Red Sox Champions—Again!

They didn't wait 86 years for this one: three years removed from their first World Series title in nearly a century, the Red Sox won their second in four years, doing it again as they did in 2004 with a four-game sweep, this time over the Colorado Rockies. Series MVP Mike Lowell scored one run and drove in another in the 4-3 victory with a solo HR. Closer Jonathan Papelbon ended it with a strikeout of Seth Smith.

"When you wear Red Sox on your shirt, you're good at something," slugger David Ortiz hollered from atop a clubhouse table during the postgame celebration, according to AP. Pitcher Jon Lester, 23, who was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for lymphoma last year at this time, earned the clinching win. “It’s been a whirlwind year for me," he said afterward. "I don’t know when it will sink in.” (More MLB stories.)