Did you rest up?

The Boston Red Sox were kind enough to dispatch the Houston Astros in five games to move on to the World Series, giving New England the weekend to catch up on sleep and avoid more 2 a.m. pacing after white-knuckle, postseason games.

All that begins again on Tuesday night when the Los Angeles Dodgers come to town. It’s a marquee matchup for Major League Baseball, two big-market franchises who have been around more than 100 years. The Red Sox have called Fenway home for more than a century, while the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Chavez Ravine in the late 50s.

Amazingly, it’s only the second World Series meeting between the two teams. The Sox beat Brooklyn in the 1916 World Classic, four games to one, to win their second straight championship and fourth in the 13-year history of the series.

It was a different game back then. Take Game 2 for example. The Sox beat the Robins (they wouldn’t become known as the Dodgers until the 1930s) 2-1 in 14 innings. It was an epic pitchers’ duel, with Sox hurler Babe Ruth outdueling Brooklyn’s Sherry Smith. Both threw complete games: Ruth going the full 14 while Smith came up just short with his 131/3 innings of work.

The game lasted 2 hours, 32 minutes. We might see a review challenge last that long this week.

Del Gainer ended the game with a walk-off single in the 14th. It wasn’t called a “walk off.” That term didn’t enter the baseball lexicon for another 70 years when Dennis Eckersley famously labeled Kirk Gibson a “walk-off piece.”

That legendary Gibson shot – a pinch-hit home run from an injured player hobbling up to the plate – helped the Dodgers win the 1988 series. They haven’t won one since, coming ever so close last year before losing Game 7 at home to the Astros.

The Dodgers are back in their second straight Fall Classic under Manager Dave Roberts, an icon in Boston ever since he stole second base off Mariano Rivera in 2004. That was the moment the tide turned in the Boston-New York rivalry, leading to a curse-ending championship that put an end to 86 years of frustration.

There has been lots of champagne since then. The Red Sox are looking for their fourth championship of the millennium, which would be the most in baseball. Alex Cora (Roberts’ teammate in L.A. for three seasons) won a championship here as a player in 2007 and won another as a bench coach for Houston when they beat the Dodgers last year.

“Obviously ’07 was special, last year was special,” said Cora. “I think this year – if we can win four more – will be the best out of the three.”

It would be the best, Cora explained, because he’d be managing a team to a championship. Last year he assisted A.J. Hinch, and in 2007 he was a utility infielder who never got an at bat in the four-game sweep of the Rockies.

Now, he’ll be calling the shots as the Sox look to finish the best regular-season in franchise history with a duck boat parade through the streets of Boston.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There will be long, stress-filled nights to get through before this thing is over. Which is why we’re thankful the Sox didn’t play an ALCS Game 6 on Saturday night or, worse yet, a Game 7 on Sunday.

Pitchers, players, and managers need their rest. So do we. And we won’t be getting much this week.

Tom Caron is a studio host for the Red Sox broadcast on NESN. His column appears in the Portland Press Herald on Tuesdays.

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