Baseball World SeriesRichard Stevens on how the Red Sox laid to rest an ancient bogey with the greatest comeback in baseball history

With the clock winding towards midnight in St Louis on Wednesday night, Edgar Renteria hit the ball tamely back at Keith Foulke. The Boston pitcher threw the ball to Doug Mientkiewicz on first base and Renteria was out. The Boston Red Sox had clinched their first World Series since 1918 in a clean sweep. After so long, it had come far more easily than anybody had ever imagined.

They were never behind in any of the four games. They outhit, outpitched and outhustled a St Louis Cardinals team that entered the World Series boasting the best regular-season record in the major leagues.

As the Sox swarmed across the Busch Stadium infield, the historical reference points came gushing out. The last time anybody in this uniform could call himself a world champion, penicillin had yet to be invented, women did not have the right to vote and Woodrow Wilson was president of the US.

"We can't reverse what was a long time ago," said Terry Francona. "This was our team this year. You can't do anything else about any other year."

That more than eight decades had yielded nothing but spectacular and occasionally tragic failure had been infamously attributed to the Sox owner Harry Frazee selling Babe Ruth, the pitcher who went on to become the greatest slugger the game had ever seen, to the New York Yankees in order to raise money to fund a Broadway show.

"The Curse of the Bambino" hung over the franchise through generations. By defeating the New York Yankees in last week's American League championship series in the greatest comeback in the history of the sport, the Sox had begun the exorcism. It was a task they finished in style with their 3-0 win on Wednesday night.

"It's a great feeling knowing we are bringing the World Series championship home to Boston," said Derek Lowe, who emerged from a slump to become one of the heroes of the side. "We always wondered how that would feel. We will get the chance to find out.

"It probably will hit home in about a week when we realise what we just did. This is a special team. I can't wait to go back to Yankee Stadium and not hear that 1918 chant any more."

The celebrations that brought tens of thousands on to the streets of Boston in the early hours of yesterday morning - with no repeat of the fatality that marred the festivities after the defeat of the Yankees - were set in motion 11 months ago. That was when the team's general manager flew to Arizona to share Thanksgiving dinner with Curt Schilling and persuade him to move to Massachusetts.

A cocksure, loquacious character - he used a Thursday television interview to urge people to vote for George W Bush - Schilling negotiated his own contract with a clause guaranteeing himself $2 million on top of his annual salary of $12 million when, not if, the Sox won the World Series. He earned every cent.

Twice in the space of a week he pitched with a torn ankle tendon stitched together by surgeons in a procedure so novel they had to practise it on a cadaver.

"I'm doing what any guy on this team would do," said Schilling, who denied media reports that the blood on his sock was put there for effect. "On this team there's a kinship in that locker-room that I think is a by-product of the environment we play in here. I've never experienced anything like it. I've been on some great teams and had some close teams, but this environment creates an entirely different scenario for us in the clubhouse. I don't question for a second any of these guys doing it for the team."

It was feared the Red Sox might struggle to get back up emotionally after the unbelievable high of the comeback against the Yankees. Such concerns ignored the unique make-up of this squad, a self-styled "bunch of idiots" who pride themselves on their unorthodox approach.

Books are banned in the locker-room, no player is allowed to put on a headset before a game, and their talisman and centre fielder Johnny Damon can be found most evenings lying naked on the treatment table until five minutes before the first pitch is thrown.

Wednesday night's World Series game was the first to coincide with a lunar eclipse, which some interpreted as a sign that the hour of the Sox was finally at hand. There were other omens too. Last winter, they tried to offload Manny Ramirez. This week he was voted MVP of the World Series.

More than once during the season they discussed trading Lowe. With his performances against the Yankees and the Cardinals, he has earned a place in Beantown folklore.

Of course, this being the Red Sox, there may be a twist in the tail worthy of Stephen King, one of their greatest fans. Of the three pitchers who contributed most to this victory, Pedro Martinez and Lowe are free agents and almost certain to depart Fenway Park. Even worse is the prospect of Martinez fetching up at Yankee Stadium, where owner George Steinbrenner will reportedly move heaven and earth to get his hands on the Dominican hurler.

A World Series-winning Red Sox pitcher heading to the Yankees in controversial circumstances? Has a familiar ring to it.