01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, October 26, 2004

ST. LOUIS -- They are two wins -- a mere 54 outs -- from achieving baseball immortality, from being remembered as the team that snapped an 86-year run of futility.

Two more wins and years -- no, decades from now, they will be talked about with reverence as the team that ended the Red Sox' championship drought.

History is so close, they can almost touch it. But you sure wouldn't know it from watching them.

As the Red Sox went through their World Series workout yesterday in anticipation of tonight's Game 3 with the St. Louis Cardinals, there was noting special about the way they went about things.

"If you were on our (team) plane (Sunday night)," said Derek Lowe, "you wouldn't have known if we were going to Game 3 of the World Series or just leaving spring training. We're very loose."

"Same card games, same attitude," confirmed manager Terry Francona.

This team, on the verge of achieving something very special, doesn't think itself special at all. This could just as easily be an interleague series, instead of, potentially, two (or three) of the most memorable games in franchise history.

There's a casualness to this Red Sox bunch. While the weight of expectation may have crushed Red Sox teams of the past, this one merely shrugs and keeps plowing ahead. Ho hum.

"I think the New York series has a lot to with that," Tim Wakefield said, referring to the team's improbably comeback from an 0-3 deficit in the American League Championship Series. "We're not supposed to be here. This is icing on the cake. We already overcame the hardest part."

No doubt, becoming the first team to dig out of such a hole in a seven-game series has sharpened the team's perspective. But the Red Sox weren't overwhelmed at the start of the ALCS, either.

There's no acknowledgement of the team's tortured post-season history, no hand-wringing over 1978, or 1986 or any other close call. That's not their style.

"They're unaffected by everything," marvels general manager Theo Epstein. "Name something that's affected them. Playing .500 ball for three months? Nope -- they had the best record in baseball after that. Losing their starting shortstop and starting right fielder in spring training? No, they just went 15-6 out of the gate. Losing a franchise player at the deadline? Nope. Falling down, 3-0, with a rested Mariano Rivera on the mound in the ninth inning of the fourth game? No problem."

If ignorance is bliss, then the Red Sox are ecstatic.

Even five years ago, such a relaxed attitude would have been impossible to imagine. This close to a championship, there would be a team-wide tightness so obvious that they would squeak as they walked by.

The fatalism which can permeate the region -- at least insofar as the baseball team goes -- in the past has throttled lesser clubs. Only a year ago,as the Sox rallied to tie their American League Division Series with Oakland at 2-2 and force a deciding Game 5 in Oakland that was apparent.

As a mostly jubilant team boarded the bus for the airport and the cross-country flight, one player cut through the euphoria.

"What's everyone so excited for?" the player said. "If we lose (Game 5), you know they'll all rip us anyway."

But these Red Sox are different: impervious to the pressure, unaffected by the stakes and intensely focused on only the next game.

Maybe it's chemistry. Maybe it's the newcomers. Who knows?

"A lot of it is luck," said Lowe of the proper mix. "It just worked, for whatever reason. These guys just enjoy playing. I guarantee you, (tonight), no on will put any extra pressure on himself. (Jason Varitek) keeps saying to take it one pitch at a time, one inning at time. That keeps us in the moment and keeps us from getting too far ahead of ourselves."

"I liked what I saw when we were down 0-3 in the ALCS," said Francona, "And I still do. If you do what you want to do, there will be so much time to reflect afterward."

Let the countdown begin. Two more wins to baseball immortality.

"This team is prepared to go out and win two more games," said Lowe as casually as he might order breakfast.

It hasn't seemed to dawn on them, of course, that they might be the two biggest in franchise history.