It’s October and that means only one thing to baseball fans, the World Series. How fitting that this year’s match-up is between the blue bloods of baseball as the American League champion Boston Red Sox will host the St. Louis Cardinals from the National League. How they got here?

For Boston, after a year of turmoil where they missed the playoffs, fired their manager, Bobby Valentine, spend overtly to build a quick winner by signing high profile free agents Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crwaford, only to then trade them to the Dodgers late last season and finished in last place, somehow find themselves here. First, they hired back John Farrell, the teams former pitching coach when they were winning. Second, they reloaded with a philosophy to get players that were about a positive attitude, who would grind out at bats like Shane Victorino, Jonny Gomes, Mike Napoli and closer Koji Uehara amongst others that have help changed the Red Sox’s fortune. It has been an amazing turnaround and a great story that only comes in a sport with such parity.

For St. Louis, no real surprise. After losing the NLCS to the eventual world champion San Francisco Giants last year, the Cardinals got better thanks to additions from their farm system like Michael Wacha, the NLCS MVP, Matt Carpenter and Matt Adams stepping in for the injured Allen Craig have help the Red Birds inch closer to another World Series title. Wacha is fired up as mentioned on his Twitter account:

World Series bound!!! Wow!!

— Michael Wacha (@MichaelWacha) October 19, 2013

In this evenly match World Series, FOX could have a strong ratings winner with both teams being extremely popular.

The World Series opens this Wednesday night.

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