Curt Schilling News

The boss phoned the other day with a weekend assignment. My sports editor - not George Steinbrenner, The Boss - wanted dueling columnists gazing into the Phillies' future with Mike Sielski providing a glass-half full approach and me offering an glass-half empty glimpse.

"Knight and Day" star Tom Cruise , along with wife Katie Holmes and 3-year old daughter Suri , attracting a crowd of spectators while they waited to check out the cannolis at Modern Pastry on Hanover Street .

Forgive me, but I'm going to spend a few minutes crying about how unfair the game can be.

The day after the New York Yankees won their 27th championship -- with the icing being that Pedro Martinez was the losing pitcher -- you had to figure Curt Schilling would have an opinion on the matter.

24, 2008, file photo, then-Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schiling poses for a photo in Fort Meyers, Fla.

Pedro Martinez returns to the scene of the crime. October 13, 2004, a day that will live in infamy in the history of the storied Red Sox Yankee rivalry.

Baseball's postseason history is chock-full of legendary performances, mysterious happenings, amazing plays and epic failures.

Curt Schilling's bloody sock, Johnny Damon's grand slam, David Ortiz's walk-offs, Keith Foulke's final flip to Doug Mientkiewicz.

It was Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling who once famously scoffed at the Yankees' mystique and aura, likening the two terms to exotic dancers at a night club.

The fundamental things apply as time goes by. Herman Hupfeld penned the song "As Time Goes By" for the 1931 Broadway musical, Everybody's Welcome.

"Balloon boy" isn't the first hoax to float past the public before getting deflated.

It's Jack Daniel's time in the Bronx again. The pregame round of shots - well, it was one small Gatorade cup everyone shared from - that worked wonders for the 2004 gang-of-idiots Red Sox [ team stats ] in their do-or-die ALCS Game 6 against the Yankees certainly could not hurt the Angels' cause this time around.

Thursday, the Yankees were one victory away from a triumphant return to the World Series .

The Yankees have an "Ace," and the Angels don't. Really, that's been the difference in this ALCS so far.

Every so often, Doug Mientkiewicz slips on his bulky, diamond-studded championship ring that commemorates the Red Sox' 2004 World Series championship, a memento of a glorious October gone by and everything it entailed.

Five years ago . . . the Yankees . . . three games to none. A Red Sox player who lived the miracle looks back.

New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera has been selected as the Delivery Man of the Year by a panel from Major League Baseball.

Welcome to the best time of the baseball year. There's nothing better than the league championship series.

The other day, Josh Beckett was asked how he "digested the idea" of being a Game 2 starter instead of his customary spot, starting Game 1. He answered in his famously red-ass fashion: "There was no digestion." With the retirement of Curt Schilling, Beckett inarguably became the most accomplished postseason starter in baseball.

Guess you could call it a team effort by the Red Sox [ team stats ] . Look at it another way: It's only the second time in Terry Francona 's managerial tenure here that the Red Sox didn't deserve to be on the same field as the team that beat them in the playoffs.