Odds Are, There’s No Bambino in the Booth

The Boston Red Sox might have finally cracked the Curse of the Bambino, having dispatched the New York Yankees to reach the World Series in a fashion that defies words -- or, coming close, reduced Tim McCarver to muttering, “How’d that happen?” while he staggered around his hotel room hours later, still in disbelief.

“I’m trying to figure out how the Red Sox won,” McCarver said during a conference call previewing Fox’s coverage of the World Series, which begins today at 4:30 p.m.

“I find myself asking questions about the Red Sox. I mean, how can they win without Manny Ramirez driving in a run in a seven-game series? And without Pedro Martinez winning a game? Where their leadoff hitter and their catalyst, Johnny Damon, matched his hits [for the rest of the series] in Game 7.

“How did they do that? How did they come back and beat the Yankees four in a row?

“I know, obviously, logically they did this: They had a hot bat in [David] Ortiz, who had two game-winning hits; they had a sensational bullpen. But I find myself asking questions like that all morning. I’m just walking around my room, shaking my head and saying, ‘What an unbelievable, remarkable job the Red Sox did against the Yankees.’ Obviously, it was historic.”

And it should clear the cosmic slate, once and for all, for the ever-tortured -- and don’t they want us to know it? -- Red Sox fans, right?

Johnny Damon slew the demons. So we can all get back to watching baseball without laying out nachos for ghosts, without dredging lakes looking for Babe Ruth’s piano. This is just the Red Sox against the Cardinals, even up, best of seven, may the best team win.

Except for this: Red Sox Nation has noted that Joe Buck and McCarver enter this World Series with ties to the enemy.

Buck, son of legendary Cardinal announcer Jack Buck, lives in St. Louis, began calling Cardinal games on radio in 1991 and still handles play-by-play for Cardinal home games during the regular season on FSN Midwest.

McCarver played a dozen years for the Cardinals, winning two World Series championships with them -- one of them in 1967, against the Boston Red Sox.

Buck admits that he and McCarver enter the booth “under the scrutiny” of Boston. “You hear the same stuff I do,” Buck said. “Tim hears it, Vin Scully heard it, my dad heard it -- that you’re always rooting for the other side.

“I’ve dealt with it a couple times already in the postseason when the Cardinals have been in it -- when they played the Mets [in 2000], when they played the Braves [in 1996]. I’ve said a couple times, and it’s probably an old quote and boring by now, but I know a lot of these guys. I’m around them. I don’t consider myself the kind of guy who’s tucking himself into bed at night with his little Cardinal PJs on.

“I take my history out of it and I do my job. The most important thing I do, I think, is try to be balanced and report it for both sides. I really take pride in that.”

McCarver put it more bluntly.

“Any question that is seriously questioning our bias on a game like [this] is absolutely insulting,” he said.

Buck reiterated that before the playoffs began, he had called the Red Sox “the most dangerous team alive in October.”

“And I think I believe that now more than ever,” Buck said, adding that the Cardinals “will have their hands full with the Boston Red Sox, for as much as what the Red Sox present on the field as what, ironically, they have going off it.

“I mean, if you’re the Red Sox, you have to feel like this is the year,” Buck added. “As much as New England fans thought they would never say that. When you go down, three games to none, and you’re losing in Game 4 and you’ve got [Mariano] Rivera on the mound for the Yankees, and you come back and win the series, you’ve got to think that [Curt] Schilling’s friends or/and mystique are now on your side.”

McCarver says the unprecedented Red Sox comeback against the Yankees has made them America’s Team, at least through Halloween.

“[Even] if you’re not a baseball fan, if you’re a sports fan, to be magnetically attached to this Red Sox team is easy. It’s easy.

“And I don’t think that any kind of a momentum will slow down going into Saturday,” McCarver added. “On the contrary, I think it will be a gathering storm.”

Also available for viewing this weekend:

TODAY

* Washington at USC

(FSNW, 3:30 p.m.)

The Trojans are favored by 34. Still, FSNW promises to televise all four quarters.

* Kansas at Oklahoma

(FSNW, 10 a.m.)

Earlier this week, USC Coach Pete Carroll went on FSNW’s “Totally Football,” where he was asked again about last season’s snub by the bowl championship series. “I don’t get it,” he said. “I didn’t get it before. I don’t get it now. I can’t understand how that could happen.” Ten months later, Oklahoma and Bob Stoops can relate.

* Miami at North Carolina State

(ESPN, 4:45 p.m.)

More scoreboard watching for the Trojans. If the football season had ended Friday, Miami and USC would be playing for the national championship. If the football season had ended Friday, the Hurricanes would probably be favored over the Dolphins in any “Battle of Miami.” If the football season had ended Friday, the Dolphins would be very happy.

* UCLA at Arizona State

(Channel 7, 12:30 p.m.)

Tough call here. Do you like the team that held Cal to 45 points (UCLA)? Or the team that held USC to 45 points (Arizona State)?

SUNDAY

* San Diego Chargers at Carolina Panthers (Channel 2, 10 a.m.)

Because the NFL considers Los Angeles the Chargers’ “secondary” market, we will endure this game while the rest of the nation feasts on the 5-0 New York Jets at the 5-0 New England Patriots. The Rams and the Raiders left town a decade ago, but the NFL continues to make us pay.