"This is the beginning," manager Terry Francona said after the Red Sox, for the second straight season, assured themselves of a spot in the playoffs by beating the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 7-3. At the least, the Sox have assured themselves entry as the wild-card team. Mathematically, they still have a chance to overtake the New York Yankees for the AL East title, but any combination of four Yankee wins or Sox losses in the season's last six games will end that fantasy.
But there is no shame in holding the wild card. The last two teams to win the World Series, the Anaheim Angels and Florida Marlins, were wild-card entries. So while the Sox carried on in a far less raucous fashion than they did back home last Sept. 25 -- when Kevin Millar led a passel of teammates on a mad dash to the Baseball Tavern, where they climbed behind the bar and poured drinks for the fans -- they had loaded some bubbly on the plane yesterday, and they did not let it go to waste.
Francona, who was bench coach with the Oakland A's when the Sox clinched last season, wasn't about to pronounce judgment yesterday afternoon on what should constitute proper party decorum. The Yankees, who clinched a playoff berth last week in Yankee Stadium, barely acknowledged the accomplishment. But if we have learned anything about these free spirits, they are not the Yankees.
"It's their right to do what they want," Francona said. "If they're excited to be in the playoffs, they have a right to be excited. That's OK. What's the big deal? They're happy to be in the wild card. What's wrong with that?"
And if it reached bacchanal proportions again? "It would be like any other night," Francona said in what was intended to be a joke -- we think.
On the field, beyond a right hand pointed skyward by shortstop Orlando Cabrera, who during his Montreal exile had never been on a playoff qualifier, the Sox reacted to last night's win with little more than their usual postgame conga line of hugs, handshakes, and elaborate hand slaps, with a few extra embraces thrown in. (Yes, Butch, that was Curt Schilling slapping Pedro Martinez on the back, then wrapping his arms around him.)
Inside, however, it was champagne and cigars, hurrahs and hilarity.
