The 2004 Red Sox have won 18 of 20, pulled within 2 � of the bleeping Yankees and have dinged the Angels' halo to go 4 up for the wild card playoff slot.

In other words, Boston fans are already holding up an imaginary World Series trophy. Hmmm ... so pretty. I think I'll buy my own replica championship ring, too.

Okay, see how that goes? It's so easy for us to dream big, even when arrogant, smelly New Yorkers are yelling "1918" across the parking lot at Publix during the offseason while cursing our ancestors. I hate Yankees fans.

I've been proud to proclaim my allegiance to the Red Sox Nation ever since I overcame adolescence and focused on what baseball, tradition and history mean to America. All three converge on the Boston Red Sox, five-time World Series champions. Okay, so those years were all 1918 and before, but that's what provides hope every March, "it could be this season."

Besides the tradition, following the team with Dad is a huge draw and joy, sharing a trip to Fenway and Red Sox. Games. All. Over.

In an even bigger stretch to prove my credentials in Red Sox Nation, I was born October 19, 1975, during the legendary Boston-Cincinnati World Series, two days before Carlton Fisk's dramatic walk-off homer in the 12th inning of game six (we don't talk about game seven). I'm surprised Dad didn't name me Fred Lynn Rushing, for the 1975 MVP and Rookie of the Year.

"When Boston Won the World Series" hops in the Way Back Machine, focusing on the first professional baseball championship ever between the National and American Leagues, won by Boston in 1903.

Author Bob Ryan is the class of sports writing, known and respected nationally (well, at least by most; others disagree), and his columns are a regular stop for me in the Boston Globe when I catch up on daily Red Sox doings. The first thing I read on the Internet every day is the @bat Insider sent to my inbox from the Globe, detailing the ups and downs of the Olde Towne Team. Lately it's been mostly up, but a two-game losing streak could change my mood for a week.

As much as I fawn on Ryan, he does so on former Globe sportswriter Tim Murnane, from whom Ryan gets much of his research. The game was mostly the same as today, but the way Murnane wrote is from another era when unobjectively rooting for the hometown team wasn't seen as a bad thing. During the World Series he cheered for the Red Sox while playing down every development from their opponents from the NL, the Pittsburg (no H yet) Pirates, the same franchise that exists today in the Smoky City, as Murnane called it, for the constant smoke from industry hanging over the town.

The name we love to cheer wasn't even in use then. Boston's franchise didn't get the Red Sox moniker until 1907. During the book, Ryan just refers to the team as the Americans, representing the league. Also, the team didn't move into Fenway Park until 1912, the same week of the Titanic disaster (how's that for cursed?). The 1903 squad won their title at Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds, which held less than 10,000 fans. This makes the complaints about Fenway's "tiny" attendance of 35,000 seem gargantuan by comparison.

One of the "duh" details Ryan brings up is how much Boston adored this 1903 squad, much more so than the Boston Braves of the National League, an older franchise with a rich history. The Braves later moved to Milwaukee and then to my current hometown of Atlanta, winning a title in all three places (1914, '57 and '95) while the Red Sox enjoyed the devotion yet couldn't win game sevens in the '46, '67, '75 and '86 World Series. Let's not even mention last year's game seven loss to the bleepin' Yanks in the ALCS. Seriously, don't go there. Friggin' Grady Little.

Something fans of today might appreciate is that the team rosters were notably smaller than today, because players played every game unless injured and the pitchers were expected to finish the game without help from "relievers." Leading Boston was Cy Young. Yes, that Cy Young, he of the award for pitching greatness, eventually ending his career with 511 wins, a record sure to never be broken. Nowadays, we go bananas when a pitcher reaches 300, and only then the hurlers are at the end of their careers.

Fans were called �cranks� back then, and it is actually pretty fitting for Boston supporters. Rooters got a lot of credit, in fact, for winning the 1903 title. Local bar owner "Nuf Ced" McGreevey took over a hundred people to Pittsburg, his Royal Rooters, and out-rooted the Pirate patrons in their own ballpark, oddly enough making a mark with the singing of a song called "Tessie" that had nothing to do with baseball. In yet another call to �reverse the curse,� the song has been brought back to New England and played at Fenway Park.

The Globe constantly boasted that Boston "long as been the best ball town in the country," thus the championship "should be ours, for ours is the highest talent this year that the diamond has seen." As you can tell, then, as today, sports writers believe they're as big as the game, especially Boston's stifling media. Of course, the 1903 staff was more optimistic than today's, declaring the team to be "well -nigh invincible" even when down, while today's Red Sox could be one game out of first place in August and be declared in a failing swoon.

It turns out that the paper was correct in its assessment of the team's talent. Boston eased through the 1903 season, winning the pennant with a few weeks to go after being up at least a dozen games since early summer. This, despite ending April with four wins and six losses.

The league didn't organize the Series; it came from a team-to-team challenge of owners who saw the monetary and city pride value in the two major leagues competing for a title. And pride, of course. Ryan takes the time to prop up Pittsburgh's owner, Barney Dreyfus, a hands-on owner who gave all the receipts of the Series to his players, more than Boston got from their absent owner who lived in Milwaukee.

"When Boston Won the World Series" is less than 200 pages, and Ryan provides a quick, easy read, even as the reader tries to digest as many names as possible. Another good reason rosters were half of what they are today.

The deciding game saw only 7,455 fans in the stands because scalpers got a hold of too many tickets, preventing normal fans from being able to afford to get in. Charging two, three dollars? Preposterous!

This was a far cry from the first seven games of the series, both in Boston and Pittsburg. Overflow crowds streamed in, apparently before fire marshals posted those signs saying to keep crowds to a minimum. There were so many people that thousands watched from the outfield, kept out of play only by a rope. Balls hit into the crowd were good for two bases, and since there weren't any dugouts yet the players bench area was covered by fans, forcing players to sit on the grass when not in the game.

A different era, indeed. For more examples, all games were played in less than two hours, and Philadelphia hurler Deacon Phillipe made five starts in the series, a few on one day rest. Also, it doesn't matter how much his cards are worth now, the great Honus Wagner struck out to end the first World Series.

Boston didn't have a chance to defend its title in 1904, despite winning the American League pennant. The New York Giants' owner and manager refused to participate in a series, claiming the American League was inferior. We all know what that means; he has a small wee wee and rode a girls' bike.

Thus, Boston had to wait nearly a decade until the Golden Era of Boston baseball, 1912-1918, winning World Series titles in '12, '14, '15 and '18. You know what happens after that.

About that. (rant) Boston should be fretting over the Curse of Harry Frazee, not the Bambino. It wasn't Babe Ruth's fault that "No No Nanette" Frazee was an idiot who personally built up the Yankees into a dynasty in the 20s and plunged the Red Sox into a hole for two decades. Moron. (/rant)

All will be forgiven with a 2004 title. Is that too much to ask?

Talk about jinxes, though. I may have take some blame come October if Boston doesn�t win it all. Excited about 2004's prospects, I put in for a week of vacation the week of the World Series, before the season even began!