It turns out that those who forget history aren’t doomed to repeat it after all.

Those who forgot history and created history on their own are the 2004 Red Sox. The American League pennant winners bulldozed a cavern-sized hole through the House that Ruth built last night, curses be damned.

Boston’s 10-3 ALCS Game 7 victory was a laugher from start to finish, capping a historic rally from three games down – and three outs from defeat in Game 4.They stormed back for four wins in a row against a dynasty that up until last night had always gotten the last laugh, especially in October.

Like a band of hippies dancing through the halls of the White House, the Red Sox turned the establishment on its head. This wild-haired band of idiots did things their own way from start to finish – without a care in the world, without an eye on their past, and with only a desire to win.

How fitting that Sox leadoff hitter Johnny Damon was the main architect of the Game 7 win. Damon’s grand slam in the second inning and two-run shot in the fourth, along with Old Faithful David Ortiz’s first-inning two-run homer, staked the Red Sox to a commanding lead, which sinkerballer Derek Lowe ably protected for six dominant innings.

Damon, so good in the leadoff spot all season long, had been mired in a .103 slump the previous six games, with just three singles to show for himself. To have him, the chief idiot and most strikingly coiffed player in the bunch, steal the show was a fitting ending to a series that defied predictions from start to finish.

After the Game 3 shellacking that pushed the Red Sox to their four-day encampment on the brink, there was a subdued air in the normally la-di-da Red Sox home clubhouse. Damon, the ultimate go-to guy for delivering the State of the Sox addresses, looked stunned and saddened as he tried to explain what was going wrong and how the team was not giving up. Stuck in his own painful slump, Damon simply didn’t know what was going on, and the club’s other mainstays retreated to the privacy of the trainer’s room to lick their wounds.

But at the Sox’ bleak hour, the genius behind their idiocy began to pay dividends. Ever since Damon proclaimed the team a “bunch of idiots” in Anaheim during the Division Series, the team’s general obliviousness to its surroundings became clear. The Red Sox’ “whoa, dude” approach may have shocked crusty types in the baseball establishment, but it worked for this group.

There is still no good way to explain the hole in which the Red Sox found themselves after the first three games. Oakland GM Billy Beane calls the playoffs a crapshoot, and this was a series rife with aberrations. Through the first three games, the Red Sox displayed surprisingly poor execution, while the Yankees pitched and hit at a correspondingly aberrant level. Boston was left staggering like a welterweight who had mistakenly climbed into the ring with a heavyweight.

Curt Schilling’s ankle injury in Game 1 set the tone of the first three disastrous days for the Sox, helping to land an emotional blow that took a few days to wear off. His re-emergence in Game 6 reaffirmed what the two previous Boston victories had shown: The Red Sox would not go quietly, especially not while playing at a level well below their abilities.

In Game 4, Derek Lowe started out of the blue and earned a good-sized measure of redemption by allowing three runs in 5 1 /3 innings, far better than most expected. Still, the Sox trailed 4-3 heading into the bottom of the ninth with Mariano Rivera ready to administer the final dose of morphine to put Boston into another October slumber.

But the Sox dodged the needle. A leadoff walk by Kevin Millar, pesky base-running from Dave Roberts, and an RBI single from Bill Mueller sent the game into extras. Three innings later, Ortiz went deep off Tom Gordon and the Red Sox had their first win. They liked the feeling so much, they did it again the following night, with Ortiz again delivering with a 14th-inning RBI single.

The Red Sox played Games 4, 5, and 6 at the level where the Yankees had been three games earlier, while the Yankees, especially the middle part of the order, were freefalling back to earth. That wrist slap that Alex Rodriguez laid on Bronson Arroyo on his way to first in Game 6 infuriated the Sox, who were never that fond of Rodriguez’s too-precious style to begin with.

All this would be enough for any mortal series, but with Bucky “Bleepin” Dent throwing out the first pitch last night, this rivalry’s past loomed over the present like never before.

In the end, it didn’t matter to the Mr. Magoos, although the curse had one final moment to shine at Yankee Stadium. With starter Derek Lowe channeling his 2002 self through six brilliant innings, Sox manager Terry Francona did a warped channeling of his predecessor Grady Little.

Whereas Little famously left his ALCS Game 7 starter, Pedro Martinez, out for too long, Francona took his starter out too soon and brought in a fatigued Pedro instead. Lowe was throwing on just two days rest and had thrown 69 pitches, so a substitution was certainly in order. But with three innings left and stalwart relievers Mike Timlin and Alan Embree unused in Game 6, the choice of Martinez, the likely World Series Game 1 starter on Saturday, was a glaring managerial flub. Martinez’s presence woke up the crowd and the Yankees lineup, who pummeled him for two runs before he got his three outs. Timlin came in for a 1-2-3 eighth and sanity returned.

When the game concluded, and the Red Sox began celebrating on Mr. Steinbrenner’s home turf, a great weight lifted off the hearts and minds of the Red Sox followers. They still don’t know if 86 years of futility have been dissolved, but last night the Red Sox didn’t feel the weight of any history books lifted off their shoulders.

They were too busy being happy. In ignorance, there is bliss and these 2004 Red Sox are truly blissed out.

Mr. Silverman covers the Red Sox for the Boston Herald.