DENVER – For 86 years, winning a championship was impossible for the Boston Red Sox. Their failures became legendary. School kids knew about the Curse of the Bambino before they could count to 10.
Now look at those Red Sox.
They make what had been so difficult for the franchise seem so easy.
It may not be an annual event, but the Sox have regained that championship feeling.
With a 4-3 victory against the Colorado Rockies in Game 4 of the World Series at Coors Field Sunday night, the Red Sox not only won their second world championship in four years, but they swept the World Series for the second time in four seasons.
That’s the way it was for the Red Sox back in the early years. They won five world championships in a seven-year period from 1912-18.
But then came the hard times, the kind that makes it hard for the Sox or their fans to really have much sympathy for the Rockies, who haven’t had much to cheer about in their history, even if it is a history only 15 seasons old. OK, this was only the second winning season in 10 years for the Rockies, their first postseason appearance in 13 years and only the second in their 15-year existence.
Seem like a long struggle?
Check out the Sox, from the Curse of the Bambino to Bucky F—–ing Dent to nightmares of Bill Buckner, they didn’t merely go 86 years between world championships — they rarely even got a chance at a championship.
The team that sold Babe Ruth to the hated Yankees after the 1918 season went 50 years with only one World Series appearance — 1946 — and has made only five in the last 90 years. The salvation is that after coming up short in the World Series in 1946, 1967 and 1986, and then being eliminated in the playoffs in 1988, 1990, 1995, 1998, 1999 and 2003, the Red Sox have found the winning touch.
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They swept St. Louis in 2004. They swept the Rockies in 2007, in what is the most lopsided sweep in history, outscoring the Rockies by 29 runs.
And they aren’t done yet.
“It doesn’t get old,” manager Terry Francona said. “I couldn’t breathe the last inning (Sunday). You’re fighting so hard to get through that game, and so many guys had to dig deep.”
The Rockies felt they turned a corner this year, their home-grown foundation (16 players developed from within on the World Series roster) finally coming together and learning that more than a collection of good players, they are a good team.
“That’s what any team has to understand to take the step (to a championship),” rookie shortstop Troy Tulowitzki said.
The Red Sox, however, aren’t heading off into the sunset. What makes this year’s Red Sox so much more promising for the future than the 2004 edition is that, while 2004 had only one home-grown player — outfielder Trot Nixon — this year’s version had a talented mixture of players both home-grown and brought in.
There were the greybeards — Jason Varitek, Curt Schilling, Mike Lowell, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, — and there was a foundation for the future with the emergence of rookies Dustin Pedroia at second and Jacoby Ellsbury in center to go with the young arms of closer Jonathan Papelbon and No. 1 starter Josh Beckett.
Lowell, with free agency looming, was the World Series MVP. He capped off his postseason by doubling and scoring the second run on Sunday and delivering a home run for the third run.
But there was Beckett setting the tone with his Game 1 domination. Papelbon finished off the Rockies, not only earning saves in each of the last three games, but coming in during the eighth inning all three times, something he had never done on back-to-back days in the regular season.
Pedroia provided a season-long energy, and it was Ellsbury who provided the lift when the Sox seemed on the verge of elimination in the ALCS. Replacing Coco Crisp in center field with the Red Sox trailing the Indians in the series 3-1, Ellsbury saw the Red Sox run off seven consecutive wins after his insertion in the lineup.
And of course there is Francona, who has taken the Red Sox to three postseason appearances and two world championships in four years.
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