Playoff-bound Sox pour it on

By Bob Hohler, Globe Staff, 9/29/2003

Some of them hardly knew each other that sleepy February morning when they gathered at a dusty park at the end of a dead-end road in Fort Myers, Fla., to prepare for a new season of promise and uncertainty. Now they will never forget each other.

In the best of all twists yet in a crazy season of wild highs and unfathomable lows, the Red Sox last night pocketed the first big prize in their bid to erase the franchise's 85-year championship famine by throttling the Orioles, 14-3, before 34,526 at Fenway Park to clinch a wild-card berth in the American League Division Series.

Oh, happy day.