Major League Baseball's American League championships series features the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, two franchises that have a rivalry as old as the Major Leagues. This series has all the excitement of one of the sports world's best rivalries, plus the dreaded "Curse of the Bambino."
The Boston Red Sox came back from a two-games-to-none deficit to beat the Oakland Athletics in the first round of the playoffs. The Yankees scored a four-game win over the Minnesota Twins in their best-of-five series.
So now the Red Sox are facing the franchise that has been the bane of their exisitence in a best-of-seven game series. Boston was baseball's dominant team early in the 20th Century, winning the first World Series in 1903 and four more after that. However, Boston's last World Series win was in 1918. Red Sox first baseman Kevin Millar says that this series against the New York Yankees has all baseball fans could want.
"They have the experience, which I think is important," he said. "But, we got that all-out, you know, fun. We have fun. Like I said, we have a bunch of idiots [a little wild sometimes]. And we just go out there and we're ugly and we just have fun we pull for each other. It's a full team, and I think that counts a lot."
This best-of-seven series also carries with it the so-called "curse of the Bambino," a longtime legend that the Red Sox would never win the World Series after selling baseball great Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. Ruth went on to lead the Yankees to three American League championships and their first World Series title in 1923. Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter says he's tired of hearing about the so-called curse.
"That's pretty much what you hear all the time, the curse of the Bambino," said Derek Jeter. "But I personally don't think about it too much. I am just trying to play the games really."
The Yankees have won 26 World Series titles and played in 12 others. But the so-called Bronx Bombers have not won the title since 2000, when they beat their cross-town rivals the New York Mets. The Red Sox have not played in a World Series since 1986.
The winner of this Yankees-Boston series plays the winner of the National League Championship Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Florida Marlins for the World Series.
