BMTG News and Commentary

October 28, 2004: Greatest Red Sox Team in History

The Boston Red Sox have finally accomplished what has eluded them for 86 years. Finally this was the year and the way everything played out, from the impossible comeback against the Yanks to the legendary performances of Curt Schilling, it is obvious that this year was just meant to be. This team won the championship truly as a team. Any number of players could have been named MVP and really no one person should have got it. This was a team that was not waiting for something bad to happen, no matter how worried the fans were. This is a team of players that enjoy playing the game. They respect the game and understand their place in history. This team does not have that air of arrogance that has permeated much of sports. These are players that leaned on their faith, not to give them the wins, but to give them strength and the chance to compete at the highest level.

Previous BMTG Red Sox coverage:

October 21, 2004: Boston Red Sox Do the Impossible

September 7, 2004: Evil Empire Shows True Colors

August 29, 2004: Senior Council Holds Sit Down

August 3, 2004: Where Were You When They Sent Nomar Away?

October 27, 2003: Grady Little FIRED

As we'd expect, it was wild ride
By Bob Ryan, Boston Globe

ST. LOUIS -- The march to baseball's ultimate glory was not conventional, not mundane, and certainly not relaxing. But why should anyone be surprised?

For these are the Boston Red Sox. Celestially speaking, this franchise has not exactly been Destiny's Darlings, unless you happen to have been born during the Taft Administration. Since 1946, when the team with the best record in baseball lost a painful Game 7 in this very city, the great, sad cries of the Red Sox and their passionate fans have been variations of "Why?" It's been:

"Why me?"

"Why us?"

"Why can't we win one, just one?"

Eleven days ago, baseball life as we know it changed. Why? Who knows? It just did. Emerging from a 3-0 abyss in the American League Championship Series, the Red Sox rolled off eight straight wins. Three outs -- make that three Mariano Rivera outs -- away from a humiliating sweep by the Evil Empire, the Boston Red Sox have put together the most devastating run in the history of postseason baseball, winning the last four games against the Yankees, then dispatching the St. Louis Cardinals in an official World Series sweep, the capper being last night's 3-0 triumph before 52,037 heartbroken fans at Busch Stadium.

Eight straight!

It's ovah!

Red Sox win! Red Sox win! Theeeeeeee Red Sox win!

God, I hope you're satisfied.

For 86 years, and especially during the 37 seasons since the 1967 team restored baseball interest in New England, the question has been, "What will Boston do if the Red Sox win the World Series?"

We are now about to find out.

Before looking into the cultural and sociological ramifications of all this, let's step back for a minute and remind ourselves what this is all about.

It's about baseball.

This is not the Boston Symphony whipping the St. Louis Symphony. This is not about Mass. General taking out Barnes-Jewish. This is not about chowdah getting the measure of toasted ravioli.

This is about the Boston Red Sox having a better baseball team than the New York Yankees. This is about the Boston Red Sox having a better baseball team than the St. Louis Cardinals. This is about the Boston Red Sox, for the first time since 1918, having the best baseball team in the world.

This is about performance on the field.

This is about winning Game 1 of a World Series with a home run off a foul pole struck by a player who, if plebiscite managing were in vogue, would have been dropped from the lineup three games earlier. This is about winning Game 2 of a World Series when a very expensive, swaggering, big-talking, 37-year-old pitcher does the very thing he said he had come here to do, and he does it on an ankle that needs significant surgical repair. This is about winning Game 3 of a World Series when the gifted 33-year-old diva of a mound ace submits his best performance in a month in what may have been his Red Sox farewell.

Finally, this is about Derek Lowe out-Curting Curt and out-Pedroing Pedro with a spectacular seven-inning display of pitching. This is about Johnny Damon leading off the ballgame with a home run into the St. Louis bullpen, making it the fifth straight game the Red Sox scored in the first inning. This is about Trot Nixon hitting three doubles and knocking in two runs. This is about becoming only the fourth team in major league history to win a World Series without ever trailing.

This is about an eccentric billionaire owner, a precocious general manager, and a computer-toting manager working together to build on a team left behind by a Massachusetts-born pure fan who had stocked the cupboard with stars, including the Series MVP. The starting lineup in this biggest of all games featured four Dan Duquettes, four Theo Epsteins, and one Lou Gorman. I like that.

