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Throughout much of the season, the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox the best teams in their respective leagues. Could these teams square off next October?
Flashback to 2003. The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees were battling in the ALCS while the Chicago Cubs led the then-Florida Marlins three games-to-one. The teams with the two longest championship droughts in baseball were seemingly destined to meet with the promise of one team finally achieving glory.
Baseball fans know what happened to Boston in 2003. Aaron “Bleepin” Boone hit a moonshot off Tim Wakefield in the bottom of 11th in Game 7, keeping the Curse of the Bambino alive for one more year.
There isn’t a Cubs fan alive who doesn’t know what happened at Wrigley two days earlier. Mark Prior had the Cubs five outs away before Alex Gonzalez, Moises Alou and some poor kid named Steve forever etched their names into baseball lore. Destiny had spoken.