NOTEBOOK | World Series

Dominant: The Boston Red Sox never trailed during their four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals, becoming the fourth team in World Series history to accomplish that feat. The others were the 1963 Los Angeles Dodgers, the 1966 Baltimore Orioles and the 1989 Oakland Athletics. "It's never easy, but we didn't allow them the chance to come back. We know how good they are, we respect that," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "We got out of here with the ring we needed. Now we can celebrate." Boston is the third consecutive wild card team to win the World Series, joining Anaheim (2002) and Florida (2003). The Red Sox also became the first club to win eight straight games in a single postseason.
At last: The two largest newspapers in Boston rolled out extra editions after the Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years. Both carried single-word headlines to capture the historic moment. The Boston Globe doubled its press run to more than 850,000 for today's editions, according to Michael Larkin, night operations editor. Their third edition -- dubbed a Victory Edition -- was rolling shortly before 2 a.m. with the headline "YES!!!" An extra edition was planned for later in the morning. The Boston Herald doubled its press run to about 600,000 copies, according to night city editor Jose Martinez. The newspaper published an extra with the headline "AMEN."
Quite a collection: Among the items headed to the Hall of Fame after Boston's first World Series title since 1918 are Curt Schilling's spikes, the bat Johnny Damon used to hit a leadoff homer in Game 4, MVP Manny Ramirez's bat and Keith Foulke's spikes.
Third time's a charm: Jason Varitek has come close to championships before. This time, he took home the big prize. The Red Sox catcher is the second person to play in the Little League World Series, the College World Series and the major league World Series. He lost in the previous two title games. Varitek led Altamonte Springs (Fla.) to the U.S. championship at the 1984 Little League World Series. He also played for Georgia Tech in the '94 College World Series -- that team also featured Nomar Garciaparra and Jay Payton but lost to Oklahoma in the title round. The first person to play in all three was pitcher Ed Vosberg, who played in the Little League World Series in 1974 for the runner-up team from Tucson, Ariz., for the NCAA champions from the University of Arizona in 1980, and for the world champion Florida Marlins in 1997.
Associated Press