by Jim Reineking

Immediately after Yankee hitter Ruben Sierra grounded out to Red Sox second baseman Pokey Reese with two out in the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 of the 2004 American League Championship Series, the Red Sox etched themselves into a unique place in the long history of the great game of baseball.

It had nothing to do with that improbable and unbelieveable comeback from a three-game deficit — becoming the first to do so ever in a baseball playoff series.

It had to do with hair — facial, mullets or just plain long hair.

It had to do with players calling themselves and their fellow teammates "idiots."

It had to do with having a player on your team who sports a look that would have made him a perfect candidate to play the lead in The Passion of the Christ.

It had to do with having a starting pitcher on the roster who has threatened to plunk Babe Ruth in the tush, called the Yankees his "daddy," wears buckets on his head during title celebrations while hanging with a mysterious little buddy.

The 2004 Boston Red Sox were one of the most unusual a teams to find playing for a world championship in a decade and immediately added to a rich legacy of "cool" World Series teams.

When the 2004 version of the Red Sox finished the final chapter of their remarkable run with the team's first World Series championship in 86 years, it ended the most analyzed sports story in U.S. history (the sale of Babe Ruth and the subsequent "Curse"). To commemorate this astonishing accomplishment, we've taken a trip through memory lane to find the World Series teams that had the most character and characters.

Whether they played hard on the field and partied hard off it, or just partied hard on the field too, here's a list of the coolest World Series teams of all time (in reverse chronological order, for your convenience).

1993 Philadelphia Phillies

There was the guy who threw like his hair was on fire. There was the guy who they called "Nails." There was the guy who married a Hooters girl. There was the guy who said, "Lady, I'm not an athlete, I'm a ballplayer."

They drank beer (one player sold his uniform number to another for a case of beer). They wore mullets. They didn't shave ... or, at least, not that often. They were a modern-day "Gashouse Gang." They didn't really look much like finely tuned professional athletes, but could they play ball.

John Kruk wasn't an athlete, he was a ballplayer. (Al Bello / Getty Images)

With John Kruk at first base, Lenny Dykstra in the outfield, Darren Daulton behind the plate, Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams out of the pen, and hyper-intense Curt Schilling as the staff ace, the Phillies — last-place finishers the season before — were a formidable squad. After winning the NL East title, the beer-belching Phillies beat the heavily-favored, and pitching-heavy, Atlanta In an era when fan interest in baseball was waning — remember Major League Baseball went on strike a year later — these Fightin' Phils were a breath of fresh air in a rather stale game.

1982 Milwaukee Brewers

Their manager had a wooden leg, and the team featured two current Hall of Famers and at least one more future Hall of Famer.

"We did so many crazy things. Oh, man, we had so much fun," said Gorman Thomas, as the Brewers honored the only team in franchise history to advance to the World Series in the summer of 2002.

To many, Thomas — the beer-drinking, power-hitting center fielder playing in an era right before money tainted the great game — epitomized Milwaukee. Manager Harvey Kuenn's Brewers tailgated with fans and slept off hangovers on clubhouse training tables.

Thomas sent Bernie Brewer down his beer chalet slide more than any other Brewers player that year, tying for the league lead in homers with Reggie Jackson. And it was characters such as Thomas, Cecil Cooper, Rollie Fingers, Robin Yount, Pete Vukovich and Jim Gantner that made this team more popular at the time in Wisconsin than the Green Bay Packers. That's hard to fathom today.

Harvey's Wallbangers' magical 1982 season ended in disappointment when the team was defeated in the World Series by the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games.

1979 Pittsburgh Pirates

When Roberto Clemente was killed in a plane crash on Dec. 31, 1972, Willie "Pops" Stargell became the heart and soul of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

And it took the burly first baseman seven years to get the Pirates back on top.

In 1979, the Pirates may have been one of the more ethnically diverse team in the history of the game (at that point of time). Second baseman Rennie Stennett, outfielder Omar Moreno, and veteran Manny Sanguillen were from Panama. Bert Blyleven was born in Holland. Pitcher Enrique Romo was from Mexico.

This group adopted Sister Sledge's We Are Family as its theme song. And, after Stargell's three dingers helped lead the Pirates past the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series, the players' wives danced on the top of the dugout.

1972-74 Oakland Athletics

They wore gaudy lime green and yellow uniforms and grew facial hair to attract young fans to the ballpark.

When not kicking tail on the field, they were kicking it in the clubhouse. With powerful personalities such as Reggie Jackson, Jim "Catfish" Hunter, Bert Campaneris, Gene Tenace, Vida Blue and Rollie Fingers, clubhouse brawls were not uncommon.

