year-old Farrell, whose local tie is that he’s buddies with former Red Sox outfielder Shane Victorino. Think about that: Victorino once caught fly balls that sailed through the air space Farrell was occupying during his practice runs yesterday.

“Yeah, and we’re from the same island, and I’ve been in contact with him for a little bit,” Farrell said. “I was telling him I was here, and he was telling me what to see, what to look for. And I got a tour from the park from this cool guy named Pookie.”

This cool guy named Pookie is Edward “Pookie” Jackson, a longtime Red Sox clubhouse assistant who throws a mean knuckleball and at times has been enlisted as personal spring training driver for Red Sox principal owner John Henry. Yesterday, he was a Fenway tour guide for Farrell and made sure to show the snowboarder the inside of the Green Monster because, the young athlete said, “Shane told me to make sure I saw that.”

But when Farrell did his practice runs and was soaring through the Fenway sky, he was on his own.

“It’s crazy,” he said. “You’re doing a trick, and while you’re spinning or going upside-down, you’re seeing the stadium. And you never get that in snowboarding. It’s the craziest venue I’ve ever been snowboarding in.”

Now, Farrell and Victorino never have met. But they have mutual friends from Hawaii, and that inspired Farrell to connect with the player via social media. A friendship was quickly struck, and soon they were texting each other.

“I hope I have as much fun here as he did,” Farrell said of Victorino, a key member of the Sox’ 2013 World Series championship team.

And Ryan Stassel? Though raised in Alaska, it turns out his mother, Mary, is a Massachusetts native — born and raised in Springfield and a graduate of Cathedral High. She later lived in the Boston area during her days as a registered nurse and then moved to Anchorage with her engineer husband, Steven, an Alaska native.

Stassel admits he’s not much of a baseball fan. But he was quick to note that the view he had of Fenway during his practice runs was “pretty cool,” adding: “I doubt anyone has ever seen Fenway Park as we’re seeing it. And just looking around, the view of the ballpark and the city is very . . . very urban.”

I reached Steve and Mary Stassel just after their flight had landed at Logan Airport. And let’s be clear: Mary is one serious, old-school Red Sox fan.

“I’d say my favorite player growing up was Carl Yastrzemski,” she said. “Oh, and Jim Rice. He was always a favorite. And also Rico Petrocelli. We still follow the Red Sox.”

Did she ever dream her son, a member of the U.S. Olympic snowboarding team in 2014, would one day perform at Fenway Park?

“What I can tell you is that from the earliest I can remember, he talked of going pro,” she said. “That was his dream. But did I ever think he’d wind up doing this inside Fenway Park? No, not for a second.

“And I’m over-the-moon excited about that. I can’t believe we’re here and that this is happening.”