The Boston Red Sox, 2007 American League Champions…man that sounds good. Who didn’t think that was possible 3 days ago? Who didn’t think it was possible when our leadoff hitter was batting a whopping .188 and we only had one pitcher make it through the 5th inning in a game? When we only had two, maybe three batters who could hit and every pitcher looked like the length of the season had finally gotten to them? I know that 3 days ago I was pissed and confused, but as Wally Shawn might say I certainly didn’t think it was “inconceivable!” And now that’s all a memory. For the second time in four years, the Sox came back from deficits of at least three games to one to win the AL pennant. Damn these guys are good.

Having Millar throw out the first pitch was freaking brilliant. He might have stolen some champagne on his way out, but what a smart way to remind Cleveland “we’ve been here before, and you haven’t.”

This has to be the most surreal big game I’ve ever followed. I say followed, because due to work I was dragged kicking and screaming away from my hotel TV. As a result the game kind of feels like a dream, I know they won, but without the intense living and dying on every pitch, it doesn’t feel quite real yet. Anyways, because of work I kind of broke the game down into three sections: watching the first two innings in the hotel, receiving text messages from Kim while I was stuck on the bus and getting calls from Kim while I was stuck on the factory line.

While the score may look similar to the game 7 the Sox played three years ago, it certainly didn’t feel that way. Pulling out to the early lead a big boost, but I’d be lying if I felt comfortable with a 3 run lead after leaving four runners on and hitting into three(!!) double plays in the first four innings. Of course I was vindicated by Dice-K giving up 2 runs in the fourth and fifth innings to cut the lead to 3-2.

Dice-K certainly was no Beckett, but considering his last few starts he “sacked up” big-time. He got off to a great start and basically breezed through the first three innings. Then he clearly hit a road-block in the fourth but managed to keep the lead going into the sixth, he may just have earned all $103M on his paycheck. (Alright, maybe we should hold a few bucks back until the World Series.)

Some games have a turning point when you go from feeling confused about the outcome to feeling confident. When I got the call from Kim explaining what happened in the 7th inning, I knew that was it. Down a run, with one out Kenny Lofton gets second base on a Lugo error. Then Gutierez singles to left and the ball bounces off the grandstand back into left field. For some inane reason the Indians 3rd base coach decides to hold Lofton, rather than letting him easily score the tying run. Instead, the Indians got fed a bit of their own medicine as Casey Blake hit into an inning-ending 5-4-3 DP. (Note that that’s not a 6-4-3 DP, because that would mean the Lugo had helped the team in some way.) And just after one DP hurt the Indians, so did another one, Dustin Pedroia. Three batters into the bottom 7th Dustin does his best big Papi impression hitting a 2-run dong into the monstah and flips the bat away as soon as he makes contact. Instead of 3-3, it’s now 5-2 Sox and suddenly the smile had been wiped off Chief Wahoo’s politically incorrect face.

I’m not going to say I was ordering my American League Champions hat after that sequence of events, but that was mostly due to the Vietnam-like flashbacks I was having to a certain game 7 in 2003 (and the fact that I still was away from a computer and instead calling Kim like a mad-man for updates). And Tito didn’t help that by leaving a clearly tired Oki in to give up 2 leadoff singles to start the 8th. But unlike his predecessor Tito took the ball from Oki and gave it to his best reliever who got out of it despite one very loud final out.

A couple more (say…SIX) insurance runs later and some loud outs by Paps and we were in-store for yet another drunken Papel-jigg on the field. Each one is sweeter than the last.

As we leave the ALCS and head to the World Series, here are a few parting thoughts:

• Holy shit, we came back from 3-1…again.
• I really hope people don’t call this an Indians collapse and instead recognize that it was just a fabulous job by the Sox to out-pitch, out-hit and out-field the Indians.
• Beckett can now add one more notch on his bedpo…errr, trophy to his trophy case with an ALCS MVP trophy.
• Fuck you very much Kenny Lofton. See you next year on your 45th teams in the past 10 years. Enjoy your offseason bitching to anyone who will listen.

And with that, I’m off to drink some sweet sweet Dirty Water, otherwise known as Chinese knock-off champagne, and enjoy my prop Cuban cigar.