Anyone want to teach me a Brooklyn accent?

Seriously, I'm tawking the truth. The real heirs to the Boys of Summer do not reside in Los Angeles. It's too glitzy and commercial--the very qualities that legendary Dodger owner Branch Rickey found unseemly. Raul Mondesi? Gary Sheffield? Please. Mike Piazza the 63rd-round pick becoming a superstar was a story straight out of an old-time Hollywood movie. Piazza departing his old team for megabucks is a product of today's schlock.

No, the real heirs to the Brooklyn Dodgers were found at Fenway this year, exuding the same agreeable mix of delight and frustration as their Flatbush predecessors.

Before the season began, they were "De Bums," having lost most valuable person Mo Vaughn and replaced him with Jose Offerman.

But now, with Nomar Garciaparra blasting grand slams against Seattle and Pedro Martinez striking out Mark McGwire en route to All-Star MVP honors, they metamorphosed into the Boys of Summer. Now that their season has sadly concluded prematurely, like the Dodger cry of old, they must once again promise, "Wait 'til next year."

And the ones leaving us on the doorstep are the Yankees.

As Yogi Berra, a man who frustrated plenty of Dodger and Red Sox teams, once said, it's deja vu all over again. Imagine the events which transpired fifty-eight years ago, before America experienced the horror of World War II, when a nation still transfixed by Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak and Ted Williams' .406 average turned its ears to the Fall Classic.

The Yankees, of course, were the AL representative. Challenging them was a scrappy collection of Brooklyn players that other teams had rejected. This unit had finished third in 1939, second in 1940, and finally first in 1941. Their reward was a cross-town Series against the best team in baseball.