Boston Red Sox Baseball Team

Dan Duquette's decision to let Roger Clemens leave the Boston Red Sox after the 1996 season still generates ridicule. The studious general manager inspected Clemens' 40-39 record over four seasons, and concluded the then-34-year-old "Rocket" had only so much life left. Duquette watched Clemens sign with the Toronto Blue Jays, wishing him well in the "twilight of his career." Some twilight.

The existing tickets for the Dodgers' March 29 exhibition game at the Coliseum were sold out within an hour of being put on sale to the general public Saturday morning. By 11 a.m., the 90,505 tickets available for the game against the Boston Red Sox were gone. For the Dodgers, who are celebrating their 50th season in Los Angeles, the game will mark a return to the venue they called home from 1958 to '61. The team moved into Dodger Stadium in 1962.

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Mark Prather remembers when Red Sox Nation was a small country, like Luxembourg or Orange County. "Old-school people like me have been loving them forever," said Prather, decked out in an old-school Carl Yastrzemski jersey as he took in an early spring exhibition game here. "Now you have a second group that are like, 'Let's jump on the bandwagon.' There's a transition." "Yeah," added fellow fan Dan Gosslin from inside his Carlton Fisk T-shirt.

Matt Young was vacationing on a boat in Catalina on Saturday night when his cellphone and the phones of his two kids started lighting up and vibrating with calls and text messages. The Dodgers had become the fifth team in baseball's modern era to win a game without a hit, defeating the Angels, 1-0, despite the efforts of right-handers Jered Weaver and Jose Arredondo, who combined for eight no-hit innings.

The Red Sox have won nine straight playoff games against the Angels dating to 1986. The Angels were 8-1 against the Red Sox this season. Which is more relevant in the division series? Here's a look at the issues and matchups when the Angels play the Red Sox: Numbers game The Angels had the best record (100-62) this season, but that lofty status hasn't meant much to teams in the past.

The combination of his success against Boston left-hander Jon Lester and a strong September earned Gary Matthews Jr., whose season was derailed by a knee injury, the start in right field for the Angels tonight against the Red Sox. Matthews, who lost his starting job to Juan Rivera just before the All-Star break, has three hits in six at-bats in his career against Lester, including a pair of home runs in Fenway Park on April 23. The switch-hitter also hit .

By their own admission, the Boston Red Sox were a confused and distracted team four months into the regular season. Then on the final day of July they dealt their main distraction, outfielder Manny Ramirez, to the Dodgers, getting Jason Bay from the Pittsburgh Pirates in return in a three-team trade. Everybody knows what that trade meant to the Dodgers, who rallied behind Ramirez to win the National League West.

Jason Bay had never played on a winning team before being traded to Boston in the July deal that sent Manny Ramirez to the Dodgers. So this whole idea of playing baseball in October is new to him. "The last few years I've been home at this point," he said. "But I'm trying not to make too big a deal out of it. Try to make it as normal as possible."

Uh oh. The streaks live, all of them, all the haunting October memories the Angels could have extinguished with one victory. It took the Angels six months to earn home-field advantage, three hours to lose it. It took the Angels six months to win 100 games, three hours to turn their next game into a must-win.