Josh Beckett has proven that he’s head and shoulders above most pitchers in the major leagues.

The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach

The Red Sox’ win transforms everyone.

Never again will we look at these players the same way we did a month ago.

Winning changes everything.

Here are just a few of the little stories that get lost in the big story.

• Terry Francona is no longer just the average manager he was when he first came here, just another guy hired to be fired.

Now he is a star in his own right, not only assured of his Red Sox immortality, but also a commodity in today’s baseball world. Winning in 2004 was one thing. But even then the perception often was that he was just along for the ride, a beneficiary of his team’s amazing comeback against the Yankees, that he was just a guy who happened to find a winning lottery ticket in his pocket. Now the perception is Francona is one of the best managers in the game, with the two rings to prove it.

• Will he be back? Or will our last memory of Curt Schilling will be of him waving to the crowd at Fenway Park last Thursday night, fresh off another big performance on a big stage?

Was that the farewell tour for this soon to be 41-year-old who came here in 2004, complete with a TV truck ad of him saying he was coming to Boston to erase a curse, this star in his own script who never does anything in the shadows?

Or will he be back for one more curtain call?

All that now is as up in the air as an infield pop fly, just like Mike Lowell’s future in Boston.

•Maybe no one helped himself more in the postseason than Lowell. It came at exactly right time for him, the MVP of the World Series and a free agent to boot. Could anyone ask for better timing?

The Red Sox don’t like to give aging players a lot of years, and Lowell is 33 and staring at one last big payday. He’s probably also staring at a big offer from the Yankees, who appear to have a big opening at third base.

Is this Johnny Damon all over again?

These are just two of the subplots that will soon play themselves out.

• In June, he was just a kid playing Double-A ball in Portland, known to Red Sox aficionados and no one else.

Now, Jacoby Ellsbury is an emerging star.

Who says dreams can’t come true?

Not only did he start in center field during the playoffs, he also jump-started the Sox’ offense with his great speed and ability to get on base. He’s also the kind of player the Red Sox so rarely have, a young kid who seems to make things happen, the kind of kid you can see in center field for the next decade.

• We knew that Jonathan Papelbon was great last year.

But no one outside of Boston did, not really. Not when he was a rookie for a team that failed to make the playoffs and he checked out early with a sore shoulder.

Everyone knows now, though.

Forget what the voters said. Papelbon was the real MVP of the Series, the hammer at the end of the game, the lights-out closer. Sunday night was just the most obvious example, coming in to save the game and win the World Series, someone doing what the best closer in the game is supposed to do. Coming in and doing what he’s done all year, but instead doing it Sunday night on the biggest stage there is.

Somehow it was only fitting.

• A year ago, he was viewed as something of a disappointment, the kid with the golden arm who had yet to find his great potential.

Now, Josh Beckett is the best pitcher in baseball.

All he did this season was be the only 20-game winner in the major leagues. All he did in the playoffs was essentially throw his glove on the mound and tell everyone to forget it, they weren’t going to win. He was simply that dominating. He also is one of those old-fashioned aces, a great talent in the prime of his career, someone who is more of a pitcher than he was a year ago, someone whose talent finally reached his potential, to the point there is no limit to how good he can be.

• They are the new dirt dogs, Kevin Youkilis and Duston Pedroia are the two guys who came to symbolize this team’s grit, its determination. Is there a tougher out than Youkilis? Close your eyes and you see him fouling off yet another pitch, robbing a pitcher of his will.

Is there anyone who gets more out of himself than Pedroia, this kid who looked so overmatched in April, this kid who got clutch hit after clutch hit in the postseason?

They both are great overachievers, the kind of guys you want playing for you.

Dirt dogs.

• No one can make up Jon Lester’s story, going from having to leave the game a year ago to battle cancer, to coming back and giving the Sox a great start Sunday night.

Fiction wouldn’t do it justice.

It was the perfect ending for a memorable season, a triumph of will, an amazing comeback that transcends sports.

While all the other players were going through offseason conditioning last winter, Lester was going through chemotherapy, a lot more on his mind than working on his breaking ball.

So watching him pitch Sunday night was a chance for fans everywhere to cheer.

Not just Red Sox fans.

Fans of life.

breynold@projo.com