On Saturday night, the New York Yankees were ahead three games to nothing in the American League Championship Series after decimating their arch rivals, the Boston Red Sox, by a score of 19-8. This morning, the series is tied three games a piece – because the Red Sox have won the last three games in a row.

Besides my obvious anger and disgust at the Yankees for basically throwing away a three-nothing series lead, I unfortunately have to give it to the Red Sox – who have now made baseball history by being the first team to force a game seven in a playoff series after losing the first three games. But all that aside, I think the fact that the Yankees could have swept Boston in their home stadium but instead chose to take the series to a seventh game for the second year in a row really “Sox.”

Personally, I think the fact that we not only beat them three games in a row, but handed them such an embarrassing loss Saturday night ignited a fire in the Red Sox that has never burned this hot. With the chants of “Who’s Your Daddy?”, the infamous rivalry – and the ever-looming “curse” – I think that the Red Sox have finally had enough and just may have the players, the drive and the ferocity to do the one thing that myself and every other New Yorker dreads – beat the Yankees and head to the World Series to face either the Houston Astros or the St. Louis Cardinals.

After each of the last three games, which have been heading into extra innings and keeping me and hundreds of thousands of baseball fans up very late into the night, I have gone to bed upset, let down – and quite frankly, afraid. And with each new win by Boston, my fear has been growing. Although beating the Red Sox has always been a struggle – we still beat them year after year after year. But this year, I must confess that I am not so sure that history will repeat itself. I know that as a die-hard Yankee fan, I should keep the faith, but the 2004 Red Sox are more of a monster then Fenway’s green wall. And if they do win the series by winning tonight’s deciding game – we will never, ever live it down.

So with the most important baseball game the Yankees have ever played less than twelve hours away, I will, along with every other Yankee fan in the world, pray that Starting Pitcher Kevin Brown and the rest of the Bronx Bombers will pull off this much needed victory and not become the first baseball team to lose a postseason playoff series after winning the first three games, not allow our most lethal enemy to walk over us and get to the World Series – and not “reverse the curse.”

Let’s Go Yankees…please.