The history had been all too recent to be able to purge it from memory. Too painful to analyze or relive. Angel-crushing shots sailing over that putrid green fence. Countless swings coming up empty with runners on base poised to score and end the misery. Leads blown and comebacks never fully realized. No mas.

The Angels replaced those hideous memories and agonizing images from their – and their fans’- heads with fresh ones. Images of stout pitching, clutch two-out hits, and a team that believes greatly in itself now at the forefront of recent memory for the Angel faithful. 2009 will now stand as the year of the successful exorcism. The October where all Fenway-related demons were repelled and cast back to the dark holes from which they came. A giant weight lifted off of the entire organization’s shoulders, allowing the Angels to reclaim their wings and return to their rightful perch in the sky.

It all went down so fittingly, a complete 180 from all their recent woes and shortcomings. As 2008 ended with Erick Aybar’s failed attempt at a potential game-winning squeeze bunt, 2009’s magic began with Aybar’s two-out, 0-2 single up the middle to get it started. Chone Figgins, who had yet to reach base in the series, picked the ideal spot to break the funk, drawing a full count walk. The clutch bat Angel fans have been looking and clamoring for in recent years arrived in the left-handed batter’s box in the form of first-year Angel Bobby Abreu. He didn’t disappoint, delivering yet another outstanding at-bat and lining a two-strike, 95-mph fastball from Jonathan Papelbon off that haunting 37-foot green wall that has never been kind to the Halos. Game 1 hero Torii Hunter was given the intentional walk to both load the bases and set the stage.

It had been the least productive season of Vladimir Guerrero’s career (his first full season in which he failed to hit .300). Guerrero’s post-season woes had hardly gone unnoticed, with countless articles in the local papers pointing out his October failures, and in-game announcers never missing an opportunity to point out his struggles when he came to the plate in a big spot. One RBI in 19-plus post-season games tells most of the story. One fastball from Papelbon and Vlad doubled that output, lining a two-run single to center field and giving the Angels their first lead of the game with two outs in the ninth. Of all the RBI’s Guerrero had accumulated over his probable Hall of Fame career, there was no doubt that the pair of runs he drove in on Sunday loomed largest. Vladdy had finally answered the bell – in perhaps his last season as an Angel – and replaced memories of failure with one violent swing of success.

Closer Brian Fuentes, new to the Angels post-season storybook, had struggled at times through the second half, had the weight of the baseball world on his shoulders as he took the Fenway mound in the Red Sox half of the ninth. One, two, three. The most pressure-packed half inning of Fuentes’ career went as smoothly as a freshly sanded piece of wood, no Boston magic to be heard from in a park where it seemed Houdini permanently lived in October. Game over, series over, agony over.

Post-season failures turned into Fall success. The same plot in the same book, but with a fresh, new conclusion. A major enemy defeated at last, with another familiar foe lying in wait in their history-riddled pinstripes. There is still a ways to go before reaching the summit. A baseball season is a war of attrition. In World War II, we had to take down a mighty Germany, then onto a ferocious Japan, but in the end, both were defeated by our will. The Angels will seems to be alive and well, stronger, it seems, than in recent years, and a little Southern California October magic appearing to be along for the ride – courtesy of Nick Adenhart.

But for now, the Angels have escaped from their October captors, erasing the sting of recent heartbreak and surging onward and upward. For these Angels, both individually and collectively, after Sunday they are singing their own Redemption Song, a song of freedom. And hope springs eternal in the Fall once again.

- Blake Warren