01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, September 29, 2005

This is the way baseball should be.

No worrying about congressional hearings and steroid testing and Rafael Palmeiro. No thinking about big-market teams and Moneyball and all the financial esoterica that now swirls around the game like groupies around rock stars. Nothing about all the off-the-field issues that complicate everything, rob us of the joy.

Just a good, old-fashion pennant race, three teams playing for two spots in the dying days of the season.

Baseball the way it ought to be.

A pennant race to remember.

Like we had in 1967, when the Red Sox won the pennant on the last day of the season, a popup that landed in Rico Petrocelli's glove and turned the Fenway Park infield into Lourdes as fans spilled out from the stands. Like we had in '78, when the Sox lost to the Yankees in a playoff on a Bucky Dent fly ball that found the screen, a freeze-frame of heartbreak that became part of Red Sox infamy.

Those are the ones that seemed to be outlined in neon in our memories, long after so many others blur together. Those are the two pennant races of legend. Because, back then, to lose the pennant was to pack up the bats and balls for the winter. Back before the three divisions and the wild card took away so much of the suspense.

A good, old-fashion pennant race.

The kind people talk about around the water cooler, the kind that seems to take on a life of its own, the kind that comes wrapped in baseball romance like some old, grainy black-and-white photograph resurrected from some musty archive. The kind that baseball used to have a patent on.

This is what we have now, the Red Sox and Yankees coming down the stretch in these last days of the season like two thoroughbreds in a big-stakes race, two teams in what's become the greatest rivalry in sports, two teams that know the destiny of each depends on the other.

With Cleveland thrown in.

There's no underestimating the importance of the Indians in all this. Without them, much of the drama of this week would be false, both teams going to the playoffs regardless of who wins the division. Cleveland is the x-factor, raising the stakes. The Sox and Yankees will have a playoff game in Yankee Stadium if they end the season tied? If there's a three-way tie, the loser would play the Indians on Tuesday for the wild card. Or maybe they would play the White Sox, whose once-big lead has been sliced dramatically by the Indians.

A real pennant race.

The kind of pennant race we don't usually get anymore.

Not in this day and age of wild cards, where you know the team that loses the division is going to the playoffs, anyway, so what's the big deal?

That's the downside of the wild card. The upside, of course, is that the wild card keeps more teams in the race, keeps more cities interested, keeps more fans interested. The tradeoff is it's at the expense of suspense.

The wonderful thing about '67 is there were four teams in contention in the final week. The Sox and the Yankees went to a playoff in '78. That was the essence of baseball, the pressure ratcheted up, the time when everything is intensified, when reputations are both made and tarnished.

Since then?

It's been different. The Sox won the pennant in '86, complete with dramatics in the ALCS, but the regular season is remembered as little more than batting practice. They won the American League East in 1990 on the last day of the season, before losing to the Oakland A's in four straight games. And by '95 there was the wild card, giving the good teams a mulligan, two chances to get to the postseason instead of one. The wild card that changed everything.

That's why this season has become such a gift.

The Sox and the Yankees in the last week of the season, complete with the possibility that one of them could be all done Sunday night, whether it's the Yankees with their $200-million payroll or the defending-champion Red Sox.

And it doesn't matter that these are two flawed teams that have overcome pitching adversities throughout the year. Nor does it matter that neither one seems as equipped as last year to have success in the postseason. They are the Red Sox and the Yankees, with everything that comes with that. Two teams whose fates have become intertwined.

Because if you were going to sit down at the beginning of the season and write the perfect ending for a baseball season, this is what you'd come up with -- the Red Sox and the Yankees nip and tuck after six months of games. The Red Sox and the Yankees in a battle royale, right from Central Casting.

A good, old-fashion pennant race.

Which, in this day and age of the wild card, should not be taken for granted.