FORT MYERS, Fla. — Just to be clear, my take on Hanley Ramirez is unchanged: He will be an epic disaster as a first baseman with the Red Sox.

The biggest fear is he’ll laugh his way through the spring training tutoring he’s been getting from infield instructor Brian Butterfield.

David Ortiz, left, has been a first baseman as well as a designated hitter for years. Now Hanley Ramirez gets his chance at first base and the thing is, it’s not a question how much there is to learn but his willingness to learn it. The Associated Press

Another concern is he’ll doze off on the field. And these mental lapses, so often on display last season, both in left field and on the base paths, could boil the blood of infielders Dustin Pedroia, Xander Bogaerts and Pablo Sandoval.

Maybe it’ll turn out we’re all wrong. He is, after all, a big leaguer, except that’s precisely what we said last year until he started playing poorly in left field.

But for anyone with any amount of interest in the Red Sox, this edition of spring training offers a chance to do some scouting and determine if Hanley is going to be another George Scott, who played the position with the deftness of the principal dancer of the Boston Ballet Company, or another Dick Stuart, who, not for nothing, was known as “Dr. Strangeglove.”

Or maybe he’ll fall somewhere in the middle, in which case we’d be talking, oh, I don’t know, maybe Kevin Millar?

The Red Sox’s annual spring training College Bowl, staged Monday against Boston College and Northeastern, provided our first chance to check up on Hanley Ramirez, first baseman. The good news is there was no bad news. He played three innings in the 6-0 victory over BC, going 2 for 2 on an infield single and a double to left field.

In the field – and, really, that’s where everyone was focusing on – Ramirez gobbled up the only grounder hit his way for an unassisted out at first.

The Red Sox also turned a double play on a grounder to Bogaerts, who fed second baseman Pedroia.

Pedroia then fired the ball to Ramirez to double up the hitter. Ramirez was quick off the bag, maybe a little too quick. He disagreed with that.

“When the ball hits your glove, you just get off the bag,” he said.

Red Sox Manager John Farrell seemed pleased, but he’s also been around the block a few times.

“Back end of the double play, I thought he received the ball well,” said the manager. “It’s just a matter of watching him in different and varied game situations and conditions. I’m not going to make too much of two at-bats and (three) innings on the field today, for anybody.”

Ramirez said he was a little nervous in his first game at his latest new position.

“After the first pitch everything calmed down and it was time to go,” he said. “I wasn’t nervous like I was scared. Just thinking inside your body that you’re going back to work and you’re back on the field. I was trying to anticipate everything and that’s the key. That’s what spring training is for, to get comfortable, get your work in and be ready to go.”

What now?

“Now you go back and maybe watch some video and see what you’re doing and keep getting better,” Ramirez said.

He noted he has “no negative thoughts,” and his job is to “do the work and get ready to play every day.”

So there. He said all the right things. He did all the right things with the bat. If you choose not to quibble over his quick step off the bag, he did all the right things in the field.

He even made a trip out to the left-field grandstand during batting practice after he’d hit a scorcher that conked an usher off the side of the head. The fellow was soon on his feet, where he was greeted by Farrell, David Ortiz and Ramirez.

“You don’t want anyone to get hurt,” he said, “but things happen. You feel sorry for it but at the same time you get ready to go.”

So there. Hanley Ramirez won the day.

I still don’t think he should win the job.

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