Sportswriters are wicked lame.

So the Sox came back from a 3-1 deficit in this year's ALCS to be jeered by sports columnists all over the country -- look here for one example, but it's not just him. I've read several similar columns.

So you win one world series after nearly a century, and that's O.K. -- but more than that, if you continue to win, to please your adoring fans, if many of the same players from your previous win continue to play well, well, that's just too much. You should make like the Chicago White Sox, apparently, who, a mere two seasons after their last World Series, and impressive rout of the Astros, turned out an 18-games under .500 season. Or the Tigers, who despite one of the most all-around-talented teams in baseball, showed only flashes of the brilliance of which they're undoubtedly capable.

It seems to be the story of the day -- the Red Sox have become the Yankees, and now we must all hate them, as well as the Patriots (also dominant) and any other Boston team that manages to have a successful season.

They're not wrong -- that's not the problem -- although the Red Sox are still going to have to deal with the ACTUAL New York Yankees, who trailed us by only two games at the end of the season, still have the best offense in baseball (and this year, they very nearly did look like the "best offense ever," as they were hailed by Tim McCarver in post-season 2006) and, oh yeah, have a whole bunch of young pitchers coming up.

Maybe the sportswriters are right -- the Sox are the New Yankees. The Bronx is dead now that Torre's gone, and Boston is the new sports powerhouse.

I'm a longtime Sox fan and as such, I've seen some disappointments. I came into this thing just after the '86 loss -- a bitter pill to swallow for fans who really do go crazy when the Sox looked like they might do it "this time." The late '80s and early '90s didn't bring anything for the Sox that was great, but the late '90s did bring the resurgence of the New York Yankees -- which was really more of a return to form for the most dominant team in sports.

Just remember this: if the Sox are to become the dominant team in baseball, we're going to have to beat the Yankees year after year, who, in case you haven't noticed, have been pretty good.