This is about a team that stumbled and underachieved for three months before finding itself. This is about a team that conducted a Sisyphean pursuit of the Yankees during the regular season, but never lost faith in the team-wide belief that it was the better team, even after losing the first three games of the ALCS, the third of which was a complete embarrassment.

This is about a team that was able to do what so many of its predecessors could not do, which was to appreciate the tortured team history and appreciate the angst of the fandom without becoming overwhelmed by either. This is a team that had no trouble adopting the one-day-at-a-time mantra of manager Terry Francona, whose approach to many situations, both on and off the field, confused and sometimes angered fans, many of whom can only relate to my-way-or-the-highway skippers, not to a thoroughly modern man who embraces technology and thinks too many rules are counterproductive.

So now we know what it takes to win. It takes superb starting pitching. How about a combined 10 hits and one unearned run from Schilling, Pedro, and Lowe in Games 2, 3, and 4? It takes timely hitting. It takes the requisite defense (how comforting was it to look out in the ninth inning last night and see Doug Mientkiewicz, Pokey Reese, and Gabe Kapler pounding those gloves?). And it takes a bullpen, which, in the postseason, was, at times, beyond spectacular.

And it takes a little luck. Manny stayed. The Yankees got stuck with A-Rod.

Baseball, my friends, baseball.

It took a little while, but the championship of baseball has come back where it belongs. Since the 1870s, baseball has resided in the heart of Boston. While an entire nation has sold its soul to the violence and essential callousness of football, Boston has been a proud, stubborn holdout, preferring a more subtle, intricatesport appealing equally to the mind and the senses. If we are the only locale in America in which baseball is king, so be it. When you're right, you're right.

What a sweet ride it was. Has any team ever sent its followers on such a manic (sweeping the Angels), depressive (losing those first three to the Yankees), euphoric (each and every one of the last eight games) postseason journey? It's not possible.

So there it is. No more crying, hear? No more whining, hear? No more "Whys?" The Boston Red Sox are champions of the world.

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YES!!! - Red Sox complete sweep, win first series since 1918
By Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe

ST. LOUIS -- They did it for the old folks in Presque Isle, Maine, and White River Junction, Vt. They did it for the baby boomers in North Conway, N.H., and Groton, Mass. They did it for the kids in Central Falls, R.I., and Putnam, Conn.

While church bells rang in small New England towns and horns honked on the crowded streets of the Hub, the 2004 Red Sox last night won the 100th World Series, completing a four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals with a 3-0 victory on the strength of seven innings of three-hit pitching by Derek Lowe. Playing 1,042 miles from Fenway Park, the Sox won it all for the first time in 86 long and frustrating seasons.

''This is like an alternate reality," said Sox owner John W. Henry, soaked in champagne (Mount Pleasant, 2003 Brut Imperial). ''All of our fans waited their entire lives for this."

True. New England and a sprawling Nation of Sox fans can finally exhale. The Red Sox are World Champs. No more Curse of the Bambino. No more taunts of "1918." The suffering souls of Bill Buckner, Grady Little, Mike Torrez, Johnny Pesky, and Denny Galehouse are released from Boston Baseball's Hall of Pain. The Red Sox are champions because they engineered the greatest comeback in baseball history when they won four straight games against the hated Yankees in the American League Championship Series. It was a baseball epic, an event for the ages putting the Sox into a World Series that was profoundly anticlimactic.

En route to eight consecutive postseason wins, the Sons of Tito Francona simply destroyed a Cardinal team that won a major league-high 105 games in 2004. The Sox did not trail for a single inning of the four-game sweep. No Cardinal pitcher lasted more than six innings and St. Louis's vaunted row of sluggers was smothered by the likes of Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, closer Keith Foulke, and Lowe. The Cards batted .190 in the Series with cleanup man Scott Rolen going 0 for 15.

In the finale, a game played under a full moon/lunar eclipse on the date of Boston's Game 7 loss in the excruciating 1986 World Series, Johnny Damon led off with a home run and the Sox were never threatened. Trot Nixon added a pair of runs with a bases-loaded double in the third. Lowe mowed down the Cardinals for seven innings, then let relievers Bronson Arroyo, Alan Embree, and Foulke finish the job.

It ended at 11:40 p.m. EDT when Edgar Renteria went out on an easy grounder to Foulke. Foulke ran toward first and underhanded the ball to first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz. A half hour later, the historic ball was locked in the grasp of Mientkiewicz's right hand.

