My closing thoughts on 2008. Congratulations to the Phillies. Living in Delaware since 1992, I've lived in an area where pouting and whining prevailed, and now I get to see how the locals will conduct themselves as winners.
The Red Sox were a beat up team all year AND lost Manny Ramirez in a distracting manner, so to make it all the way to game 7 of he ALCS was quite an accomplishment. My favorite things for the year were Lester's no-hitter, Lester shutting out the Yankees in Yankee Stadium (Lester in general, really), watching Pedroia and Youk kick ass, Brandon Moss's opening day homerun, Jason Bay fitting this team like a glove, Masterson and Lowrie, Manny's 500th, and having lived through so many Dice-K starts. Oh yeah, game 5 of the ALCS was special as well.
Finally, the Yankees didn't make the playoffs. Call me a jerk for rubbing it in, but after 15 years, it's about damn time.