Timothy Bradley Jr. ready to step out into the spotlight in his bout against Manny Pacquiao

As he's done countless times in his life, Timothy Bradley Jr. was running down the streets of his hometown preparing for a boxing match. It's normally a lonely routine done in solitude – a lonely figure determined to make himself better.

This time, though, things were different. A young boy and his father spotted Bradley hiking down the opposite side of the road. Both became excited and the father all but shoved his son in Bradley's direction.

The boy approached Bradley with a pen and a scrap of paper, begging for an autograph.

"I was crossing a major intersection and this guy just had his kid run right out through the thing to try to get me to sign," Bradley said.

Bradley is nothing if not pragmatic and he laughs nervously.

"What kind of parent would send their kid out in that kind of traffic just to get someone to sign their name to a sheet of paper?" he asks, sounding more than a bit incredulous.

It's because boxing fever has gripped the tiny Riverside County town of Palm Springs, Calif., as Bradley, one of its most high-profile residents, prepares to fight Manny Pacquiao on June 9 in Las Vegas for the...

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