NEW YORK -- Jon Lester was part of two championship teams with the Red Sox, winning the clinching game of the 2007 World Series and dominating the postseason in 2013. But in the minds of most New Englanders, his October heroics don't hold a candle to those of his predecessors from 2004.
"Those guys," Lester said Friday, "are legends in Boston."
Lester saw it firsthand. The 2007 and 2013 teams are held in high esteem, to be sure. But the 2004 vintage, the self-proclaimed "Idiots" who "Cowboy'd Up" to vanquish those damned Yankees, sweep the Cardinals and break an 86-year spell without a championship?