BOSTON (AP) — Don Savino used one word to describe what he felt after the Boston Red Sox won the 2004 World Series, their first since 1918: Euphoria.

He needed five when asked if reports that sluggers David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003 tarnishes that title: “No, no, no, no, no!”

“I can’t buy that. … Not at all,” said Savino, 72, of Scotland, Conn., as he carried a sausage to his seat at Fenway Park on Thursday.

Red Sox fans interviewed at the ballpark were disappointed about a New York Times report that Ortiz and Ramirez were on a list of more than 100 major league players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003. Yet fans also viewed the news as typical of an unfortunate era and rejected any suggestion that the team’s title a year later was tainted.

“I think that’s sour grapes,” said Dennis Quinn, 59, an engineer from Newington, Conn., who added every name on the list should be revealed. The results from the 2003 tests were supposed to remain anonymous, but they later were seized by federal agents, and names of individual players have been sporadically leaked.

“I mean, there could have been people from every other team in major league baseball in the same condition and the same position as they were,” Quinn said. “So I’m not going to let it taint that wonderful 2004 for me.”

Ortiz acknowledged after Thursday’s game that he was told by the players’ union that he’d tested positive in 2003, but said he did not know what drug triggered the result. Asked about the report, Ramirez, now with the Los Angeles Dodgers, told reporters to call the players’ union.

Boston’s 2004 title released 86 years of frustration with a team that’s a local obsession. Tears and champagne flowed and New England residents everywhere gave themselves permission to die happy.

Ortiz and Ramirez were a huge part of the 2004 title as the Red Sox made an unprecedented rally from a 3-0 hole to beat the rival New York Yankees to claim the American League title, then swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. Ramirez had a .350 average and 11 RBI in the 2004 postseason, while Ortiz hit .400 with 5 home runs and 19 RBI. Boston won another title three years later.

Ramirez sulked his way out of town in 2008, but the gregarious Ortiz, known as “Big Papi” remains beloved. Meghan Woods, 22, a student from Worcester, said the news about his positive test stung.

“I love him,” she said. “He’s like a big teddy bear. It’s really sad.”

Gregg Newton, 31, a teacher from Shrewsbury, said Ortiz gets a bit of a pass if he used performance enhancers because the entire era has been marred by the never-ending scandal. When people look back several years from now on how he performed in the 2004 playoffs “no one’s going to think about steroids,” he said.

Jennifer Fahey, 39, of Boston said she knows “everyone was doing it” isn’t a great excuse. But she added the alleged drug use can’t discredit everything the Red Sox accomplished in 2004. The team was a lot more than Ramirez and Ortiz, she said, and the victory was too big to get dismissed by one news report.

Fahey was at a Boston bar when the Red Sox won the series, and recalled the joyous bedlam as bells rang and drinks were poured. Grown men wept openly for a local die-hard fan who had died that spring because he missed it all.

“You can’t take the moment away,” she said. “Now you might say it’s disappointing, but that moment in time will never change.”

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