[Dodoubled]

Right. But a better example would be to cite past references from best-of-five series. The Red Sox-Yankees thing in '04 was the first time that's EVER happened in the history of baseball.

As for other memorable five-game-series collapses:

1995: Yankees take a quick 2-0 lead on Seattle at the Stadium, then watch four days later as that lead implodes quicker than the Kingdome (eventually would).
(Two years later, in what would be the only real misfire betwen an otherwise late-90s dynasty, the Yanks couldn't hold a 2-1 margin over Cleveland, either).

1999: Cleveland jumps out 2-0 vs. Boston, only to lose its next three. Boston then proceeded to fade away in the ALCS as the Yanks continued their romp.

(Cleveland also managed to blow a 2-1 lead to Seattle in 2001.)


2001: Oakland takes a 2-0 lead to the Yanks, only to blow it late. New York finally gets its redemption from '95.

(Oakland also blew a 2-1 lead to Minnesota in 2002, and the Braves did the same against the Giants that same year).

2003: Oakland jumps out 2-0 vs. Boston, only to see the Sox storm back and eventually lose to the Yankees in an epic seven-game ALCS (but the one in '04 trumped it).

In the 11 years this series has been around (I'm not counting '06, yet), a team has come back from 0-2 four times. A team has blown a 2-1 lead four more times. And granted, it's considerably rare for to overcome the two-game deficit (a little under 10 percent of the time), the chance is still there.

Now, take the Boston-Yankees series of '04. Since 1903, and every year except 1904 and 1994, the World Series has been held. In all but a few of those has the Series been in a seven-game format. (A few of the earlier ones had a nine-game format, namely the first one in '03 and the Black Sox one in 1919, plus the two following years.) But that's neither here nor there.

Anyhow, subtract those four World Series, and you have 98 seven-game series that have been played. Throw in 40 LCS series (20 each for the NL and AL; it started in 1969 as a best-of-five but moved to a seven-gamer in 1985), and you have a total of 138 seven-game series in baseball history. And once, ONCE, has a team come back from 3-0.

That's a success rate of .00725.

According to , those are slightly better than your odds of being dealt a straight flush on any given hand.

The moral of this rant is: never take a 2-0 lead to the cleaners. Always, ALWAYS take it one game at a time.