In the past 2 weeks this die-hard Nation of Red Sox fans extending around the universe has witnessed a successful biological dissection and presentation of a Champion. We have seen the deathly, bright light of Mariano Rivera with 3 outs to go and down 3 games to none and not looked at it. Kevin Millar did it for us, drawing the biggest walk in 86 years. Dave Roberts, like a blur, beamed himself to 2nd base and Bill Mueller lines a laser to the same blade of grass Yaz hit on the last day of the '67 season. From there on we walked softly but carried Big Sticks: David Ortiz, Mark Bellhorn, Johnny Damon, et al.

 We have seen every move that GM Theo Epstein made this year fit into the puzzle like a taut oak board on a fine hardwood floor. He traded the franchise shortstop away in a Ruthian way to acquire Dave Roberts, Doug Mientkiewicz and Orlando Cabrera to complete the process which began with the off-season acquisitions of Curt Schilling, Keith Foulke and Bellhorn, all heroes in the past few days.

 Most of all, we have seen the tremendous magnitude of joy and gratitude that the fans now behold in seeing a simple kids game transformed into a religious experience with a World Championship season in the City of Boston. The release of 86 years of frustration, humiliation and despair have been lifted by a band of self-proclaimed idiots, a team so enamored with its ability to ignore a so-called "curse" that they were able to rise from the dead, 3 outs away from year 87 and force all the historical calamities that the franchise has incurred on itself and reverse it upon its opponents with 8 straight ALCS and World Series wins.

 In each and every Red Sox Nation home this week there were dreams fulfilled, long past loved ones remembered and prayed to, examples of joy that our young children can behold and someday understand. Strangers with Red Sox hats on giving thumbs up across the street, slapping high-fives or just smiling at each other in passing with a neighborly nod. There are visits to family plots, calls to friends long past that we watched games with in '86 or '75. There is a tearful Johnny Pesky holding the World Championship trophy after the final game, unfairly named goat of the '46 Series.

 This cannot be fully understood by all baseball foreigners. Outside the Nation there are fans who have had teams win several times in the past few decades. It's not a big deal. Too common place and bland. Here in New England, we have had a Super Bowl winning team twice in the past 3 years and we are blessed by that, yes. But in the overall scheme of this magical 2004 Boston Red Sox ride, in the end it left us happily sleep deprived, mesmerized and now downright giddy. But we found a way to relate to life and the rewards of perseverance through this band of non-conforming hardball heroes... it is called FAITH.

 We related to every up and down as if it was our own ride. We cheered when it went well and strangely understood when it did not, as if they were our own children and many times they acted like it. There were very few defeatist moments as in years past. The pessimism slowly lifted like a fog being burned off by a blazing sun. The fans carried an air of confidence and the team responded. Even when the iconoclastic face of the team, Nomar Garciaparra, was traded to Chicago, the outcry was muted quickly as the team went on a tear and a plight called “unearned runs” virtually disappeared. There was a calm along the entire 2004 trail which, looking back was understandable. It was DestiNY. A photo of Gabe Kapler and Johnny Damon chatting side by side in the outfield (left), 19 and 18, mystically told it all.

 So here we are... happily exhausted, tired and weary but not unlike a weather fanatic, which I am, kind of down that the big storm is over. I visited my grandparent’s gravestone the other day. They passed away in 1975 and 1986. It was they who loved baseball and passed it on to me. I watched my first full Red Sox game of baseball at age 10 at their house on a tiny screen in black and white. The Red Sox were terrible but they still watched when a rare game was televised. It was a sun splashed Sunday late in September at Fenway Park in 1967 2 years later that the fruits of their passion for the game were harvested and I saw what can be only described as a birth of a Nation, Red Sox Nation, in my own heart.

 It was a brilliant Fall day and I could smell the sour apples from the yard. Nana and Grampa were quite quiet and pensive, except to explain the urgency of the game, what hung in the balance: a pennant! The Red Sox trailed 2 to zero. Then a guy named Yaz struck a hit to the outfield in the center and tied the score with 2 runs. Soon after, the Boston team, the one in brilliant white suits and fancy red letters, was ahead. In the end, a player caught the ball and everyone was jumping up and down. All the fans flooded on to the field in a sea of humanity and carried the pitcher, Jim Lonborg (right) off the field, tearing at his shirt as he laughed and beamed. My grandparents were hugging and weeping tears of joy. At that very moment I understood there was some kind of special power that a baseball game could have and have seen ever since what the power of a Nation, Red Sox Nation held in its coffers.

 I spent the entire next summer listening to the Impossible Dream record album over and over again when there wasn't a game on the radio or weekends on the TV. I wanted to catch my grandparents joy and unbridled euphoria in a bottle after that. It was in 1975 that I finally realized that heartbreak is a risk that comes with the ride as the Reds outlasted a resilient Sox team. A Red Sox fan accepted that heartbreak as territorial.

 In 1986, I learned that heartbreak takes a back seat to brutal cruelty as Bill Buckner limped off the Shea field and the Mets came from a Ruthian hell to draw a cold dark winter deep into Sox Nation. Over the next 18 years they teased but never seriously. Yet we never stopped believing that faith was the cure and here we are now to reap the reward.

 So Rock on Red Sox Nation, wherever you live. Wear this Championship proudly as if it were your own... because it is. The owners said it. The players said it. We all know it. There are no congratulations necessary. Not the fans to the team, not the team to the fans. What there IS is a collective THANK YOU to all in the Nation, far and wide. The Sox couldn't do it without the Fenway Faithful packing the lyric little bandbox every night and the fans couldn't do it without keeping the Faith in a band of hairy, lovable crackpots with crazy handshakes called the Boston Red Sox, WORLD CHAMPION BOSTON RED SOX! George Herman Ruth, rest in peace.