Herb Washington, another interesting player often lost on a roster full of stars, was a world-class sprinter who stole 29 bases in 1974 despite never stepping into the batter's box.

The A's won three straight World Series, and then were dismantled by owner Charlie Finley as free agency was instituted in Major League Baseball. However, those three championships earn the A's the title of most successful cool team ever.

1969 New York Mets

1969 may have been the Summer of Love elsewhere, but it was the year of the miracle in New York City. In the year's first month, the New York Jets — led by renegade quarterback Joe Namath — won the Super Bowl. Three months later, the Mets began a run to an unlikely World Series championship. This was seven years removed from expansion and a disastrous 40-120 (that's a record for futility) opening season.

The Mets, ninth-place finishers in 1968 (MLB introduced division play in 1969), got some help from a late-season collapse by the Chicago Cubs to win the new NL East title, then upset the Atlanta Hall of Fame pitchers Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan are the only familiar names to novice sports fans. However, notables such as Tommie Agee, Donn Clendenon and Ron Swoboda played prominent roles in that World Series.

1944 St. Louis Browns

War-time baseball produced one of the more unique teams in baseball history.

The Browns were like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays of the first half of the 20th century. Hopelessly stuck in the American League's second division, their mediocrity inspired a phrase: "First in shoes, first in booze and last in the American League."

For one magical season, the Browns were "first in shoes, first in booze and first in the American League."

However, somehow the Browns put it all together in 1944 for the team's only American League pennant. Of course, during World War II, most of the top players of the time were off fighting a war. So, what was left in the States was an inferior brand of baseball. For the Browns, there was a collection of players too unfit for the U.S. Army, and in 1945, the only one-armed player in Major League Baseball history, Pete Gray.

The Browns survived a tight pennant race with the Tigers to meet the hometown St. Louis Cardinals in their only postseason appearance. The Browns lost the tightly contested World Series.

Ten years later, the team — back to its losing ways — packed up, left St. Louis to the Cardinals, and moved to Baltimore to become the Orioles.

1934 St. Louis Cardinals

The Cardinals have won many World Series titles (second-most in baseball history behind the New York Yankees), but perhaps no team in franchise history is more famous than the old "Gashouse Gang" Cardinals of 1934.

These Cardinals didn't shave before games, and wore stained, dirty uniforms full of patches. Most of these guys chewed tobacco, spit out the sides of their mouths, rubbed the backs of their hands across their mouths, and then wiped the backs of their hands across their shirts. They were thick-necked, scrappy players who slid hard into bases.

It's not completely certain how the '34 Cardinals became known as the "Gashouse Gang," but perhaps it came from a day that season when the Cardinals arrived in New York to play the Giants after playing the Boston Braves on a rain-soaked field. Being gritty players, Cardinals uniforms often carried plenty of grime, and teams didn't have the luxury of extra uniforms or the ability to wash the ones they had after each game. When those Cardinals appeared at the Polo Grounds with those dirty uniforms, a New York sportswriter noted that they looked like "the gang from around the gashouse."

In Game 7 of the World Series against the Detroit Tigers, Joe "Ducky" Medwick slid hard into Tigers third baseman Marv Owen on a triple, which drew the ire of Detroit fans, who tossed fruit onto the field. Medwick was removed from the game in order to restore order. Didn't seem to matter much, those Cardinals of Frankie Frisch, Pepper Martin, Leo Durocher and Dizzy Dean went on to win the deciding game 11-0.

1918 Boston Red Sox and 1908 Chicago Cubs

No teams dominated the early portion of the 1900s like the Red Sox and Cubs. The Red Sox won five World Series from 1903 to 1918. The Cubs won two and played in four World Series between 1906 and 1910. Then, suddenly, they became cursed. The Red Sox traded away arguably the greatest athlete in the history of American sports, and the Cubs wouldn't let a farmer bring a goat into Wrigley Field.

Generations later, these two storied franchises are still searching for their next World Series titles, and fans wonder if they'll live to see their team win it all again.

1914 Boston Braves

The mighty Philadelphia Athletics of Frank "Home Run" Baker, Eddie Collins and Chief Bender were heavy favorites heading into the 1914 World Series. However, the Boston Braves made a push from last place in the NL to first place between July 18 and Aug. 25, and continued that momentum to win the World Series in a sweep.

The most famous member of that "Miracle Braves" team was shortstop Walter "Rabbit" Maranville, who was a 5-foot-5 baseball clown. Known for his wild nights and zany stunts, Maranville would walk hotel ledges, swallow goldfish and toss firecrackers after a few drinks.

