Dear reader, I know you’ve been waiting with baited breath for this very day, the day that I finally let it all hang out about the Olde Towne Team and their miraculous run over the past month. Just the last week and a half has seen them go 8-1 against their primary competitors in the AL Wild Card Race. Every facet of the team, that was called into question earlier in the season, from inconsistent starting pitching to lack of timely hitting to a dubious bullpen to cover-you-eyes-awful defense has been positively smokin’ since that fateful day that Tekkie famously proclaimed to pretty boy A-Fraud that “we don’t throw at .260 hitters” and unleashed the leather beast in his smug smilin’ maw. Oh, and trading away the most popular and divisive Sox player in a generation didn’t hurt neither.

Add to this the fact that the hated Spankees have been playing mediocre ball over the past month and, obviously distracted by the rabid Dirt Dogs breathing hotly down their collective neck, have become uncharacteristically distracted by clubhouse blowups (see: Kevin “Clubber Lang” Brown), blood parasites (see: Jason “Mosquito Coast” Giambi) and Mother Nature’s cruel wrath (see Randy “I sit next to Shaunnie at the barber” Levine). The Spankee Mystique, it seems, like Tinkerbell and the Russians during the Cold War and Tyson in the early-90s, is only as strong as belief in it.

This leads me to my thoughts about this current Sox team: essentially, no surprise here, I love ‘em. No surprise because I ALWAYS fall in love with Sox teams down the stretch, from the ’86 Series team to Morgan Magic to the pre-Torre AL East conquerors of the early-90s (Scott Cooper, anyone?) to Jimy’s original Dirt Dogs of the late-90s (Joey Offerman and all) to the Cowboy Uppers of last year. I’m a homer and a sucker, but I just can’t help it. Which of course leads me to the crux of this rant: why I love each and every last one of these motherfuckers:

STARTING PITCHING
For the past ten years, the Spankees have been dominant in the AL East and throughout baseball because of their superior pitching staff, especially starting pitchers. It’s not surprising that, come crunch time, the Spankees relied so heavily on the likes of David Cone, Roger “Make me love you then rip my heart out and pee on it and then go to Texas” Clemens, David Wells, Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte and Orlando Hernandez (and to a lesser degree Doc Gooden, Jimmy Key and Kenny Rogers) because these were clearly some of the best pitchers of their generation. But something this year is different. Petey and Schill are the best one-two punch in baseball, matching up very favorably with Moose and Clubber (especially considering the questionable nature of their status for the rest of the season and beyond). El Duque is hooked up to rejuvenation machine and Jon Lieber has come back from Tommy John surgery to prove himself serviceable, but I still wouldn’t take either of them head-to-head against the current incarnation of D-Lo and Shaky Wakey. Add to that the solid pitching by the Sox’s number five guy Yo-yo (complete with Bo Derek cornrows…thanks, Pokemon), and this staff might be the strongest since the Clemens-Bruce Hurst-Tom Seaver-Oil Can Boyd-Al Nipper rotation of ’86 if not EVER. (Note: whoever can tell me who was the closer on that ’86 team wins a shiny new quarter).

Now a lot is being made of the impetuousness of the fans and media for arguing the comparative merits of the Sox’s dual number one starters and who should go in Game One come playoff time (as if this hasn’t been argument numero uno ever since Theo the Kid played the role of Squanto at the Schilling family Thanksgiving). My feeling on the matter is that while Schill is the guy that management brought in to win these tough playoff games, Petey is still your top dog until he starts proving he’s not worthy of it (4-1 with a 1.94 ERA since the beginning of August sound good enough to anyone else?). To take that right away from him would be injecting drama into a clubhouse that just now has started functioning as a team. With the new D playing lights out behind him, D-Lo is a lock at number three and Shakey’s playoff experience is invaluable in the fourth slot. Then you have Yo-yo coming out of the ‘pen should anyone falter early. Sounds pretty formidable to me.

BULLPEN
Solid, if not spectacular this year, the back end of the pigpen has become downright dominant over the past month. While the Spanks have been leaning on their power troika of Paul Quantrill, Flash Gordon and Mariano Rivera as heavily as H on the fountain at Cat & Fiddle after her b-day party ;-) , the Sox back three of Timmy!, MB and MotherFoulker are a well-rested, barrel-chested, battle-tested bunch (Timmy especially was lights out in the playoffs last year…like someone-blew-up-the-power-plant lights out…he was scary good).


LINE-UP
Honestly, what can you say about these guys? They are on fire. Tekkie has been guiding this pitching staff like Vijay in “Goldfinger”, has got a 14-game hit streak going and as recently as last week he was hitting in the cleanup spot. Jesus has scored a run in 11 straight games. Man-Ram and Shrek are both viable contenders for the MVP this year, with the only real problem being that their dual excellence may split some votes. The new guys ( Menky, Cabbie and the yet-to-be-nicknamed Dave Roberts) have been a godsend defensively, especially for D-Lo. Roberts even managed to crack the starting line-up for a few games during this recent stretch when Jesus went down and played like the pro he is. And Cabbie has shown a little bit of the pop in his bat that he had for the Artist Formerly Known as the Expos, lessening the sting of losing Mr. Hamm in the middle of the lineup. Talk about your addition by subtraction.

Assuming that down the stretch we’re gonna see Billy Milluh playing at 3rd, Cabby at short, Belly at 2nd, Menky at 1st, Tekkie behind the plate and an outfield of Man-Ram, Jesus and KFC, and a bench of Kappy, Pokemon, Yook and Mary Bell on the bench. Oh, and did I forget to mention the triumphant (okay, he grounded out to 2nd) return of the prodigal dirt dog himself, Trotsky, sporting a transplendant Travis Bickle ‘do to match his “You talkin’ to me” attitude. The Globe today reported that Trotsky will not be relegated to DH duty during his comeback for two reasons: 1. Shrek is their everyday basher, and to take him out of the lineup would be idiocy, and 2. Trot despises the role of DH, playing full out or not at all. Goodbye Lenin, welcome back, Trotsky! Put this all together, and this could be the deepest Sox team in years, if not decades. I just got chills.

It remains to be seen if Tito’s boys can keep up their hot streak or if, like Morgan Magic, this late season surge will fade with the chill of October, but for now these guys are playing like the real thing, a team on a mission, with Schill the veteran leader to light the way (he’s already beaten the Spanks in the Series, remember?) So Cowboy Up, believe the Impossible Dream, Screw the Curse and drill the Babe right in the ass, Sox Fans…this year could be the year!

and if not…GO PATS!