If I live to be 100 — and with my meat-and-beer diet, it’s not bloody likely — I don’t think I’ll ever see a ballgame stranger than game 3 of the 2003 ALCS. This thing had more twists and sub-plots than a Raymond Carver story. First things first, you had Sox vs. Yankees in the playoffs, which is reason enough to booze up and riot. Then you had Pedro vs. Rocket, so I pretty much went into this thing with visions of that similar match-up in the ’99 ALCS dancing in my head. But then it all veered off into a mash-up of Karim Garcia [who, for my money, looks like the fat, older brother of The State's Thomas Lennon] getting pegged and threatening Pedro. And that bit where Pedro pointed at Posada then pointed at his head [he claimed he was telling Jorge "he'd remember this" but to the rest of the free world, it looked like "get ready for some extensive dental x-rays, son... yer goin' down."] Then the now classic Zimmer-goes-batsh#t-and-charges-Pedro-not-unlike-The-Rhino-tacking-Spider-Man thing. And Manny taking exception to a high and tight Clemens pitch. And that Jeff Nelson vs. everyone in the bleachers and especially a Fenway groundskeeper thing.
We didn’t win the game, or the series. But jeebus was that one for the vaults.
"SURVIVING GRADY is Red Sox Nation's 'Mystery Science Theater 3000.' Brilliant, irreverent, and merciless." -- Stewart O'Nan, author, 
