BOSTON — The Boston Red Sox have an opening at shortstop after trading Marco Scutaro to the Colorado Rockies. Their new manager, Bobby Valentine, said he doesn’t know how the situation will be resolved, but it should make for good competition during spring training.

The Red Sox have utilitymen Mike Aviles and Nick Punto as potential replacements for Scutaro. Also in the mix is 22-year-old prospect Jose Iglesias, who spent most of last season at Triple-A.

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Jose Iglesias, who spent most of last season at Triple-A Pawtucket, is one of the candidates to take over this year as Boston’s starting shortstop. The Associated Press

Scutaro hit a career-high .299 last year. He was traded to the Rockies for right-hander Clayton Mortensen.

“I’ve never seen any of the guys play except for Punto a little on television. We’ve got seven weeks together, we’ll practice together, we’ll play together, that will all work itself out,” Valentine said. “I think it’s always good for guys to get a chance to work and think they have a chance to make the team so they work a little harder.”

Valentine and former GM Theo Epstein planned to talk a little baseball and raise a little money for charity Monday night at Fenway Park.

Then Valentine’s father-in-law, ex-big leaguer Ralph Branca, stole the show.

In a discussion about big markets and small markets and how players respond to being booed, Branca took the microphone and reminded the crowd that he knew a little bit about the topic. Branca gave up one of the most famous homers in baseball history, Bobby Thomson’s three-run shot that gave the New York Giants the 1951 NL pennant over the Brooklyn Dodgers.

“Me get booed? Never,” Branca told a few hundred people. “I did lose a few.”

Then, alluding to the critically panned performance by Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler before the AFC championship game last week, Branca said he wants to sing the national anthem before Game 1 “when the Red Sox are in the World Series this year.”

As his son-in-law threw up his hands in wonder, Branca then led the crowd in an impromptu singing of “God Bless America.”

Branca spent most of his 12-year career in New York with the Dodgers, plus short stints with the Yankees and Detroit Tigers.

“I’ve been a Yankee and Met fan,” he said, alluding to Valentine’s time as Mets manager from 1996-2002. “I’m a Red Sox fan upside down, inside out, I’m part of Red Sox nation. God bless you all.”

The event was a fundraiser for Theo Epstein’s charity, Foundation To Be Named Later. The “Hot Stove, Cool Music” roundtable and associated benefit concert has raised $300,000 this year and more than $4 million for local charities since their inception in 2000.

Also sitting in for the discussion were: Epstein, current Red Sox GM Ben Cherington, Pittsburgh Pirates GM Neal Huntington, New York Yankees center fielder Curtis Granderson and MLB network analyst Sean Casey, who played for five teams – big market and small – in a 12-year career.

Cherington said he is prepared to go to arbitration hearings with David Ortiz and Alfredo Aceves; the Red Sox did not have a single arbitration hearing in Epstein’s tenure as GM. Ortiz has asked for $16.5 million and the team offered $12.65 million; Aceves was offered $950,000 and he asked for $1.6 million.

Granderson said he was pleased with the Yankees’ offseason pitching acquisitions, including the trade with Seattle for All-Star right-hander Michael Pineda and the signing of free-agent righty Hiroki Kuroda from the Dodgers.

But he isn’t ready to pronounce the Yankees the winner of the offseason.

“I’d be very shocked and surprised if Boston doesn’t make any more moves,” he said.

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