Statues -- to be placed near those of Samuel Adams and James Michael Curley -- are already on order for Messrs. Schilling, Martinez, Lowe, Foulke, Damon, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Mark Bellhorn, Jason Varitek, Orlando Cabrera, and the rest of the 2004 Red Sox. They did something that had not been done in 86 years.

Ramirez, who hit .412 with a homer and four RBIs against the Cardinals, was named World Series MVP, almost exactly one year after the Sox put him on waivers. The Boston brass spent most of last winter trying to trade Ramirez for Alex Rodriguez. Now they are World Champs and Manny is the MVP. Alternate reality, indeed.

"I think we learned a lot when we played against the Yankees," said Ramirez, "because we lost the first three games. And today I was talking to some of the guys and I said, `Hey, let's go. Don't let these guys breathe.' We know what happened against New York. We came back . . . So we came back and won."

And now it's time to toast to Ted Williams, Tom Yawkey, Sherm Feller, Dick O'Connell, Haywood Sullivan, Joe Cronin, Eddie Collins, Tony Conigliaro, Ned Martin, Helen Robinson, Jack Rogers, and thousands of others who toiled for the team, but died before seeing their Sox win a World Series.

It's time for smiles on the faces of Carl Yastrzemski, Bobby Doerr, Dominic DiMaggio, Charlie Wagner, Gene Conley, Bill Monbouquette, Chuck Schilling, John McNamara, Joe Morgan, Earl Wilson, Mike Andrews, Reggie Smith, and hundreds of other men who wore the Red Sox uniform, but never won in October. And don't forget Curt Gowdy, Lou Gorman, Dick Bresciani, Joe Mooney, and all the ushers and Sox employees who are as much a part of Fenway Park as the Green Monster and Pesky's Pole.

Time for the Nation to rejoice. Time to dance. Time to go to your window, open it wide, stick your head out and scream, "The Red Sox won the World Series." No one's been able to do that in Boston since Woodrow Wilson was president.

"It's a thrill to be able to write a page in the Red Sox history book," said exhausted club CEO Larry Lucchino.

There was an air of inevitability about the Sox' prospects before the final game of the Fall Classic. The Sox knew they had the Cardinals on the mat and they knew that no team in hardball history ever came back from a 3-0 World Series deficit.

Busch Stadium was a friendly venue for swelling ranks of road-tripping Sox fans. Cardinal loyalists love their team, but hold no hatred for the Bostonians and one got the feeling that some St. Louis fans might have bailed and sold their tickets after the disheartening loss to the Sox in Game 3. There were a lot of Sox fans in the stands last night who lingered long after the final out.

Veteran Tim Wakefield was given the honor of carrying the World Series trophy out of the clubhouse and onto the field where the Sox celebrated with their families and acknowleged fans who remained in the stands cheering well over an hour after Foulke fielded the last grounder.

For the record, it took precisely six minutes for the first "Yankees Suck" chant to break out after the Red Sox finally won the World Series.

Lowe gave up a leadoff single in the first, then retired the next 13 Cardinals in order. St. Louis sluggers took a lot of ugly swings. The Cardinals did not put up much of a fight. After just three innings, it felt like it was already over.

This is what it must have felt like in 1918.

"I thought we had a great scouting report," said Terry Francona, the first man to manage the Red Sox to a World Series win since Ed Barrow. "But what it comes down to is having really, really good pitchers."

While Lowe mowed down the Cards, fans back home in New England chilled champagne, slipped tapes into VCRs, and prepared to wake infants so they could someday tell them they'd witnessed a historic event.

After celebrating on the field and in the visitors clubhouse, the World Champion Red Sox went back to their hotel, packed, and bused to the airport for a charter back to Boston.

"We'll be be arriving by dawn's early light," predicted club vice president Dr. Charles Steinberg.

"We won't even need the airplane to fly home," added Henry.

The largest celebration in Boston's 374-year history is expected tomorrow when the team is honored with a parade and championship ceremony.

If form holds, the Red Sox' gaudy, well-earned rings will be handed out in a ceremony April 11 when the 2004 World Series championship flag is raised above Fenway Park for the home opener.

The team in the third-base dugout for that historic event? The New York Yankees.

Sweet.

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For Epstein, actions speak just as loud as words
By Nick Cafardo, Boston Globe

ST. LOUIS -- His torment lasted only 30 years, much less than most Red Sox fans', but unlike most, Theo Epstein actually did something about it.

