In The Big Inning...

I am in utter disbelief right now. We're all Red Sox fans tonight. Like I said before, I'm an Orioles fan, and as such, have very little love for the Red Sox, but at least for now, it's all out the window. The Red Sox of 2004 will go down in history as one of the guttiest, toughest, most impressive teams of all time. And, more importantly (at least to me), the 2004 Yankees will go down as the biggest choke-artists of all time. It's such poetic justice. All the money, and all the bullshit mystique in the world couldn't hold down a team of true ballplayers, who loved to play the game with each other. I've seen that in Yankee teams of the past, but not in the past few years. This year's Yankee team was the epitome of just a "collection of superstars" - Sheffield from Atlanta, Vazquez from Montreal, A-Rod from Texas, Quantrill from LA, Brown from LA - all of them obtained this year just to compensate for their failure in the postseason last year, at a total price of over 180 million dollars. But this team wasn't built the proper way, and it finally caught up to them. They were sloppy at the wrong times, be it undisciplined hitting (ironically, the exact thing that almost doomed the Red Sox by causing them to lose the first two games), or a weak bullpen.

I can only imagine how much relief and vindication a Red Sox fan must feel at this point. It really has been a lifetime (or two or three) of failures and close calls and almosts for them. They came back from 0-3 against the hated Yankees, winning two games in extra innings, and finishing them off in Yankee Stadium. There were tons of subplots - Curt's ankle, Pedro's daddy, Johnny's and Mark's slumps, A-Rod's cheating, and it just all came together. Admittedly, I'm motivated by a searing hatred of the Yankees, and I think I touched on this in the last post, but it really is justice for the Yankees to finally lose in such majestic fashion. I think even if they don't win the World Series, they've slayed the dragon. No more "1918" chants - or if Sox fans still hear them, they can retort with is "2004". It was truly beautiful. We witnessed history tonight.

That said, what the Sox did is inspiring. It's going to be tough not to pull for them a bit in the World Series. Really, I'd just like to see some good baseball, although I really can't complain about the excitement level so far. Truly, we are all Red Sox fans tonight. Thank you, Boston, for keeping the faith, and putting the Yankees in their place. As a baseball fan, I am eternally grateful.