By Jerry Dowling

What strange paranormalities are behind this sudden surge of the Boston Red Sox, who've already made history with their incredible rally against the New York Yankees and appear set for their first World Championship since 1918 behind a pitcher who's as true to red socks as he's been to two other clubs in October?

What psychical energies lie beneath this unusual New England autumn? Where are Bill Buckner, Calvin Schiraldi and Bob Stanley, who engineered the Game 6 World Series collapse in 1986? Where's Tony Conigliaro, the terrific young hitter who lost his career at 22 to a beanball in 1967, just months before the Red Sox outlasted three clubs in the greatest American League pennant race ever only to lose a seven-game World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals?

Whither Bucky Dent, whose 1978 homer for the New York Yankees beat the Red Sox in a one-game playoff? And what about Denny Galehouse, the ill-fated red hose pitcher in the one-game 1948 playoff loss to the Cleveland Indians?

We know, unfortunately, where to find the late Ted Williams, who returned from the military to bat .342 during the 1946 season, then hit only .200 in another seven-game World Series loss to St. Louis.

We also know where to find Johnny Pesky, something of a goat in that '46 series for holding his relay to the plate while an injured Enos Slaughter scored the winning run of Game 7 from first base on a single. Viewed more comprehensively, Pesky's career as the Red Sox shortstop was a heroic story, so he's still in uniform at age 84.

Perhaps if Roger Clemens had pitched with a little more cunning to the Cardinals in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series last week, he might have ended his career as the visiting hurler for World Series Game 7 at Fenway Park. You can find Red Sox fans who, despite their enmity toward Clemens, would tell you they'd almost kind of like it if he wins that game. Instead, the greatest Red Sox pitcher ever is taking time with his family in Houston.

The Red Sox general manager is Theo Epstein, a young stat geek who's advised by Bill James, the high prophet of SABRmetrics. These guys don't believe in ghosts.

So the ghosts seem to be missing from New England as their presidential candidate closes in on George W. Bush, their pro football team has won two of the past three Super Bowls and 21 straight games and the Red Sox lapped a 3-0 deficit to the Yankees for the American League pennant. Now the Sox have won six consecutive postseason games after taking a 2-0 World Series lead on the Cardinals Oct. 24.

A year ago, when the Chicago Cubs held a 3-1 lead over the Florida Marlins in the NLCS with Kerry Wood and Mark Prior set to pitch, one could almost have predicted the Cubs would blow it. They haven't won the World Series since 1908, nor have they even appeared there since the war-compromised season of 1945.

The Red Sox are an entirely different story, enduring nothing like the Cubs' historic futility despite 85 years without a World Championship. Make no mistake, the Sox have been through hard times. Opening day attendance for the Red Sox in 1967 was 8,432. No one cared. But the Red Sox rallied behind Carl Yastrzemski's triple crown season to win that Impossible Dream pennant, and the Old Towne Club has lived in love ever since. This year, the Red Sox sold every ticket to every game, despite the high embarrassment of losing Alex Rodriguez in a broken-down trade with Texas.

Inevitably, the Yankees put their grip on A-Rod, prompting the New Yorkers to issue a public statement saying, "Unlike the Yankees, the Red Sox didn't go the extra mile for their fans."

Maybe the Sox didn't go that extra mile last winter. But how many extra miles has Curt Schilling gone with two incredible pitching performances in the past couple weeks on an ankle held together by sutures tying muscles to tendons and mowing down that murderous Cardinals lineup as his socks literally turned red with blood?

If Schilling can be a bit tiring as a grand-stander and self-promoter, he's absolutely without peer as a competitor. Now he's the only pitcher in history to win World Series games for three different clubs, also doing it for Philadelphia in 1993 and Arizona in 2001. A New York columnist recently dug up a quote from Phillies GM Ed Wade, who supposedly said of Schilling that he's "a horse every fifth day and a horse's ass the other four." Could be, but remember that every horse has an ass and this guy is some kind of a horse.

How many extra miles has Jason Varitek gone, guiding Schilling from behind the plate, delivering big hits and guiding this group with so many garbled names and only a few truly great ones?

Interesting fact about the Red Sox, for those who think the Yankees are a bunch of mercenaries: Of the 25 Boston players, the organization scouted, drafted, signed and developed only two. Two! That would be right fielder Trot Nixon from the 1993 draft and reserve third baseman Kevin Youkilis of UC in the 2001 draft. The way Bill Mueller is botching the hot corner for the Red Sox, maybe they should give Youkilis a try.

Of course, the Red Sox have made their share of trades, including this beauty: Varitek and pitcher Derek Lowe from the Seattle Mariners for deteriorating reliever Heathcliff Slocumb in 1997.

Back to the original question about Boring Bill and the Curse of the Bambino, though. Everyone knows all about the curse that's been in effect since the Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees, allegedly denying the Bostonians future glory. And we all know something about Boring Bill, as in Boring Bill Belichick, the dullard who ran Bernie Kosar out of Cleveland while coaching the Browns to abject mediocrity.

Subsequently, Belichick has taken his place at the top of his profession, turning the New England Patriots into the most dominant football team of these times. As a result, he has New Englanders thinking about victory.

If there's anything to curses, they're mental. They become expectations that are reified when Bucky Dent beats you with a home run or a ground ball scoots through Bill Buckner's legs. One starts expecting the wrong outcomes.

But if you listen to talk radio or peek around in chat rooms -- sportswriting does have its low moments, doesn't it? -- you see a different kind of pathos from Boston fans this fall. They're in the teeth of another victorious football season just as the Red Sox already have partially reversed their fate. While the Sox players take nothing for granted, Sox fans aren't sitting back waiting for the next disaster.

What really is the influence of fans on the teams they follow? Do sad sack fans in any way cause good teams to choke? Do optimistic fans energize their teams beyond their true abilities?

Will the Red Sox hang on and win this World Series? The answer is soon to come. Does an NFL team's success animate its fans, who carry that winning outlook to their baseball club? We might never find out, at least not in this world.