The youthful general manager often spoke about taking the Red Sox to a world championship after he was tabbed the 11th GM of the Sox Nov. 25, 2002 after Billy Beane and J.P. Ricciardi had turned down Boston's advances, but ever the realists, Red Sox fans met Epstein's plans with caution, if not disbelief.

Why were Epstein's goals and dreams not the same old rhetoric that had been spewed by well-meaning Lou Gorman, Haywood Sullivan, and Dick O'Connell?

Epstein must have spent as much of his first season deflecting jokes about his youth and inexperience as he did trying to trumpet his agenda for making the Sox World Series contenders.

After just two seasons on the job, the New York City-born and Brookline-raised Epstein was celebrating with champagne with his players, some younger, some older, in the visiting clubhouse at Busch Stadium, looking and acting every bit the kid from Brookline and laughing all the way to immortality.

"We're a really good team and we did it in style," said Epstein, wearing a cap that was drenched with periodic pourings of beer and champagne. "We won 45 out of the last 60 I think. We made some history. History will point out that it really doesn't matter how it got done so much as it did get done."

He had one spectacular offseason, clearly outdoing his Yankee counterpart, Brian Cashman, who, despite landing Alex Rodriguez, couldn't land a superstar pitcher. Epstein was able to close the deal for Curt Schilling on Thanksgiving Day at Schilling's Arizona home in what turned out to be a more significant signing. Epstein also signed closer Keith Foulke and second baseman Mark Bellhorn before engineering one of the gutsiest deals in Red Sox history, sending the popular Nomar Garciaparra to the Cubs in a four-team swap that brought Twins first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz and Montreal shortstop Orlando Cabrera to Boston to shore up what Epstein had recognized as a sloppy defense.

The year before, Epstein acquired David Ortiz and turned him from platoon player into superstar. He tied up Trot Nixon with a long-term deal, and brought in value players such as ill Mueller and Kevin Millar.

"He did a remarkable thing," said Sox principal owner John W. Henry, who appropriately wore a raincoat in the euphoric Sox clubhouse. "He went out and traded the face of the franchise for defense and speed. That was a gutsy, gutsy move and it's undoubtedly one of the major reasons why we're here tonight celebrating a world championship."

After the personnel were in place, Epstein watched an amazing transformation from a .500 team of bumbling defensive players to one that never beat itself. The Red Sox won the last eight games of the playoffs.

"I never thought of it in those terms," Epstein said. "We were just trying to win day to day after we went three down to the Yankees. Once we made history there, we took the same approach to the Cardinals, just win one game at a time until we accomplished our goals. Our scouting staff did an outstanding job and our pitchers should get credit for executing it. These things don't happen by accident. There was a lot of hard work that went into it."

After all those years, all that torment, this one felt every bit as good as advertised.

"All that adversity makes it that much sweeter," Epstein said. "This one will mean more than any that come after it because of all that happened before it."

Epstein had some water coming from his eyes, and when asked if he were crying said, "That's beer coming from my head. I do not cry. I'm a true modern American male."

As he watched Foulke flip to Mientkiewicz for the final out of the historic game, Epstein began thinking of Red Sox lore, and how this validated all the great players and teams that had played before.

"You start thinking about Ted Williams and Yaz and everyone else who should have had one of these," Epstein said.

Asked about the term "band of idiots," the Yale law school grad said, "They're our band of idiots. They're pretty special people. Idiots and all."

Epstein won it without coming close to accomplishing his goal of rebuilding the farm system so it could produce a steady stream of home-grown talent to be used on the parent team or as trade bait for bigger deals. He did it without having to trade major prospects in the organization.

"Well, we're really proud of the fact that we only traded two of our top 25 prospects, we didn't spend a ton of money in free agency. We stuck to our principles and beliefs. We have a solid foundation and we're going to build on it," Epstein said.

After these once-in-a-lifetime champagne-drenched moments, one had to wonder, where does Epstein go from here?

"We need to keep a major Red Sox team together," Epstein said. "I'd love to be able to tell every one of these guys they'll be back next year. We have to be consistent in our approach and put the team first. We have to take into consideration the whole sum of the parts and formulate a plan for next year."

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Red Sox Nation rejoice
By Jim Caple, ESPN

ST. LOUIS -- How does it feel Red Sox fans?

After all those decades, after all those agonizing last minute failures, after all those "1918" taunts from Yankees fans, how does it feel? After Johnny Pesky and Ed Armbrister and Bill Buckner, how does it feel? After the crushing Game 7 losses in 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986, after the final bitter disappointments in 1949 and 1978 and 2003, after those many more seasons where there never were even hopes in September to crush, how does it feel?

