Bring it on, baby: The year of the Sox

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All was right in Red Sox Nation in 1967. The team so captured the hearts and minds of New Englanders – and a 14-year-old in Tennessee – that nothing has been the same since.

That team prompted the group Earth Opera to release a song called “The Red Sox Are Winning.”

Maybe it’s time for them to re-release the song.

Yeah, this is the year. We can feel it in our bones. This bunch of Red Sox is run-scoring fools.

They are the Boston Bashers. There is not an out in the lineup.

There is not a fastball that can be thrown by them, a curve ball that won’t be taken to the opposite field.

They will run by third-base coach Mike Cubbage so fast and so often that he must be wary of catching a cold from the breeze they’ll create.

(Whew, I’d better slow down. I’m beginning to hyperventilate.)

Yes. We can feel it. We have no fear of the aging Yankees and their billion-dollar pitching staff.

Bring on Darth Vader Steinbrenner and the Evil Empire. Bring on Darth’s millions of dollars. Let him spend. We are not afraid. A Raul Mondesi here, and $32 million for Jose Contreras there. Keep spending, Darth. But we will bring down the Evil Empire this year.

We fear nothing. Bring them on. All of them. Oakland general manager Billy Beane will wish he’d taken the Boston GM job when it was offered to him, after the Red Sox are through with his A’s.

The Rangers will again be shown for what they are: a hopeless bunch of gutless, overpaid losers.

(We are unafraid to use words such as gutless with the power of the 2003 Red Sox behind us.)

Ishiro, Smishiro.

The Mariners are a pathetic bunch of gourmet coffee-swilling, chamber music-listening, sushi-eating wusses.

Real men don’t eat sushi (or was that quiche?).

Real men (read: Red Sox fans) eat Italian sausage, smothered in onions on a roll dripping of Gulden’s mustard while pouring down a Sam Adams and listening to Aerosmith.

And we don’t need a breath mint when we’re done, either.

Yes, bring them all on. The Red Sox, after all, stand for truth, justice and the American way. We have nothing to fear.

This bunch of bashers is going to become the stuff legends are made of.

They will be the team that allows us to go to our graves with a World Series in a lifetime.

They will be the feel-good story of the summer and become a made-for-TV movie by the winter.

Mothers will name their babies after Kevin Millar.

Ozzie Osbourne will be heard to mutter something that vaguely sounds like “Red Sox” on “The Osbournes.”

Yes, this is the year. We can feel it. This is the year the jokes stop. The Bill Buckner references end. Bucky Dent’s name is heard for the last time.

Yes, finally, this is the year.

At least I hope so.

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net.