The feeling is unbelievable
ST. LOUIS -- I called the Red Sox switchboard early yesterday afternoon. It took a while to plow through the recorded message, but when an operator finally came on, she said, "Thank you for calling the . . . um . . . world champion Boston Red Sox."
It's going to take time getting used to this new handle for the local baseball team. Even the folks on Yawkey Way are having problems spitting it out. It just doesn't roll off the tongue easily. Not after all these years, fears, and tears.
Casual baseball fans in places like Miami and Atlanta -- people with no sense of hardball history or the Worth Of The Wait -- have had the privilege of talking about their World Series-winning baseball teams. Not us: not unless you are old enough to remember when the doughboys came home from Europe.
The sparkling streets of St. Louis yesterday morning were still peppered with smiling New Englanders wearing all forms of Sox garb. And let's say one thing about our gracious hosts from the heartland: these people have class. Their baseball team did not show up for the World Series. The Cardinals (Tony La Russa is 0-8 in his last two World Series) played soft and scared, and in the end, were mere props for the Red Sox glory story. But Cardinal fans never once got ugly when Red Sox Nation invaded their palace. Sox fans were allowed to cheer and linger, and the amazing hospitality spilled out into the streets.
The downtown intersection of Pine and 4th streets was a mob scene at 2:30 a.m. yesterday, three hours after Keith Foulke underhanded his throw to Doug Mientkiewicz. The Sox had returned to the Adam's Mark Hotel to pack, and Boston players were cheered with gusto as they walked outside to board the buses bound for the St. Louis Airport.
This was worth the wait, no?
More than 1,200 players wore the Red Sox uniform since the last time the Sox won the World Series. Seventy-eight teams in the four major sports won championships. Sixteen United States presidents were elected.
In the end, the Babe Ruth stuff was still everywhere. This was the first time the Cardinals had been swept in a World Series since 1928, when the Bambino hit three homers to beat them in Game 4. The final out Wednesday came on a grounder off the bat of Edgar Renteria, No. 3 in your World Series program. Oh, and the game was played on the 84th birthday of No No Nanette Fabray. Naturally, she was born in 1920 -- the year you-know-who was sold to the Yankees.
But despite the fact the game was played on the night of a lunar eclipse, producing a blood red moon in many parts of the nation, there was nothing flukish about the Red Sox' dominance of the Cardinals. Boston won the World Series because the Red Sox were the best team in baseball. There have been times in the past when we thought they were the best and we made excuses about bad luck, bad umps, bad karma, etc. This time Boston just overwhelmed the Yankees and Cardinals on pure talent. The Sox have never had the best pitching. This year, they won on the strength of their arms. Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, and Derek Lowe all pitched like the 20-game winners they are. The Sox are the first team in history to win eight straight postseason games in the same year.
What do you do if you are Theo Epstein now? He's 30 years old. The youngest general manager in baseball history delivered a World Series win to a championship-starved region in his second year on the job. What's left?
And precisely where do we put Schilling in the pantheon of Boston sports favorites? In a single year, he did what Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski couldn't do between 1939-1983. Schilling delivered a championship, and he did it pitching with a sutured right ankle for his last two starts. Downright Bird-like. Or Brady-esque.
A half-hour after it ended, in the middle of a field cluttered with Sox players, front office folk, assorted employees, family members, and media, I saw a 60-year-old man who grew up in Central Massachusetts kneel around third base and scoop some dirt into an envelope. A keepsake for the kids? Or maybe something to stash away in his sock drawer? This is what the Red Sox do to people.
Personally, I already miss the old Red Sox a little.
The Red Sox as we have always known them are gone forever. They never again will be the cuddly team on a near century-long, quixotic quest. They are no longer cursed and they will cease to be America's team as soon as the hangover wears off. The ghosts are purged. Buckner and Friends are off the hook. All of them.
Now the men who play at Fenway Park are simply the World Champion Boston Red Sox. The best team in baseball.
I guess we'll have to settle for that.
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is dshaughnessy@globe.com.
