The Red Sox won the World Series...again! We came back from three games down to Cleveland and swept the romanticized Rockies. Congratulations to everyone who played a part: fans, rookies, veterans, scouts, managers, owners, Fenway staff, and even the obsequious assistant who gets coffee.

When the Red Sox won in 2004, it was like new era began in my life. We had accomplished the impossible in sports, coming back from three games to none to vanquish the bitterly hated machine known as the New York Yankees. For superstitious fans, it could only mean a breaking curse. David Ortiz, Curt Schilling, and the rest of the Boston "idiots" became the great exorcists of Red Sox folklore. The ecstatic cheers of champagne-soaked Sox fans drowned the wail of Babe Ruth's fading ghost, first in house that Ruth built, and several days later in Cardinals stadium.

So I'm no longer a loser. And now that the Red Sox have repeated a post-WWI World Series win, I sense a confidence in Red Sox Nation and less of the lingering paranoia instilled by years of heartbreak. Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post about my fear of the Yankees, my inability to fully believe that the Red Sox had pacified the demons of loss. But now, I can't help but look at the Yankess with pity. I replay their 2007 post-season in my mind, the many clutch double plays that Jeter hit into, Clemens not making it through second inning, A-Rod playing like he belongs in some obscure gulf league, and I almost feel bad for them. Almost.

(This paragraph is an open letter to Theo Epstien. Please, please, please, please, please don't sign A-Rod. Let Mr. April fail in the clutch and build his MVP stats in blowout games someplace else.)

My pride as a fan no longer has to be rooted by stubborn, territorial allegiance. But it feels less noble to be committed to my team for anything other than stubborn, territorial allegiance. There is a dark side to this new level of confidence among Red Sox Nation. There is a new kind of fan who doesn't have any clue what it was like to be a committed Sox fan between 1918 and 2004. A couple of people said to me this year that it would be nice if we lost two games in Colorado, so that we could win the series at Fenway. My response to that is, are you crazy? Just take the freakin' win! Part of me thinks the new kind of fan will be the inevitable result of winning. I hope I don't have to complain, like some of my Yankee fan friends do, about capricious fans with more allegiance to the cuteness of a jersey than the team it represents.

David Ortiz, in an emotional pep talk to the team after the Sox went down 3 games to 1 against Cleveland in the ALCS, said while tugging on his jersey, "There's a reason why you wear this Red Sox uniform. [long pause] Because you're a bad motherf----r."

And with those eloquent words, Red Sox Nation inaugurates a new era of Boston sports fanaticism.