It's Go Time

The countdown to the first pitch is down to less than twenty-four hours. The series everyone has been waiting for is less than a day away. It's Red Sox vs. Yankees in the American League Championship Series.

It's plain and simple. This is baseball's best rivalry, one sided as it has been. It's is arguably the best confrontation in all of sports. It's the same two teams, playing in the same league, in the same division, wearing the same style uniforms, playing in basically the same ballparks for almost 100 years. (Yeah, yeah, I know all about The House That Ruth Built and it's remodeling, but give me some literary leeway here.)

It's Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. It's Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx. It's Thurman Munson and Carlton Fisk. It's Derek Jeter and Nomar Garciaparra. It's Pedro Martinez tossing aside Don Zimmer and Reggie Jackson's shouting match with Billy Martin in Boston's dugout. It's Denny Doyle and Brian Doyle. It's Carl Yastrzemski and Bucky Dent. Of course, it's tons of Babe Ruth, too. It's the history of the sport rolled up into two franchises.

It's big business, big headlines, big contracts and big egos. It's free agent signings and blockbuster trades. It's every sticky-sweet, melodramatic baseball prose ever written about autumn evenings, David versus Goliath and the cycle of life, but it's all true. The series cannot possibly live up to the hype, but, for a change, the hype may be warranted.

The Sox were the team from 1900-1918. The Yankees have dominated since and dealt Boston a number of historic setbacks along the way. Of course, the Sox have offered up some of their own improbable losses without the Yankees assistance. However, it's those near-misses against New York that have united Red Sox Nation and given this battle it's backdrop.

The history of their regular season clashes for the American League pennant have been joined, in this wild card era, by post-season games featuring baseball's most heated rivals. Now, instead of one team staying home during the playoffs, they can meet in a best of seven series to crown the winner of the American League. It's ten times the pressure, ten times the hype, ten times more fun.

Tomorrow another chapter between the sport's most written about franchises begins. I think we are all ready. Let's get it on.