Be Careful What You Wish For

On Sunday night, after the Sox swept away the Angels, WBZ-TV ran a poll to see who Sox fans preferred to see in the ALCS. More than 75% chose the Indians over the hated Yankees. Count me in that overwhelming majority. There is just one problem. The Indians were the much better team.


So if the Yankees are the weaker team, why didn't we want to meet them? Well, I can't speak for everyone else, but I didn't want to see the Bombers because they scared the absolute bejezus out of me. Call it the ghosts of 78 or 03 or simply being afraid of the bogieman. But I just felt, for some reason especially this year, that they Yanks had our number. And they knew it. Just as the Sox knew they would dismiss the Angels, the Yanks deep down felt they could beat this Red Sox team. Call it irrational, emotional, or just plain paranoid. That is the way I felt.

Plus I have had it with the Dramafest that surrounds all things Red Sox-Yankees. I just want a baseball game, not a Passion Play.

So instead, I wished for a Yankee loss (always an enjoyable event) and a Cleveland win. That happened. Now we have to tangle with the co-best team in the American League and by extension, the co-best club in all of baseball. And don't be fooled. These Indians are not the California Angels of Los Angeles, Orange County, California West Coast USA.

Although the Indians finished with the same record as the Sox, you could argue they had a harder road to earn it. They play in the AL Central, arguably a better division than the AL East. The Tigers were the defending AL Champs, the Twins are always tough and the White Sox were only a year removed from a World Championship. Even the Royals played well in the second half. Much better than a division including the Rays, the corpse-like Orioles and the injury ravaged Blue Jays.

The Indians were also victimized by the brain surgeon schedule makers who had them with a four game set against the Mariners in the the first week of April. While Seattle's domed Safeco Field sat empty, the Tribe and the M's were snowed out of four games in Cleveland. They spent the rest of the summer sneaking back and forth on off days to make up the games. The Indians eventually had to play one of their "home" games in Seattle.

So make no mistake. Eric Wedge's crew will prove to be a handful for the Sox.

Also remember that this series will ultimately decide the World Series winner. While the Four A Expansion Championship takes place in Phoenix and Denver, the two best major league teams will be fighting the cold and each other to determine who will go out west and beat their brains in.

As an aside, for those of you old enough to remember, this set up is reminiscent of the late 60's when the NHL doubled the size of their league. They went from the Original Six team to 12 teams and instead of integrating the new teams with the old, they set up a Western Division made up exclusively of expansion teams. That guaranteed that at least one of these newbies would play in the Stanley Cup finals and have the honor of getting swept by one of the Original Six every season. The Bruins took full advantage in 1970 by sweeping the St. Louis Blues 4-0. (See Orr,Bobby, Flying Through Air).

But I digress. Back to Cleveland /Boston.

The Sox and Indians have met four times in the post season. The first time was in 1948 when the two clubs tied for first place - both winning 96 games ironically - and had to play a one game playoff. Sox skipper Joe McCarthy sent out journeyman Denny Galehouse to pitch the key game. As with all things Red Sox, there was controversy surrounding the decision. Many felt Mel Parnell, who was 15-8 on the year, should have been given the ball even though he would have been pitching on three days rest. To put it in modern terms, this would be like starting Julian Tavarez instead of Josh Beckett on three days rest with the pennant on the line.

The results were predictable. Galehouse turned in a Wang-like performance, failing to get out of the fourth inning as the Sox were smoked 8-3 and the Indians captured the AL flag.

It would be 47 years before they met again in the 1995 ALDS. Kevin Kennedy's Sox might as well have stayed home. They lost the first game 5-4 in 13 innings at the Jake when former Sox Tony Pena hit a home run on a 3-0 pitch. The Indians blanked them 4-0 in Game two and polished them off in Fenway in Game 3 by a score of 8-2. The series was most known for the futility of Mo Vaughn and Jose Canseco, that year's version of Manny and Papi. The pair combined to go 0-27 in the series.

In 1998, they met again in the ALDS and the results weren't much better. The Tribe took the series 3-1. The Sox started off much better as Vaughn tried to make up for 95 by blasting a pair of homers while Nomar added one and Pedro held down Manny Ramirez and the rest of the Indian lineup in an 11-3 win. That would be it for the Sox as the Indians swept the final three games, 9-5, 4-3 and 2-1, the last two at Fenway.

The two teams staged a rematch a year later and the Sox finally broke through. It looked like more of the same for Jimy Williams' Sox when the Indians swept the first two games at the Jake 3-2 and 11-1. But returning to Fenway, the Sox exploded for 9-3 and 23-7 wins in Games 3 & 4 setting up a dramatic Game 5 in Cleveland.

The defining moment in that game and the series was the dramatic appearance of Pedro Martinez in relief. Suffering a back strain, Pedro was not expected to play. But after three innings the wild game was tied 8-8 and Petey came in on his white horse in the bottom of the fourth. He proceeded to pitch six innings of no hit ball allowing only four walks (one to Manny) and shutting down the powerful Indian lineup. Troy O'Leary blasted a three run homer in the seventh to give the Sox the lead and they added another in the ninth. Pedro closed out the 12-8 win by striking out Omar Vizquel for the final out. The Sox would go on to lose the ALCS 4-1 to the Yanks.

There are plenty of subplots in this series with ties between the team. The Indians have Eric Wedge, Trot Nixon and Kelly Shoppach as former Sox. The Sox have former Tribesmen Manny, Coco and Julian Tavarez. John Farrell is a former Indian as is Terry Francona who played in Cleveland in 1988. And the senior Francona, the original Tito, played for the Indians from 1959-1964.

So enough of the preliminaries. It's prediction time.

For those of you keeping track at home, I was 3 out of 4 in the Division Series. The only one I missed was the red hot Rockies over the Phils.

Arizona over Colorado in 6.
Everyone loves the Rockies, who have become the trendy pick. I still think they will hit the wall at some point and I believe this is it. Besides I still have my heart set on a trip to Arizona for the World Series.

Sox over Indians in 7
This should be a great series. My feeling is that Beckett/Schilling and Sabbathia/Carmona will cancel each other out and it will be Matsusaka/Wakefield and Westbrook/Byrd that decides this one. I like the Sox in that matchup. Plus Papelbon over Borowski is a HUGE advantage for the Sox in a short series. The Indians probably have the edge in middle relief, but the OBP Sox have to work the starters and get Betancourt and Perez into games early and often. This one should go down to the wire, but ultimately, I believe the Sox are headed for another World Series.

Friday can't come soon enough.