Great post. Never thought of the racist angle. I just find the whole bullpen logistics of Fenway frightening, fans leaning over, shouting, cop standing there, rooting for Sox. Multiply by 100 and you have the 2003 ALCS.I think he was referring to the fact that Gordon likely had some ugly racist remarks thrown his way, and that that's beneath the dignity (or ought to be) of any sports fan or fanbase, and way past the line of "fair heckling".
Anyway, my heart goes out to you VORPster. I'm sure you're lying on the floor in the corner somewhere rocking back and forth in a half-drunken stupor, but, like, we've been there too. Most every one of us here lived through 2003. We had them on the ropes. The vampire was chained to the table, the stake was in our hand, the mallet was raised, and our bumbling moron manager came out and said "ehhh, he's not going anywhere, let's everyone take a coffee break and finish this later", and every horror-movie trope followed from there. So we know how dark it gets. But at least you've still got a chance tonight to see your team make us all laugh this off, and be able to joke about it years from now. We had to wait a year for a chance to go all Braveheart on those jerkfaces. And we never got another shot at the Mets (1986) or Reds (1975). So I hope you and your team can both get up off the mat tonight, muster up some furious anger, and send that sorry excuse for a team back to whatever rock they crawled out from under.
Watching Pedro dissect Dusty’s decision to leave Greinke in, my mind flashed to Posada’s dunk hit off Pedro after Grady left him in. That had to be a good pitch, right? Baseball is so infuriating. And 2003 was just another world in terms of intensity.