The Hunt For Red and Blue October

Given the respective histories of the two franchises and their places in baseball lore, perhaps it was appropriate that it happened this way.

Friday night, my Boston Red Sox and hometown Chicago Cubs were each on the verge of clinching division titles and a spot in the 2007 MLB playoffs. The magic number for each team was two, meaning a win by them and a loss by their closest pursuer (Yankees and Brewers) and the division was theirs. The Red Sox were coming off a rough couple of weeks where a once insurmountable 14 1/2 game lead in May had been pared down to 1 1/2 by the surging Yankees. After sweeping the Pittsburgh Pirates at home last weekend, the Cubs playoff spot was put on hold by virtue of a 3 game sweep at the hands of the Florida Marlins, a team long since eliminated from playoff contention and reduced to playing the spoiler role.

Behind a solid outing from Japanese pitching phemon Daisuke Matsuzaka and a HR from David "Big Papi" Ortiz, the Sox defeated the Minnesota Twins 5-2. Magic Number: 1. However, the Yankees were leading the Balitmore Orioles 9-6 with no less than Mariano Rivera on the mound to close out the deal in the 9th and give life to the Yankees division title hopes. Well, a 3-run triple by Jay Payton in the bottom of the 9th forced extra innings and the Orioles completed the comeback in the 10th on a suicide squeeze by Melvin Mora which plated the winning run. More importantly, it delivered the Sox their first AL East crown since 1995.

With newly re-signed ace Carlos Zambrano on the hill and a depleted Cincinnati Reds roster between them and a division crown of their own, the Cubs took care of business with a 6-0 win. That, coupled with a loss by the Milwaukee Brewers later in the evening in which, ironically, former Cub Greg Maddux was the winning pitcher for the San Diego Padres, clinched the division for the Cubs. The Cubs are in the playoffs for the first time since 2003, when both them and the Red Sox were a mere 5 outs away from meeting each other in the World Series. Could this be the year when these 2 storied franchises meet in the series again?

The Red Sox finally got the over-referenced "Curse of the Bambino" off their backs in 2004, when they came back from 3-0 down to defeat the Yankees in the ALCS and then swept the St. Louis Cardinals to win the their first World Series since 1918. Their opponent in 1918? The Cubs. For the record, the curse was merely a tool of the lazy sportswriter (e.g. The "Boston Globe's" Dan Shaughnessy) and television network (e.g. FOX) to explain the Red Sox playoff failures. Any intelligent Red Sox fan knew that the reason for their failure had to do with the performance of the players and not any ridiculous curse. As a Sox fan, perhaps the best thing that came out of the 2004 series win is that major sports outlets could no longer mindlessly run the Bill Buckner, Bucky Dent and Aaron Boone clips before any Sox/Yankees or Sox playoff game. The "curse" as it was became a non-factor, so ESPN, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver had to find something else to talk about.

For the Cubs, this is yet another chance to exorcise the equally ridiculous demons of Steve Bartman, the Curse of the Billy Goat and Leon Durham and forever end the talk of some curse causing a nearly 100 year World Series draught. With series wins by the Sox in 2004, the crosstown rival White Sox in 2005 and hated division rival St. Louis in 2006, the heat has been turned up a notch and expectations have never been higher for Cubs fans and the franchise long known as the "Lovable Losers." The off-season signing of free agent Alfonso Soriano, hiring of Lou Piniella as manager and a $100+ million payroll have only served to fan the flames of a fandom desperate for a winner.

While it would be a TV ratings bonanza, part of me dreads a potential Cubs-Red Sox World Series as it will make me ultimately choose sides between two teams that I like, the Red Sox moreso. In that case I will most definitely be rooting for the Red Sox, though I would not be devastated to see the Cubs win. Hopefully, it will not come to that and one team or the other will make it to the Series and I can give them my full support. Whatever the case, it promises to be a wild ride this October.