The moment for which Boston waited 86 years finally occurred Wednesday night when the Red Sox completed a four-game sweep of the Cardinals at Busch Stadium. On the night of a total lunar eclipse, the Red Sox eclipsed nearly a century of misery and failure by blanking St. Louis 3-0 in Game 4 of the World Series to win their first title since 1918 and send their fans dancing into the streets more wildly than Carlton Fisk twisting down the first-base line.

Yes, the unthinkable came true. The sun rose in the west, hell froze over and the Red Sox won the World Series. Go ahead. Pinch yourself. You're not dreaming.

"There are only 25 of us," pitcher Curt Schilling said. "We're the only living players who can all say we're part of the world champion Boston Red Sox team."

Think about that. It's such a simple sentence but no one has been able to say those words since Babe Ruth still played for the Red Sox, World War I still was raging and George Steinbrenner hadn't signed a single free agent. But now guys named Schilling, Pedro, Manny and Damon can. The team that crushed hopes more surely than any club outside of Chicago, the team synonymous with postseason failure, the team that was three outs from being swept by the Yankees just over a week ago ... is now officially the World Series champion.

Lowe saved Boston's season last week with his Game 4 start, won the clincher against the Yankees in Game 7 and in what was probably his last start in a Red Sox uniform, shut out the Cardinals on three hits for seven innings before handing it over the bullpen. After allowing nine runs in the series opener, Boston pitchers held the National League's most productive offense to four runs and 13 hits the final three games. The heart of the Cardinals offense -- Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds -- had six hits and one RBI in 45 at-bats while Rolen and Edmonds managed only an infield single in their 30 combined at-bats.

The offense was so quiet -- Larry Walker was reduced to bunting in the first inning -- that the famous Cardinals fans joined right in, cheering so little and so unenthusiastically that they often were drowned out by Red Sox fans. Which isn't that surprising, Red Sox Nation was so loud and supportive that it deserves a seat on the UN Security Council.

"This is such an emotional lift for people in New England and all over the world," Boston general manager Theo Epstein said "I hope they enjoy it. I hope they do something good with it. I hope they go vote Tuesday and make the world a better place."

"There's a lot of negativity (in Boston), a lot of people waiting for bad things to happen," Mientkiewicz said. "But we had the perfect people to not let that happen again. We've got lunatics like Kevin Millar coming in and saying things. We kept saying to ourselves, 'We aren't going to accept that (attitude). We kept saying, 'It's our time. It's our time.'"

So many times, over so many years, the Red Sox were just innings or outs away from reaching or winning the World Series, only to lose in the end. Not this time. This time, there was no ball rolling through the first baseman's legs. This time, with two out in the ninth, Edgar Renteria slapped a one-hopper back to the mound and closer Keith Foulke stabbed it with his glove. He turned toward first base, took a couple steps and then flipped the ball to Mientkiewicz for the final out. And as the Red Sox piled atop each other until they were higher than the Green Monster, Mientkiewicz grabbed the baseball as tightly as he could.

"I put the Polish death grip on it," he said. "When we beat the Yankees I gave the ball to Derek but this one I'm keeping. This one is staying with me."

How about that? After 86 years, this time the World Series championship baseball is firmly in the grip of the Red Sox and for Boston fans the sweetest of possible words are these:

"The Boston Red Sox haven't won the World Series since 11:40 p.m. EDT last night."

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Now the tears are of joy
By Jackie MacMullan, Boston Globe

ST. LOUIS -- In a matter of 11 days, they turned the baseball world upside down. The Boston Red Sox, a franchise that had cornered the market on hardball heartache, that had shed too many tears and endured too many disappointments, vowed this time to alter history.

The 2004 version of New England's most valued treasure, a happy bunch of idiots with flowing manes and sturdy bats, refused to buy into the myths that had burdened their predecessors.

Instead, they found a way to write a new chapter in Red Sox lore, transforming themselves from frustrated losers on the brink of elimination to the finest of champions, laying claim to the most coveted prize in all of sports.

A World Series ring.

Go ahead. Say it. The Boston Red Sox have won the World Series. Let it roll off your tongue, washing away the bitter taste of 1948 and 1978 and 1986 and 2003. Let Bill Buckner and Mike Torrez and Grady Little go gracefully into the night. Let go of all the angst and anger and agony that has been simmering for 86 years.

