LITTLE ROCK — Ancient history tells us the Boston Red Sox were baseball's dominant team of the early 20th century. Are they about to pull the same stunt in the 21st?
In 1903, when the established National League started making financial peace by reluctantly acknowledging the 3-year-old American League as a fact of life, Boston defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first World Series.
Boston's 1904 pennant winner was deprived of a shot at postseason glory because John McGraw, manager and part owner of the New York Giants, refused to send his NL champions (106-47) against the representative of what he called "a bush league."
(There has been a World Series each year since then, with the exception of 1994 when a players strike aborted activity in early August.)
From 1903-1918, the Red Sox won six AL pennants and the five World Seriesthey entered. Probably the most casual baseball fan could recite the legend that the franchise was wrecked at the end of World War I by Harry Frazee, an owner desperate for ready cash. So he started unloading his front-line players to the New York Yankees, most notably Babe Ruth for $125,000 or so.
From 1921 to the present, the Yankees have played in 39 World Series and won 26. The Red Sox finally won their way back to the World Series in 1946 after a 28-year Series absence. As heavy favorites, they lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games.
They won another pennant in 1967 and lost to the Cardinals in seven games.
In 1975, they joined Cincinnati's Big Red Machine in one of the more exciting Series of all time - and lost in seven games.
In the 10th inning of the sixth game of the 1986 Series, Boston had the New York Mets two runs down and one out away from elimination. Three singles, a wild pitch, and Mookie Wilson's slow roller through the legs of first baseman Bill Buckner saved the Mets - who won the Series in seven games.
I can't recall when the Red Sox plight started being blamed on "the curse of the Bambino." It could have been after the seventh game of the 1946 Series, when the Cards' Enos Slaughter scored the winning run from first base while shortstop Johnny Pesky hesitated on a relay throw.
Or it might have been during the last two days of the 1949 schedule. The Red Sox went to Yankee Stadium needing to win one game in two tries for the pennant. The Yankees beat them twice, thus starting Manager Casey Stengel's run of five consecutive pennants and World Series championships.
The 1978 Red Sox led their division by 11 games in late July, but wound up tied with the Yankees for first place. A special one-game playoff was ordered.
New York won on a three-run home run by shortstop Bucky Dent, who hit five home runs that season and 40 in a big-league career of 1,392 games. (I've heard that many Red Sox fans still give Dent an unpleasant middle name when they speak of him.)
You know, of course, the Red Sox shook the curse of the Bambino by winning everything in 2004, after trailing the Yankees 3-0 in the best-of-7 ALChampionship Series. No other team had ever rebounded from 0-3 with four consecutive victories.
For their first World Series championship in 86 years, the Red Sox swept an astonished Cardinals club that had dominated the NL with a 105-57 record.
To reach this year's World Series, the Red Sox had to come back from 1-3 to beat the Cleveland Indians in the AL Championship Series, before butchering the Cinderella Colorado Rockies in four games.
"This is a very different team, a very different organization than the Red Sox of your father's days," pitcher Curt Schilling said after the rout of the Rockies. "They're going to continue ... to be a force. We have young, we have old, and it starts at the top."
The Yankees haven't survived a division series in three years. Joe Torre is gone, Alex Rodriguez is going, and no one seems to know the plans ofMariano Rivera, Jorge Posada or Andy Pettitte.
Lately, the Yankees behave like the former Red Sox, while the Red Sox do a convincing imitation of the old-time, ruthlessly efficient Yankees. This can prove to be a fascinating new baseball century.
Sports, Pages 16 on 10/30/2007