With the recent acquisition of Marlins' fireballer Josh Beckett the Boston Red Sox find themselves in a position that most Major League ball clubs could only fathom. They've been dealt two aces.

The Sox are starting to make a habit of making turkeys of other American League teams by stealing away top of the rotation starters on Thanksgiving Day.

In the fall of 2003 it was young Theo Epstein, our since departed General Manager, that spent Thanksgiving Day with former (and future) World Series hero Curt Schilling. Theo obviously displayed flawless table manners as he convinced the big right-hander that Boston was a special place to play and undoubtedly sold Schilling on his place in baseball history if he were ever to bring a World Series trophy to Boston.

Curt's infamous bloody sock from Game 6 of the ALCS now hangs in Cooperstown. He brought Boston that Championship.

Here we are just two short years later and Boston is trying the same formula that brought the 2004 Championship. Two Aces.

One ace, Pedro Martinez, has since moved on to New York to do his best Roger Clemens impersonation and turn into, or in Pedro's case to remain, a dominant pitcher.

That left Curt alone to carry the Sox to another title, something we all know he was unable to make happen due to an injury he could not heal from timely enough.

Schilling overcoming an injury in the 2004 playoffs single handedly handed the Sox and New England their first Championship in 86 years, so Sox Nation gives you a mulligan on 2005 Curt.

Josh Beckett is being touted as the next Roger Clemens. A very generous but deserved comparison for a youngster that has only once won more than 10 games.

Remember Clemens won 7 games for the Sox in 1985 before blowing up for 24 wins and a Cy Young award in leading Boston to the American League pennant in '86. Beckett shows the same kind of stuff and make up that Clemens did then. This kid was a World Series MVP against the favored Yankees as a Marlins pitcher who asked for the ball on short rest to put New York away in 2003.

Jack McKeon, then the Marlins skipper, said Beckett "has the guts of a burglar." That's the type of unselfishness that made Schilling an icon in Boston sports history. That's the type of guy I want to steal the pennant away from the Yankees in October of 2006.

Sign up to receive the free Red Sox Update.

Beckett grew up idolizing Clemens as a fellow Texan, no doubt patterning himself after the Rocket. Beckett even had an autographed Sox cap from Clemens that young Josh surely wore around the diamonds during hot Texas afternoons. A young Red Sox fan dreaming of fanning 20 Mariners on a cold New England night in April, just like the Rocket.

For Beckett & the Sox, next October can't come soon enough.