The anticlimactic nature of the 2007 World Series could have best been summed up in the top the eighth inning in Sunday night's Game 4, when news broke of Alex Rodriguez opting out of his mega-contract. Or, as it might be more correctly stated, when agent Scott Boras broke the news to his contacts that he was going to drop this on everyone during a World Series game.
And for that half-inning, a free-agency story on October 28 became bigger than the actual game on the field.
To be fair, who can blame FOX for the 10 close-ups of John Henry either on his Blackberry or talking to other Red Sox higher-ups?
After all, this postseason's best game was one that baseball doesn't even recognize as an actual playoff game (the NL tiebreaker between the Rockies and Padres). Plus, the thought of A-Rod moving to his current club's sworn arch-enemy was more intriguing than the game and the series being given to the average viewer.
The real story, however, to this average viewer who only watches baseball in very late September and October, was how the Red Sox had managed to come up so big with their arms and bats at every occasion necessary after losing Game 4 of the League Championship Series in Cleveland.
And at hardly any point in any of the seven straight Boston victories to close the postseason, did I believe that the Red Sox would lose even once.
Game 5 at Cleveland had Josh Beckett pitching for Boston in October, which would probably mean a loss for even the 1927 Yankees. Game 6 was a blowout from the start with J.D. Drew's lined Grand Slam shot to the Fenway Park center field camera stands.
Game 7 will see an 11-2 game officially in the record books, but was a 3-2 game in the seventh before Kenny Lofton was held at third, a decision that more or less ended the game for Cleveland given the quality of the Red Sox bullpen.
And the story continued with the Game 1 domination of Beckett and the bats over Jeff Francis and the over-rested Rockies. It's easy to forget that Colorado led in the top of the first in Game 2, but the confident Red Sox did just enough and won with the pitching of Curt Schilling, Hideki Okajima and Jonathan Papelbon, 2-1.
The marathon that was Game 3 was the one in which I had the feeling the Red Sox would lose, after Boston nearly let their six run lead run dry, after Matt Holliday's three-run centerfield homer. Game 4, while another one-run game, had the Red Sox bats striking early, with Papelbon earning another fantastic, over one-inning save.
All seven games, in their own ways, outlined the greatness of this Red Sox team. And I'm not talking about greatness as in "this team is now a dynasty," or "this team is one of the greatest ever," I'm talking about the ability for the Red Sox to have their backs against the wall in the 2004 LCS and 2007 LCS, and turn both into dominant World Series sweeps.
Despite having 80% roster turnover between 2004 and 2007, it seems like this team and their comeback was a direct extension of that team and that comeback.
Along the same lines, it really is no coincidence that after Game 4 in Cleveland, when David Ortiz and Schilling called a players-only meeting that the Red Sox resembled the team that won four straight do-or-die games against the Yankees.
When history looks back on this postseason, it will see that five out of seven postseason series were sweeps. The thing to remember, though, is what an outstanding team the Red Sox were when they had to be.
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