That's the Major League Baseball American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, in case you don't follow baseball or perhaps live on another planet. (Readers outside the US may be excused for a lack of awareness of this latest passage in the American national pastime.)

The Red Sox came back from a 3-0 deficit in the seven-game series to win four games in a row (each with its own dramatic twists and turns with a come-from behind thriller in all but the last of the ALCS games) and move on to the World Series.

Beyond the thrills and chills, the Yankees-Red Sox play-off series offers several lessons for everybody in Silicon Valley.

1. Never say die. The Red Sox overcame a "curse" that has oppressed players and fans alike since the team's last appearance in the World Series in 1918. Johnny Damon - the Red Sox outfielder with mountain man hair and beard - persisted through a frustrating batting slump in the first six games of the series only to score six of the Red Sox runs last night, a dazzling, record-setting performance.

It's true that the Sox have been able to stay in business and acquire the players (resources) they need to compete - just as Silicon Valley companies need to do. But the refusal to give up made the difference.

2. Play through the pain. A corollary to Lesson No. 1. In the ALCS series, this trait was most visible in pitcher Curt Schilling's heroic performance in game six despite an ankle injury that drew TV cameras to his blood-stained red socks throughout the broadcast. Sometimes you just have to bear down and be brave.

3. Creative management wins. Red Sox manager Terry Francona out-maneuvered a Yankees dream team assembled with virtually no limit to the amount of money that could be spent acquiring the game's best players.

4. Insist on a fair, level playing field. Francona pressured the umpires to revisit some egregious judgements in last night's (and earlier games in this series) game...and they reversed some bad decisions, in the Red Sox's favor.

5. Follow the rules. One of the ugliest moments in the series came last night when the Yankee's billion-dollar man, Alex Rodriguez, while charging towards first base after hitting the ball into the infield, broke the rules when he tried to swat the ball out of the hands of the defender who was waiting to tag him out. Rodriguez made himself and his team look bad in this display of poor sportsmanship, which felt even cheaper and more desperate in light of the Yankee's loss.

6. Your words will come back to haunt you. Yankee fans - tens of thousands of them - taunted the Red Sox with a "Who's your Daddy?" sing-song chorus last night and throughout the play-off series, rubbing in their faces the long history of Yankee dominance in this famed rivalry. They shut up quickly enough when the Red Sox started spanking their beloved Yankees, and the refrain could be heard, ghostly, but undeniably reverberating in the stadium as the Yankees went down last night.

Microsoft executives - just to mention one example near and dear to many of us here in Silicon Valley; other cocky companies and executives also come to mind - may want to remember this lesson the next time they pop off with slimy remarks about Apple Computer, such as Steve Ballmer's recent comments about iPod owners being thieves, as Apple moves on to trounce Microsoft in the digital music market.

Link:
Boston pops ... champagne!  by Jim Caple, with links to other ESPN.com coverage of the series