Revel in this unorthodox group of athletes, who danced to their own beat, purists be damned. Marvel at their uncanny ability to rise from the ashes, and resurrect themselves in the most improbable of situations. No baseball team had come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series until the Red Sox pinned that indignity on their most hated rivals, the New York Yankees.

Last night, seven days later, they completed a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals, a team they dominated from the first pitch to the last, with a 3-0 victory in Game 4. After so many years of waiting, this Boston team made it look easy. Its pitcher, Derek Lowe, was superb. Its quirky center fielder, Johnny Damon, hit a leadoff homer last night to knock the Cardinals to where they had been from the beginning: on their heels. The Red Sox' defense, constructed with care at the cost of a former All-Star shortstop, was again reliable and comforting in the late innings.

There were times this ball club was infuriating, inconsistent, and undisciplined. The Sox were often questioned about their loose rules and long hair, but when it mattered most, they locked arms, banded together, and fulfilled the dreams of generations of crusty New Englanders.

"We did it, man," said Manny Ramirez, who nearly a year ago had so disheartened his employers he was put on waivers and went unclaimed. "I wish I was in Boston right now to celebrate with everyone." The unfamiliar surroundings of St. Louis did nothing to dampen the mood. There was first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, skipping across the top of the Sox' dugout, celebrating with close to 1,000 Red Sox fans who refused to leave Busch Stadium. There was Curt Schilling, the most significant acquisition of the season, grabbing Jason Varitek by the shoulders and announcing, "Ladies and gentlemen, here is the leader of the 2004 Boston Red Sox." He then doused his catcher liberally with a double dose of Bud Light.

Varitek, so used to maintaining his businesslike visage, finally allowed himself to exhale and enjoy a moment he has been trying to orchestrate his entire career.

"I've been waiting seven years for this, but there are people in Boston who have been waiting a lot longer," he said. "It's such a relief for this to finally happen. As passionate as our fans are, they deserve this so much."

The fantasy that New Englanders had been hoping for officially went into the books at 11:40 last night, when Keith Foulke fielded Edgar Renteria's ground ball and gingerly tossed it to Mientkiewicz at first base. The Red Sox' dugout immediately emptied, with the players gathering at home plate and jumping up and down in unison, a victory scrum for a team that overcame nearly impossible odds.

"I'm still kind of in a daze," acknowledged right fielder Trot Nixon, who submitted three doubles in the clincher. "Did this really happen? I can only imagine what's going on back home right now."

More than one hour after the championship had been won, fans remained in this visiting ballpark, chanting "Thank You, Red Sox!" and "Papi, Papi!" in honor of the latest folk hero, David Ortiz. The Nation truly does extend across this country, as children as young as 2 years old wearing Red Sox garb toddled into the outfield as midnight approached. One woman, wearing the now signature "I believe!" jersey, admitted she was "over 82, that's all you need to know." She has been a Red Sox fan, she said, since she was old enough to have a paper route to pay for tickets.

She grew to love this ragtag group for who they were: a freewheeling group that did not sweat the small stuff, and never took themselves too seriously. As Ramirez explained last night, "We always knew who we were. We never doubted who we were.

"Baseball is supposed to be fun. When you play that way, the game is easy. We found a way to make baseball easy."

Hard to imagine that 11 days ago, Kevin Millar would be filming his own home video version of "the greatest comeback in baseball history." Hard to imagine 11 days ago that Lowe -- how do you let this guy walk now? -- was banished from the rotation, a lame-duck pitcher with no future in this town. Hard to imagine 11 days ago, Pedro Martinez's season, and perhaps his career with the Sox, was about to end in despair -- again -- against the Yankees.

Last night, Pedro hugged his manager, his teammates, his pitching coach, his trainer, his friend Ortiz. He doused his jeri curls with champagne and tears, only this time they were tears of satisfaction, and joy.

This time, the history of the Boston Red Sox had the very happiest of endings.

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The change of all changes
By Jayson Stark, ESPN

ST. LOUIS -- A hundred years from now, how will we make people understand what just happened here?

How will we ever make them understand what happened The Year The Red Sox Finally Won The World Series?

There was no way they could ever do this the good old normal way. Never. They're the Red Sox.

They had ghosts to blow away and lots of them. They had curses to blow away and not just any curse.

They had fathers and grandmothers and many a lost generation to redeem, to heal, to shower in tears of joy.

