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NEW YORK - The Boston Red Sox try to build on their new image of success, while the Colorado Rockies write the first chapter of their Fall Classic history in Major League Baseball's World Series starting on Wednesday.
The Red Sox shed their lovable losers label in 2004 when they became baseball's first team to overcome a 3-0 playoffs deficit, winning four straight from the Yankees, before sweeping the Cardinals for their first Series crown in 86 years.
Boston showed their grit once again in battling back to beat Cleveland for the American League pennant after falling behind three games to one, outscoring the Tribe 30-5 in taking three in a row.
Colorado hope to pen a happy ending to a Cinderella run to a first World Series in their 15th year in existence.
The soaring Rockies have won 21 of their last 22 games and 10 straight, including playoff sweeps against the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks to go from longshot playoff hopefuls to National League champions.
Colorado have also mastered the art of the comeback this season, getting great pitching in their charge to the national league title with a postseason earned run average of 2.08 to go along with young sluggers like Matt Holliday and Troy Tulowitzky.
The Colorado comeback kids were 4.5 games out of the wildcard chase on September 15 before climbing back. In a one-game playoff against San Diego Padres for the postseason berth, the Rockies overcame a two-run deficit in the 13th inning to win.
Josh Beckett, the ALCS MVP winner of two games against the Indians, is expected to start the best-of-seven Series opener at Boston's Fenway Park against Colorado lefty Jeff Francis.
Beckett, who won World Series MVP honours in Florida's 2003 triumph over the Yankees, said he is focused and full of confidence when he takes the mound in the postseason.
"Nobody wants it more than me," the hard-throwing righthander said after Sunday's pennant-clinching 11-2 over the Indians on Sunday.
"When I'm out there, I feel like the guys are all behind me, and I just feel like we're better than everybody else."
That sort of bravado was often missing in other talented Boston teams, which seemed doomed by the so-called "Curse of the Bambino" that saw them fail to win after dealing legendary Babe Ruth to the fierce rival New York Yankees in 1920.
Time and again Boston came agonisingly close to bursting through, losing a string of memorable World Series in climactic seventh games in 1986, 1975, 1967 and 1946.
Now the Red Sox, with prodigious sluggers David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, have a swagger associated in the past with the Yankees.
Supremely confident, Boston have won 14 times in the last 17 elimination games they have faced.
- REUTERS
