Your 2010 Manager of the Year.

*Image courtesy of Kelly and sittingstill.net*

Honestly?

I have no idea how he did it. Ang and I need pie charts, a laser pointer, 4 leaf clovers and divine intervention to figure out how to get three kids to school in the morning and Tito took a team of castoffs, also rans, and the walking wounded and somehow made it until there were 5 games left in the season before they were eliminated in possibly the toughest division in baseball.

Now mathematically, officially eliminated all the Sox have left to play for is pride and based on how they've played up until this point?

Wouldn't surprise me one bit if they ran the table.

Inconsistent (to say the least) starting pitching, more injuries than the entire filming of "Day's of Thunder" and practically the entire Pawtucket roster making appearances throughout the year and they STILL hung until the final week.

Other than the band of Idiots that won it all in '04 this may be my all time favorite Sox team. Gritty, unknown, and written off for dead by many people (including me) they flat out refused to die and in the end? The numbers game finally ran out.

Unlike 2006, I'm not sad it's over and I'm not sad they won't make the post season. Deep down I knew it when Beckett went on the DL and then Youk and Pedie were gone for the year; but they never, EVER quit.

And there aren't too many teams who could say they would have responded the same way.

So I'm left hoping that Lester gets his 20 wins and Buchholz gets 19 and Beckett can gnaw Posada's larynx out with his bare teeth at some point this weekend. I'll worry about them resigning Beltre and V Mart and if they'll pick up the option on Papi and if Tek will be around another season.

And on Mike Lowell night this coming Saturday it's gonna take everything I've got in me not to cry like a freaking baby when I think about the fact that after this weekend there will be no more cries of "Mikey Two Bags" or "Senor Doubles".

But that's a post for a different day.

Congratulations, fellas.

Job well done.