The Boston Red Sox are your 2007 AL East Champions!

They moved their magic number down to 1 after beating the Minnesota Twins 5-2, and then clinched it when the Yankees lost to the Baltimore Orioles in the bottom of the 10th inning. This marks the first time since 1995 that the Red Sox have won the division, and marks the first time since 1997 that anyone other than the Yankees has won the division. Yes, the Yankees won 9 straight AL East division titles. (That's why I hate them. And the fact that they don't let any of their players have any personality whatsoever.)

So they held on. Thank goodness. The whole team and a few thousand fans stuck around at Fenway Park after the Red Sox won to watch the rest of the Yankees game, then had their huge champagne celebration. It was pretty cool.

As for the Mets...

They are a game away from completing the biggest regular-season collapse in baseball history. They led the NL East by 7 games over the Phillies with just 17 games left in the regular season. And now?

They are trailing the Phillies by 1 game with 2 games to play. They lost that entire 7 game lead, and now are 1 game behind.

If Philly ends up winning the division (which will probably happen), it will mark the first time in Major League Baseball history that a team has choked away a 7 game lead with 17 games to play. The first time EVER in the 100+ year history of professional baseball. That's nothing short of UNBELIEVABLE. If the Red Sox had choked away their once-huge division lead away too, I would be damn near suicidal. But they clinched today, so all is well.

As for the rest of baseball, the playoff race in the NL was completely crazy before tonight. Before today, not a single NL team had clinched a playoff spot with three games left to play. That's absurd. But today, both the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Chicago Cubs clinched a playoff spot. The Cubs won the NL Central, whereas the D-Backs just assured themselves a playoff spot. Their magic number to clinch the NL West is down to 2, I think. I must admit that I know very little about the divisions other than the AL East and NL East. [A bit of East Coast bias (even though I live in the West), probably nurtured by watching too much ESPN.]

The AL was boring compared to the chaos of the NL. All that was left to be decided in the AL was the East champion, and there is still a battle for the AL's best record (between Boston and Cleveland, who both have identical records after tonight). But the playoff match-ups are already set. We'll open with the LA Angels at the Red Sox and the Yankees at the Cleveland Indians.

So the Red Sox avoid the Yankees in the first round, and if they do have to face them in the ALCS (if both teams get there), they'll have home field advantage. Sweet.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the way this baseball regular season went. I could have done without the Yankees making that scary comeback. And I also could have done without the Yankees making the playoffs, but I'll live. But take a look at how each of my five favorite teams did:

1. Boston Red Sox: won the AL East.
2. New York Mets: currently choking like none other, but still in contention for both the NL East title and the NL Wild Card, though it's highly doubtful that they'll win either one.
3. Philadelphia Phillies (I took a liking to them much earlier this season, when they became the first team in professional sports to record 10,000 losses. They're sort of the lovable losers, like teams #1 and 4 typically are. Also, right around the time they were losing their 10,000th game, they were playing at Colorado when the game was postponed due to a thunderstorm. The grounds crew went out on the field to get the tarp on it, but the wind and rain was so crazy that they couldn't do it alone. So the entire Phillies dugout went out there, risked injury, and helped the opposing team's grounds crew get the tarp on the field. I've never seen a visiting team do that before. I've never really seen any professional team do that before. Any one of them could have gotten injured so easily--one big gust of wind, one slip in a puddle of water, and you could hurt your knee, sprain your ankle, come down funny on your wrist, or any number of other things. So to go out there and help out when you had absolutely no obligation to, and when you actually had decent reason to not help--that's something. And I've been a fan ever since): took over the NL East division lead today, and will almost certainly make the playoffs.
4. Chicago Cubs (it's the lovable loser thing again--I'd love to see them finally win a World Series title for the first time since 1908): clinched the NL Central.
5. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (I like Vladimir Guerrero, and they're affiliated with the Salt Lake Bees): clinched the AL West a few days ago.

So four out of my five favorite teams will win their divisions this year, and there's an outside chance that all five of them will make the playoffs. Methinks I should stop complaining, since I have relatively good fortune with the baseball teams I cheer for. I mean, it's not like I'm a Pittsburgh Pirates fan or anything ;) (Kidding, kidding...)

On another note, this cold of mine just won't go away. And neither will these loud people outside of my apartment. Boo for both of those things. But yay for baseball, for now.