This Series Is a Study in Contrast on Every Level

From 1978 to 1990, only the Los Angeles Dodgers won a World Series twice, and their championships were won in 1981 and 1988 by entirely different teams. Over these years there were two separate 10-year periods in which no team won the World Series twice (1978–1987 and 1982–1991).

If the Colorado Rockies defeat the Boston Red Sox, they will be the eighth champions in eight years, which would be the second-longest such streak in history, surpassing the seven years from 1966 to 1972. Over my entire lifetime, only the Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays have done so much as win two championships in four years. Throughout the sport's history, baseball has been ruled by d y n a s t i e s , from Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics to Joe Morgan's Big Red Machine. Decades from now, this may be remembered not as the international era or the steroid era, but as the age of parity.

So, Boston has a rare opportunity this year. A victory in this series would class the Ortiz/Ramirez Red Sox with the elite teams of the last 30 years. Winning the second championship that Bobby Cox's Atlanta Braves and Tony La Russa's Oakland Athletics and St. Louis Cardinals weren't able to win wouldn't just mark them as one of the great teams of the era, though — it would give them a chance to build a true dynasty. They have brains, money, and baseball's rarest commodity: young talent. Ace Josh Beckett is 27 and closer Jonathan Papelbon and no. 2 starter Daisuke Matsuzaka are 26. Second baseman Dustin Pedroia and center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury, who look like All-Stars in the making, are 23 and 22. They'll even have the cash and open position to make a play for Alex Rodriguez if he becomes a free agent. A victory for them would be a coronation, validating them as unquestionably the best team in the sport.

The Rockies are, of course, in a very different situation. Coming out of spring training this year, they were generally and rightly considered the fourth- or fifth-best team in their own division. On May 21, they were in fifth place, nine games under .500, and it looked like another sorry year for the franchise. Just to make the playoffs, not only did they have to win 14 of 15 down the stretch, the Mets and San Diego Padres had to collapse so badly that Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus ranked their breakdowns as two of the 10 worst collapses in baseball history. The Rockies have an exceptional group of young position players and the core of a good young pitching staff, but they wildly exceeded the most optimistic expectations this year and have a $54 million payroll, just over a third as high as Boston's. They may well be back next year, but they are likely not a dynasty in the making.

One team is playing for history, and the other may only have this one chance to win everything. One team has three World Series MVPs, and the other has only two everyday players who made a postseason roster before this year. Depending on how you define it, both teams have a claim to being the best in baseball right now. I t ' s n o t a glamorous matchup, but it is an awfully good one.

Like most teams that end up with a chance to establish a dynasty, the Red Sox are tremendously well-rounded. Relative to the league, their team ERA this year was as good as any of those run up by the mid-1990s Braves of mid-1960s Dodgers; they hit for power, patience, and contact, and have players who can steal bases as well.

The Rockies are something different. They had to play to the best of their abilities while catching every break just to get here, while the Red Sox were able to win the pennant while playing something less than their best baseball for much of the year. The Rockies won with real stars like Matt Holliday and Todd Helton, but they also needed surpassingly unlikely play from people like LaTroy Hawkins and Kaz Matsui as well — players who weren't just disappointments when they came to the Rockies, but were actively hated in, and run out of, cities in which they'd previously played.

Last week, I wrote a column unfairly dismissing them as merely lucky (no one wins 21 of 22 in any circumstances just because of luck) and heard a lot from the incredibly angry and thoughtful fans of Colorado. In reconsidering my column, I realized that among the many Rockies virtues I'd neglected was their sheer classic style. Holliday and Helton drive the offense but what drives the team is pitching and defense, purely and simply. And what drives that is not really talent, but approach. The Rockies don't have the most talented staff in the league, or anything really close, but they do have the same aggressive insistence on pitching to contact, avoiding cripple pitches, and letting the fielders work that drove Cox's Braves and La Russa's Cardinals. It's a classic National League approach, and the diametric opposite of the Red Sox's "death by bludgeoning" approach. If styles make fights in boxing, they also make series in baseball, and this should be a great one, a study in contrasts on every level.

I wouldn't lay a dime on this series; I wouldn't be surprised if it went down to the last out, or by either team winning in a sweep. I'll go with the Red Sox, just because they're the best team in the game. This is the age of parity, though, and the Rockies have what it takes to make this eight straight seasons in which a new team has won it all. Coming from nowhere like the 2003 Florida Marlins or the 2005 Chicago White Sox, they're the quintessential team of the age. By all rights, they ought to win.

tmarchman@nysun.com