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Now that Boston has finally beaten the Yankees and seeks its first World Series win since -- all together now -- 1918, the 10 Spot marks the occasion with a list of the top 10 most outrageous characters in Red Sox history. On Monday, we'll have a similar list for the Cardinals.

1. Bill Lee (1969-78) -- Could a player this eccentric have been anything but a left-handed pitcher? The Spaceman was in an orbit all his own. At various times he wore -- on the field -- a gas mask, a Daniel Boone cap and a beanie with a propeller. Grew a Fu Manchu mustache but insisted it was a Ho Chi Minh. Long a devoted pot-smoker, he claims to have toked with President Bush. Of course, he also says that the CIA has a dossier on him, that the Bible is fiction and that the royal Stuart family of Scotland is directly descended from Jesus Christ.

2. Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd (1982-89) -- The Can delighted Sox fans, flinging pitches from a skinny 145-pound frame while uttering gems such as this one after throwing a 3-2 fastball: "When it goes up to the full house, the Can will bring high noon." He was perpetually high-strung, and his mound-strutting dismayed opponents but revved up the Fenway faithful. "I got color. I got character. I'm the Caaaan," he said (the nickname came from Boyd's hometown of Meridian, Miss., where beer was known as oil.) Sox fans were less delighted in 1986 when, upset over being left off the All-Star team despite an 11-6 start, the Can hightailed it to Mississippi and missed several weeks.

3. Wade Boggs (1982-92) -- The poultry-loving hitting machine had as many compulsions as Jack Nicholson's character in As Good As It Gets. He ate chicken every day. He ran wind sprints at precisely 7:17 p.m. He used pine tar, a doughnut and a resin in the on-deck circle, in that order. Then, more often than not, he poked one the other way off the Green Monster. Oh, and did we mention he was a sex addict? Countless philandering husbands, in New England and elsewhere, should pay tribute to Boggsy for trying to elevate screwing around into a serious-sounding medical condition deserving sympathy rather than a swift kick in the rear.

4. Ellis Kinder (1948-55) -- The patron saint of boozing ballplayers. Kinder made it a point to get especially sloshed the night before he pitched, then sweat out the booze in those heavy flannel uniforms by throwing zeros the next day at Fenway. It wasn't that Kinder had no self-control; according to David Halberstam's The Summer of '49, it was a conscious routine. Early in his career Kinder would stay in the night before he pitched, but he tossed and turned before playing, in Kinder's words, "like crap." Once Kinder discovered the secret of the sauce, he escaped a long minor-league career for a nice run in the bigs. Before a key showdown with the Yanks late in 1949, Yankees reserve catcher Ralph Houk met up with Kinder at a Boston bar. Houk knew Kinder from the minors, and was more than happy to accompany his friend on a colossal pub crawl. Houk stumbled into the visiting dugout the next day, feeling like hell but proud that he had helped pickle the Boston starter to seemingly ensure a New York win. Kinder threw a six-hit shutout.

5. Harry Frazee (owner) -- Frazee plays the villain in the Red Sox' cast of characters as the man most responsible for the Curse. Strapped for cash, the Broadway producer shipped a young Babe Ruth to the Yankees after the 1919 season, when the pitcher-turned-slugger had blasted a seemingly impossible 29 home runs. He sold Ruth for a then-stunning $100,000, plus Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert loaned Frazee $300,000 and took a mortgage on Fenway Park as collateral. Frazee's largesse didn't stop there, as he continually handed Ruppert whatever he needed to build the Yankee dynasty. By 1923, when the Yanks won their third straight pennant, they had 11 former Red Sox. A Boston cabbie likely acted for all of New England when, upon learning that the man who was just in his cab had sold Ruth, he dropped Frazee with a haymaker.

6. Dick "Dr. Strangeglove" Stuart (1963-64) -- Stuart arrived in Boston with a reputation as a decent slugger but indifferent fielder at first base. He might have been sold short on both fronts. "Dick's not as bad a fielder as they say," said a Red Sox hurler during spring training in '63. "He's worse." The grumbling wasn't so loud when Stuart mashed 42 homers and led the league with 118 RBIs that season. By the end of the year he had his own TV show in Boston, Stuart on Sports. But his Hub honeymoon was short. During the 1964 season, manager Johnny Pesky was so fed up with Stuart's indolence afield that he considered quitting. Stuart was shipped to the Phils after the year ended.

7. George "Boomer" Scott (1966-71, 77-79) -- The burly slugger (271 homers) was cat-quick at first base, winning a very un-Strangeglovelike eight Gold Gloves. Yet perhaps his greatest contribution to the game was popularizing the term "taters" for home runs. He was also known for a peculiar Boomer-speak. "The Brew got the Duker in the first," for example, meant that Harmon Killebrew hit a home run off Earl Wilson in the first inning. After his big league career ended in 1979, Boomer headed south for the Mexican League, picking up a new nickname -- King Kong.

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8. Luis Tiant (1971-78) -- El Tiante's back-to-the-plate corkscrew windup has been aped by a generation of wiffleballers in backyards from Bangor to the Back Bay. Nobody in Boston was entirely sure what the Cuban was saying, but they certainly understood when he lit up a fat cigar after a win, which he did often during three 20-victory seasons for the Sox. Tiant was the man during the '75 postseason, winning three games along with a no-decision in Game 6 of the World Series, which ended on Carlton Fisk's famous homer.

9. Ted Williams (1939-60) -- Teddy Ballgame wasn't merely a character, he was an all-American hero, a real-life John Wayne with the war medals and home runs to prove it. It's impossible to make any Red Sox list without including The Kid, the majors' last .400 hitter. Williams had his battles with the Boston fans and media, and the latter likely cost him at least two MVP awards. But the power of his myth is such that it has only grown since his death in 2002. His (frozen) body became the focus of a pitched battle between his children.

10. Bill Buckner (1984-87) -- Billy Bucks, of course, is vilified for his error in Game 6 of the '86 World Series, when he let Mookie Wilson's ground ball trickle through his legs to allow Ray Knight to score the winning run. Never mind that the Mets had already tied the score. Never mind that manager John McNamara left the gimpy Buckner in on defense, though he might have replaced him with Dave Stapleton as he had done earlier in the postseason. Buckner is the man who stands the most to gain from a Red Sox victory over the Cards..

10 Spot Extra: Jeopardy! vote results and Lock of the Week. The silent majority spoke up, voting overwhelmingly to continue the Ken Jennings updates with a whopping 87.2 percent of the ballots. Therefore Ken will be back in next Tuesday's edition and will continue in the 10 Spot until his defeat. As for the Lock of the Week, the Broncos smoked the Raiders last week to move us to 4-2. This week we're going with the Packers, giving 3½ points at home to the Cowboys. The Pack is probably sick of hearing how it's lost its Lambeau edge.