As a personal (non-technical) anecdote, I grew up as a Sox fan in New York City, coming of baseball age in the 1970s. I confess that I loved watching a team like the 1977 Sox with all that power: Rice, 39 homers; Scott, 33 homers; Hobson, 30 homers; Yastrzemski, 28 homers; Fisk, 26 homers; Lynn, 18 homers; Carbo,15 homers; Evans, 14 homers (when you add it up, 203 from this crew). It was an adolescent boy's dream come true: pure power. There was a lot to love. I loved Tiant, but of course, the Sox didn't have great pitching in those days (though I loved Lee too). When Clemens came along, his sheer dominance started to shift me toward a greater preference toward pitching (I had also been pitching myself in high school and college, so no doubt this affected me). But once Pedro Martinez came on board, as much as I had adored those Sox teams that could pummel foes into utter insensibility, watching him pitch was pure magic. Oh, now and again I could still return to my adolescent ways. I delighted in Ramirez, Drew, Lowell, and Varitek going deep in order against the Yankees in 2007. But when I think of a Sox dream Sox team, I think of a team with pitching that can be lights-out, if not across the board, then with someone as close to Pedro Martinez as you can get (which you can't, really).
)