So their work wasn't easy. They always understood that. But who would ever have figured on this? Who would have ever figure it would take the most amazing week and a half in the history of sports?

Nobody goes from humiliation to annihilation in 11 insane days. But the Red Sox did.

Nobody goes from sweep-ee to sweep-er in 11 life-altering days. But the Red Sox did.

And then there they were, on the final Wednesday night in October, in a big, round stadium in Missouri, doing what we once thought we would never live to see. And allowing us to type a sentence we once thought we would never live to type:

The Boston Red Sox won the World Series. We saw it with our own eyes.

"They can take that curse thing now and put it where the sun don't shine," said Keith Foulke, the man who threw the final pitch of the 3-0 victory that completed a four-game obliteration of the St. Louis Cardinals. "That curse is over. Now we'll never have to hear about that thing again."

Well, not in the present tense, anyway. But as long ago as 1918 seemed Wednesday night, Oct. 17 might have seemed even longer ago.

Tell us this really happened. Tell us that, on Oct. 17, this team was really three outs away from getting swept by the Yankees, and the only way to stay alive was to score a run off the Greatest October Closer in the History of Mankind, Mariano Rivera.

And then tell us this really happened. Tell us that, just 11 days later, with no pinstripes within a thousand miles, Pedro Martinez was racing around the outfield of Busch Stadium lifting the World Series trophy above his head. And hundreds of Red Sox fans remained frozen in their seats in this strange stadium in this strange land, chanting in unison at a 1.8-trillion decibel level: "Red Sox Nation. Red Sox Nation."

OK, it really happened. We have witnesses. But how? In 11 days? This wasn't a comeback. This was a reincarnation.

Rack your brain. Tell us any team ever, in any sport, ever had a week and a half like this team just had. From down, 0-3, in one series -- to sweeping the World Series?

"Never," Doug Mientkiewicz said. "It would be hard to do it again. I know that. But I think one thing this group never stopped doing was believing it could win. Even down, 0-3, guys were standing in this clubhouse saying, `Don't let us win one, because we just might get on a roll.'"

A roll? Heck, it was more like a tsunami. But as it turned out, it wouldn't be 100 percent true to say that everyone believed back then. We have witnesses for that, too.

"I understand," GM Theo Epstein confessed, "that certain people in this organization were literally writing their concession speeches around the seventh inning of Game 4. Not me, of course. But people were putting together speaking points -- about how deeply disappointed we all were, things we'd be working on to get ready for next year. I mean, it didn't look real good."

Yeah, you might say that. But even as that ninth inning began that night, as the great Mariano flipped his warm-ups toward home plate, the men in the other dugout were already plotting just how the world was about to change.

"We knew if we could just get one guy on, we could get Dave (Roberts) in the game," Mientkiewicz said. "And Dave has the ability to steal second, even when everyone in the world knows he's going. And then that's just how it worked out. It just seemed like every time our backs were against the wall, we had the right guy in the right place to do exactly what he was capable of doing."

Could you possibly sum up this last week and a half better than that last sentence? Right guy? Right place? Right everything? From that moment on -- for 11 days, for eight mind-boggling baseball games -- everything went right.

For the Boston Red Sox.

In October.

What a country.

For a week and a half, it seemed as if all that Stuff That Always Happened to the Red Sox was suddenly happening for the Red Sox.

Who knows how? Who knows why? Who knows who pulled what switch to make everything change in the universe?

But it changed, all right. Did it ever.

So of course, Kevin Millar drew a walk against Rivera. And of course, Roberts pinch-ran for him and stole second. And of course, Bill Mueller slapped a single past the sprawling Mariano to tie the game. And of course, David Ortiz bombed a walkoff homer in the middle of the night to win it.

And so the tidal wave began. The comeback against Rivera again the next day (well, actually that day). The Ortiz blooper that won Game 5 in the 14th. The astounding masterpiece pitched by The Man With The Bloody Sock (Curt Schilling) in Game 6.

The Game 6 call that somehow went their way -- in Yankee Stadium -- when A-Rod played The Karate Kid. The Johnny Damon-Derek Lowe Show that fueled that historic Game 7 wipeout.

And then on to the Series, where the big wheels just kept on turning. Damon doubling to lead off the first inning of Game 1. Ortiz homering to make it 4-0. Four errors. Manny's Divot. Red Sox 11, Cardinals 9. And little did we know -- this Series was over.

