When Boston booed a 2-year old

I was at a Red Sox game once—this was when I lived in New England, better than 20 years ago, before the Red Sox became THE  Red Sox and you could still buy tickets at the box office on most game days—and it happened to be its annual family day for the season. Like most teams’ family days, the players bring their kids on the field before the game and they get to run the bases and have their names announced over the Fenway public address system and play a game, just like dad, if dad played with a wiffle ball. It was the 1989 season, the year Red Sox fans turned on Rich Gedman, the team’s long-time catcher who should have been remembered as a hero for his role in the Sox’ ninth inning comeback against the Angels in Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS (he had been hit by a pitch and scored on Dave Henderson’s subsequent go-ahead home run, and the Sox went on to win the epic series in seven games).

He was hardly a hero by 1989, though, when Gedman’s performance had dropped to the point where he was playing part-time and still hitting only .212, and the notorious Boston fans decided it was time to forget 1986 and ride him out of town. Earlier in this same season, he hit a home run and the boos cascaded down so loudly that he sprinted around the bases as fast as he could to get back in the dugout and shut the fans up. It must have been the only home run sprint in history.

So on family day 1989, the team’s kids line up on the field to get in their hacks with a wiffle bat and to make it even cuter, the public address announcer introduces each kid. Awwwww. And then up toddled little Mike Gedman, 2-year old son of Rich, and when his name was announced, thousands of fans did what had become instinct when they heard the word Gedman, and they launched into a round of lusty boos.

So if a city boos a 2-year old kid whose dad can’t hit anymore, it’s not likely they’re going to feel much pity for a Chechen immigrant with a weak personality and a bullying, alienated older brother.