If the Boston Red Sox don’t beat the Yankees this year and go on to wipe out 85 years of gloriously self-indulgent suffering by winning the World Series, then I will finally begin to believe that Harry Frazee truly sold more than a ballplayer back in 1919.

If Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, and Bronson Arroyo can’t out pitch Mike Mussina, Jon Lieber, and Kevin Brown, if David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Johnny Damon, Trot Nixon, and Jason Varitek can’t outperform Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Jorge Posada, and Bernie Williams, then maybe there is something to all this gibberish about curses and spells and forces at work more powerful than the ones on the ball field.

If this isn’t the Red Sox’ year, then there ain’t no Red Sox Year.

Forget about the regular-season records or the order of finish. Since the first weekend of the season, the Red Sox have been better than the Yankees head-to-head, winning 11 out of 19 games.

Since the All-Star Break, they have also been better than everyone else, posting a 50-25 record, including a 22-3 stretch in which they chopped nine games out of what had been an 11 1 /2 game Yankee lead in the AL East.

While the Yankees struggled with the modest Minnesota Twins in their ALDS, needing to steal Game 2 on a Derek Jeter tag-up and Game 4 on a wild pitch, the Red Sox tore through the AL West champion Anaheim Angels in three games, capped by a stirring Game 3 in which they blew a five run lead only to stay tough and finally prevail on a 10th-inning David Ortiz home run.

The Sox come into this series, which begins tomorrow night at Yankee Stadium, with the blood of the vanquished Angels dripping from their bats. The Yankees, on the other hand, are stumbling home. There is no way anyone but the most partisan Yankee sycophant, or perhaps Rudy Giuliani, could look at these two teams and honestly conclude the Yankees are the better team.

All signs point to a Red Sox triumph this year, for reasons concrete and abstract: After all, how could these two teams possibly hope to top the spectacle they staged last October?

Only one way. With a Red Sox victory.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the one-sidedness of this rivalry, Yankees-Red Sox never seems to fail to live up to the hype, but last year’s ALCS was truly the series that had something for everyone.

It had great baseball and great violence and great passion and great hatreds. Within a seven-game span, we saw a senior citizen pile-driven by a Cy Young Award winner and a special-education teacher moonlighting as a landscaper tag teamed by a relief pitcher and a reserve outfielder. We had the second-guess to end all second-guesses – just what was Grady Little doing, taking a nap? – and we had the ending to end all endings, without which Aaron Boone would no doubt be just another fringe player to have passed through the revolving door at Yankee Stadium.

And of course, the Yankees won, which at the time seemed like absolutely the right ending. After all, they were the better team. This year, the same ending could only spoil everything. This year, it is the Red Sox who are clearly better.

Their ace, Curt Schilling, is better than any two Yankee starters, even with a sore ankle. Their no. 2 is Pedro Martinez. The number three, Bronson Arroyo, is probably as good right now as anyone the Yankees can throw out there, Mike Mussina included. And the no.4 starter, Tim Wakefield, handles the Yankees as if he were Sandy Koufax.

That is the kind of embarrassment of riches the Yankees used to enjoy. Now, their pitching is merely embarrassing. Mussina pitched well in Game 1 against the Twins, but not good enough to beat Johan Santana, who was off his game that night. Brown gave the Yankees a good outing in Game 2, but he has been erratic, to say the least, both on the field and off this season. Lieber is a guy who gets away with allowing 10 hits a game because of the potent Yankee lineup. The less said about the rest of the rotation the better.

As always, there is a lot at stake here, and not only something so commonplace as a trip to the World Series. The latest version of Yankees-Red Sox will, as always, will be a test of the heart and the head for the players, the press covering both teams, and the fans who live and die with them. It will be yet another opportunity for Boston either to revel in its misery – what will this city do for self-pity if the Red Sox ever win a World Series? – or enjoy the liberating power of victory.

It also will serve as a referendum on the comparative merits of the Yankees’ and Red Sox’ front offices. Just which was the more important, and smarter, off-season acquisition, Schilling or A-Rod?

And of course, it will be exciting and highly dramatic. This year, there are no excuses for the Red Sox, no mitigating circumstances, no reasons for anything but unqualified success. For once, the Yankees are just a uniform and a logo and a state of mind. The Red Sox are a team, a formidable team, the best the American League has to offer.

If they don’t win this time, they never will. There, I said it.

Mr. Matthews is the host of the “Wally and the Keeg” sports talk show heard Monday-Friday from 4-7 p.m. on 1050 ESPN radio.