"I was worried, after New York, that we wouldn't have enough juice to get back out there and grind it out and do it again," Mientkiewicz said. "But this group never stopped believing. We just kept saying, `It's our time.'"

And that's exactly what it was -- their time. The Cardinals won more games than any team in baseball this year. The Red Sox made them look like the Canton Crocodiles.

It's hard enough to sweep a team that won 105 games. But the Red Sox didn't just sweep these Cardinals. They dismantled them.

The Cardinals became the first team in the history of the World Series to trail at some point in every inning of every game. The most feared lineup in the National League hit .190 for the World Series, .143 after Game 1. Of the last 84 Cardinals hitters to come to the plate, 74 of them made an out. Over the final three games, they had one multi-hit inning.

Schilling won again in Game 2. Pedro turned back into Pedro in Game 3. And then there they were in Game 4, one win away.

From the moment Damon smoked the fourth pitch of the evening into the Cardinals' bullpen, for the first Red Sox World Series leadoff homer in 101 years, you knew. It was their time. Really.

Two innings later, Trot Nixon got a 3-and-0 green light, with two outs and the bases loaded -- and squashed it halfway up the right-field fence for two more runs. It was their time. Wasn't it?

"Not at all," Nixon said. "Not with the kind of lineup those guys have. We knew we were still going to need a great pitching performance. … When you've got the enemy on the side of the cliff, you need to step on his hand and let him fall. You don't give him the opportunity to get his hand back up on the mountain."

But the innings went by, and the hand still hung on that mountain. A half-dozen Red Sox hitters came to the plate with a chance to put this thing away, so all those paramedics all over New England could go home. But nobody could get that hit.

They had to leave 12 runners on base -- seven in scoring position. They had to. They're the Red Sox.

"I'm telling you, man. That was gut-wrenching," Nixon said. "I couldn't take it. I probably won't sleep for three days after that. But that's just the way we go about it around here."

On this night, though, Lowe wouldn't let that lead shrink. He pounded those Cardinals with sinkers for seven brilliant three-hit innings. Then he passed the ball to Bronson Arroyo, who passed it on to Alan Embree, who handed it to Foulke. Who got to do what Calvin Schiraldi and Bob Stanley and Dick Drago never got to do:

Throw that pitch. The pitch that ended an 86-year nervous breakdown.

"I don't even remember it, to tell you the truth," Foulke would say later, drenched in champagne from his head to his socks. "What kind of pitch was it? It was an out. That's all I know."

It was an out. That's all that mattered.

Just minutes before, Foulke had stood there, 60 feet away from the man who would make that out (Edgar Renteria), thinking about how shocked he was to feel as calm as he felt.

"It was probably a lot tougher, sitting in the stands, or watching on TV, or watching from the dugout," he said. "It was a lot easier to have the ball in my hand than it was to watch."

If he only knew. The tying run was on deck. All across the universe, the hearts of all those Red Sox fans -- young or old, husband or wife, son or daughter, uncle or aunt, grandma or grandpa -- were pumping faster than hearts should be allowed to pump.

And then Edgar Renteria was one-hopping That Out right back to the mound. Right to Keith Foulke. Who stabbed it out of the air. And began trotting toward first base. Where he flipped it to Mientkiewicz. And at that moment -- 10:40 p.m. in the Central Time Zone -- the world became a whole different place.

The Boston Red Sox had won the World Series.

"It didn't take long to sink in," Foulke said. "At first, it was a strange thing. You never know what's going to happen until the last out is made. But after it's made, I found myself saying, `Whoah. We did it.'"

Whoah. They did it. We saw it. You saw it. It must be true.

But when our memories begin to fade, how will we explain this? How will we make people understand what just happened here? How will we make ourselves understand what just happened?

How can anyone ever explain the most amazing week and a half in the history of sports? Was it really only 11 days earlier they were three outs away from another one of Those Winters? It seems like 11 years ago now.

"I'll tell you what," Epstein said. "I think I was only 14 during that Angels series, it seems so long ago. I can't even remember that anymore."

Aw, but who cares? He'll remember this night. Who won't?

It was The Night The Red Sox Won The World Series. The night they set the ghosts free.

"We knew it wasn't going to be easy," Mientkiewicz said. "So we had to do something different. We had to do something that never happened before."

They had to. They're the Red Sox. And now they're something they haven't been for 86 paralyzing years.

Now, finally, they're the champs.

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