One night in Lewiston, Maine (ever been there?), Maranville, obviously filled with liquid courage, declared to an audience, "I will now demonstrate how I stole second base off 'Bullet' Joe Bush in the (1914) Series." Sprinting off a mythical first base, Maranville slid into a picture-perfect slide, unfortunately he miscalculated the distance and wound up landing on a drum in the orchestra pit, breaking his leg.

1906 Chicago White Sox

Perhaps the biggest riddle of all-time. How can a team that bats just .230 during the season advance to the World Series and wind up winning it, even though said team only hits .198 in the Series?

Welcome to the world of the "Hitless Wonders." No, they're not a bad boy band. The '06 White Sox had the worst team batting average in the American League, and had the fewest home runs (just seven dingers the whole season!).

If you're still scratching your head as to how this team became a winner, well, strong pitching (Ed Walsh led the AL with 10 shutouts) and an impenetrable defense were a lethal combination in the dead-ball era.

They played the Cubs in the World Series, which might explain why the White Sox came out ahead. However, these weren't the bumbling, stumbling Cubs we know today. These were the Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance Cubs, one of the greatest teams ever. That's not an understatement. The Cubs won 116 games that season, which is still a record (and that was with a 152-game season, not today's 162-game schedule).

In what had to be a massive offensive output, the "Hitless Wonders" pounded Cubs starter Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown for 12 hits and eight runs in a Series-clinching Game 5 victory.

1904 New York Giants

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know. You astute baseball historians busted us. There was no World Series in 1904. Well, let's pretend for a moment that there was. Trust us, the story is actually better without the Series.

After the upstart American League representatives, the Boston Pilgrims (now the Red Sox), embarrassed the established National League by beating their champions, the Pittsburgh Pirates, in the very first World Series in 1903, New York Giants owner John T. Brush and charismatic Giants manager John McGraw refused to play Boston in the 1904 World Series. They called the American League a "minor circuit" and no Series was held that year, the only interruption in play until the 1994 strike wiped out that season's World Series.

Can you imagine, hypothetically speaking, the Cardinals and Red Sox were to meet in this year's World Series, and then the Cardinals refuse to play the Red Sox because they were a wild-card team, and therefore inferior competition? It would be out-of-control chaos that'd have the fans and TV networks all up in arms. Something tells us that the consequences of Brush's and McGraw's decision in 1904 weren't quite as great as it would be today.

Pre-history

We dug even further in our baseball history books and found some fun stuff pre-1900. They didn't play the World Series as we know it before 1903, but here were some just plain out-of-control baseball clubs of the 1800s.

Pre-1900 postseason play for dummies: From 1882 to 1891, the champions from the National League and rival American Association met in a "World Series." From 1894 to 1897, the first and second place teams in the National League squared off at season's end in what became known as the Temple Cup.

Rowdiest championship squad in baseball history: Chicago White Stockings (now known as the Chicago Cubs) 1880-82, 1885-86. Cap Anson's group of hard-drinking, fast-living men won five NL titles in seven seasons, and were led by the player Anson credited with inventing the hit-and-run play, Mike "King" Kelly.

"King" Kelly made the greatest play in baseball history.

In one game we absolutely wish we could have seen, Kelly was thirsty on an incredibly hot day at Lake Front Park in Chicago, and brought a mug of beer with him into the outfield (thought that only happened in bar league and bachelor party softball games, didn't you?). A batter hit a line drive to Kelly. As legend has it, without missing a step, Kelly, mug in hand, ran and made a one-handed catch, and never spilled a drop of the precious liquid. Remember, this was in the day when baseball gloves were just little leather pads put on the palm of players' hands so that they can knock down the ball. Willie Mays' catch in the 1954 World Series as the greatest play in baseball history? We think not!

Coolest pre-1900 postseason matchup: 1892, when the Boston Beaneaters beat the Cleveland Spiders. Cy Young was a 36-game winner for the 1892 Spiders. Kelly, past his prime, was on that Beaneaters team, and well, we just really like that dude.

1895 Temple Cup: The Spiders finally won it all, but it was an adventure. While hosting the Baltimore Orioles in Cleveland, the League Park faithful pelted Oriole players with vegetables and anything else they could throw. After three straight wins in Cleveland, the Spiders received a similar welcome from Baltimore fans, who tossed eggs and rocks at the Spiders. The series came to an end when the Spiders won a fifth and final game, ending with the Cleveland players being chased from the field by an angry mob of fans. Don't worry, the Spiders were tough enough to take it. Spiders manager Oliver "Patsy" Tebeau once said, "a milk and water, goody-goody player, can't ever wear a Cleveland uniform."

Full of liquid courage, Jim "Moonlight" Reineking often sets off firecrackers and swallows goldfish (crackers) at FOXSports.com world headquarters. E-mail him at jreineking@foxsports.com.