I grew up in a different Red Sox era.
It was one where Boston could always bash the ball and never had enough pitching. It was one where they continually had a team that stared at the Green Monster as if it were a siren song, all the while with a pitching staff that you knew was ultimately going to break your heart.
These were the Red Sox of legend, a story line that lasted decades.
They always were the same: my kingdom for more pitching.
No more.
In a game that's all about pitching, the Red Sox finally have enough pitching. You can make a case that they have the best pitching in the game from top to bottom. Of all the things this ownership has done well -- and there have been many -- the changing of this franchise's philosophy is the most important. No longer is this team built around the three-run homer.
These are not your father's Red Sox anymore.
They have their best bullpen in my memory, one that's both deep and effective, topped off by a lights-out closer, even if he's so far been a little less otherworldly. They have quality starters, with the venerable John Smoltz, and talented kids Clay Buchholz and Michael Bowden waiting to round out an embarrassment of riches.
How deep is their pitching?
Consider this: the biggest concern right now is Dice-K, who won 18 games last year.
These are the Red Sox?
And it's become even more apparent the past couple of years as the balance of power has shifted in the A.L. East, the Red Sox winning two world championships in this new millennium while the Yankees have none.
It's more than just the two titles, though. It's the sense that the Red Sox have figured out what it takes to win, while the Yankees, who had the formula in the late '90s, spent too many years in this decade getting away from their own blueprint, the one that had won them four titles in five years.
That's what comes across in Joe Torre's book "The Yankee Years'' that theorizes that not only has the Yankees front office become obsessed with the Red Sox, they have spent much of the decade chasing high-priced free-agent pitchers, a strategy that's cost them a lot of money and given them no titles in return.
But it's not just the plethora of pitching that has changed Boston's story line.
It's that everything has changed.
No longer are the Red Sox about doom and gloom and broken hearts, no longer about curses and devil's luck, and the feeling that they always will somehow snatch defeat out of victory's jaws. No longer are they beautiful losers, the franchise known for its star-crossed history, the way the Cubs still are.
That's all gone now, yesterday's news.
No longer is everything dragged through that prism of unfortunate history until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There's no overestimating this.
There's little question that all that unfortunate history used to be a huge weight on the collective psyche of Boston players, however much they tried to deny it. By the end there, back in 2004, it had become almost a living thing, hovering over everything. The Red Sox were going to ultimately lose because they always lost, were going to lose because it was their destiny to lose.
That's what winning in 2004 did, in addition to winning for the first time in 86 years.
It knocked all of that out of the park, too.
It made all those gloomy Puritans obsolete, erased the long-standing script.
It changed the story line.
This ownership group also not only embraced Fenway Park, but also turned it into the tourist attraction it's become. Remember when Fenway was being called as outdated as a leisure suit? Remember when it seemed just a matter of time before there was some new stadium somewhere?
Now Fenway has been reborn in ways that are almost unimaginable a decade ago: monster seats, tours, new restaurants, the feeling that the old ballyard has become baseball's sacred shrine, something to be treasured, not complained about. Something that's a plus, not a minus.
Who would have ever believed that the RedSox would now have almost 500 consecutive sellouts?
In short, everything is different than it once was.
Up is down, black is white, the Red Sox are the model of efficiency, a template for how a major league franchise should be run. No one calls talk shows complaining about the way they're run. What's to complain about? No one calling for the manager's head, the traditional rite of a New England summer.
Have the Red Sox ever been more popular?
I can't remember it.
For in many ways I grew up with the Red Sox, the team that always seemed built for the three-run homer, the team that never had enough pitching. I grew up with a franchise that everyone knew was always going to find a way to lose, a franchise burdened both by its history and its lack of vision.
That franchise doesn't exist anymore.
(Contact Bill Reynolds at breynold(at)projo.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
columnMust credit The Providence Journal
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