George King of the NY Post calls it Christmas in October:

Christmas in October. How else can you describe getting the Red Sox and Yankees in the ALCS? You can't.
Starting tonight at a sold-out and raucous Yankee Stadium the top teams in the American League open a best-of-seven series and that's the way it should be. The Chokeland A's and over-matched Twins are home, leaving the bitter rivals to lift their fans to euphoric heights or break hearts.

"It's like Bird and Magic in the 80s," said Red Sox first baseman Kevin Millar.

Only better.

This is what it felt like a couple of years ago when things started going right for the New England Patriots. An obvious, game-costing mistake was magically erased in the Foxborough snow, and the tumbling dice kept coming up winners the rest of the winter. Blessed as never before in the "Tuck Rule" win over the Oakland Raiders, the Patriots' boxcar victory train rumbled through Pittsburgh all the way to the city of New Orleans and a Super Bowl championship.

It was then that New England sports fans first started to think like winners. Instead of moaning "why us?" they challenged the gods of the games and asked "why not us?"

Which brings us to the local baseball team -- ever the most important New England sports franchise -- one that for the longest time has embodied frustration, failure, even buffoonery.

The Boston Red Sox tonight begin a best-of-seven series against the New York Yankees for the right to represent the American League in the 2003 World Series, and for a change Sox fans aren't baying at the moon, blaming curses, or expecting something to go wrong. The path to the pennant thus far has been sprinkled with gold dust, the same magic ash that fell on the head and shoulders of Tom Brady and friends in January-February 2002.

"I think they are going to do it this year," says captain Carl Yastrzemski, who has taken the torch from the late Ted Williams as the greatest living Red Sox player. Yaz was around for too many of the near-misses that created the modern-day image of this ball club (Lucy's going to pull the ball away again), and he is here to tell you, "The Yankees aren't that good."