Now Comes The Hard Part

Boston's other, more celebrated personality trait--the lack of conventional discipline--may change. The season that opened with Martinez going AWOL in the opener ended with Manny Ramirez carrying a portable music player in a pants pocket of his uniform and chatting on a cellphone during team warmups before Game 4 of the World Series. Francona and Epstein would like a more professional approach without losing the exuberance. "Every team every year has its own personality," Epstein says. "One of the things we'll start to see is [more discipline when we] mix in players who have come up through our system." Besides Hanley Ramirez, third baseman Kevin Youkilis and lefthander Jon Lester figure to grow into larger roles within the next two years.

The Red Sox may have been daffy, but rarely has a World Series--winning team had a deeper understanding of its own significance. "I came here to be a part of history," closer Keith Foulke, who signed on last winter as a free agent, said in the raucous clubhouse after the clincher. "And we did it. Now they can take that curse and stick it where the sun don't shine."

Before the last bottle of champagne had been emptied, the Red Sox began planning a World Series trophy tour. The team intends to cart the hardware not only around New England but also to other Red Sox Nation hot spots, such as a Santa Monica, Calif., bar where Red Sox fans convene, the team's spring training complex in Fort Myers, Fla., and a training facility in the Dominican Republic. The Red Sox want to give their famously long-suffering fans a chance to share the world championship in a tactile way, one that heightens the euphoria or even provides some physical proof that they were not dreaming last week. That feeling will never be exactly the same again, and neither will the Red Sox roster.