''We're representing Beantown again!" champagne-soaked Sox Most Valuable Player candidate David Ortiz told the Fenway legions who stuck around after a 10-1 win that put the Sox in a tie atop the American League East.
The mega-hyped final weekend of the regular season didn't unfold exactly the way New England hoped. The Red Sox beat the Yankees two times in three tries, qualified for the playoffs, stripped the Yankees of home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs, and finished with the exact same record as the Evil Empire . . . but a rarely invoked tiebreaker rule and the implosion of the Indians made the Sox the wild-card playoff team and sucked the drama out of the final two games.
Confusion reigned when the Yankees broke out champagne Saturday after their 8-4 victory guaranteed a top spot in the AL East and assured them of a higher playoff seed because of their superior record in head-to-head competition with the Sox.
Yesterday, it was Boston's turn to spray the bubbly. Manager Terry Francona lifted his stars midway through a thoroughly lifeless drubbing of the Bronx Bombers and there were thousands of empty seats in the ancient yard when Mike Timlin punched out the immortal Bubba Crosby to end it at 5:47. Some of those who left early no doubt spent hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars anticipating that Game 162 might have been a winner-take-all classic played on the same date between the same teams 27 Bucky Dent years ago.
Not now. This is the wild-card era and for the third straight season, the Sox and Yankees are both going to the playoffs. They have met 71 times over the last three seasons (36-35, Boston) each winning one American League pennant at the other's expense, and the possibility exists that we'll get Ali-Frazier III starting a week from tomorrow in Yankee Stadium. This is the first time in club history the Sox have made the playoffs in three straight seasons.
There's already plenty of debate about the Yankees claiming they were division champs after they beat the Sox Saturday. New York's record against the Sox gives them a higher playoff seed, but the Sox are contesting the Bronx Bombers' contention that they've now won eight straight AL East titles.
