Surging Boston wins pennant

NEW YORK -- Boston blew away decades of defeat with four sweet swings.\nBelieve it, New England, the Red Sox are in the World Series. And they got there with the most unbelievable comeback of all, shaming the New York Yankees, the "Evil Empire" to the south.\nDavid Ortiz, Johnny Damon and Derek Lowe made sure of that.\nJust three outs from getting swept out of the AL championship series three nights earlier, the Red Sox finally humbled the dreaded Yankees, winning Game 7 in a 10-3 shocker Wednesday night to become the first major league team to overcome a 3-0 postseason series deficit.\nCursed for 86 years, these Red Sox just might be charmed.\nThere is no torture this time, no hour of humiliation. Better yet to Boston fans, it's the Yankees left to suffer the memory of a historic collapse.\nBoston didn't need any of the late-inning dramatics that marked the last three games, leading 6-0 after two innings.\nOrtiz, the series MVP, started it with a two-run homer in the first off broken-down Kevin Brown, and Damon quieted Yankee Stadium in the second inning with a grand slam on Javier Vazquez's first pitch.\nAfter Derek Jeter sparked hope of a comeback with a run-scoring single in the third, Damon put a two-run homer into the upper deck for an 8-1 lead in the fourth.\nLowe, pitching on just two days' rest, silenced the Yankees' bats and their boasting fans, who just last weekend assumed New York's seventh pennant in nine years was all but a lock. He allowed one hit in six innings then Pedro Martinez started the seventh, his first relief appearance in five years, sparking chants of "Who's Your Daddy?"\nThree hits and two runs got the crowd going, but the rally stopped there and Mark Bellhorn added a solo homer in the eighth for a 9-3 Boston lead.\nCheering of Red Sox fans could be heard in the ninth, and when pinch-hitter Ruben Sierra grounded to second baseman Pokey Reese for the final out, Boston players ran on the field and jumped together in a mass huddle to the first-base side of the mound.\nYankees players slowly walked off, eliminated on their home field for the second straight season.\nOn a cool, crisp night in the Bronx, the historical pattern was broken, and the World Series will start at Fenway Park Saturday night against St. Louis or Houston.\nNow that the Babe's team has been beaten, Boston can try to reverse The Curse, win the Series for the first time since 1918 and bring happiness to the Hub which can scarcely believe the tumultuous turn of events.\nFrom Fenway Park to Faneuil Hall, from Boston Common to Beacon Hill, the 11th pennant for the Red Sox, the first since 1986, will be remembered as perhaps the sweetest.\nJust because they won it over New York, in Yankee Stadium, site of the Game 7 meltdown when the Red Sox were five outs from winning last year.