How long is a long time?

I blame the Boston Red Sox. When they won the 2004 World Series, it was their first championship in 86 supposedly cursed seasons, and writers and broadcasters correctly jumped all over the story of the long-disappointed baseball town's relief.

But that story sold too well, and now it seems like the "first title in X years" angle has to be the one anybody writes and talks about when a team wins a World Series or other sports championship.

The Philadelphia Phillies' World Series victory is their first in 28 years (and their second ever). Yeah, OK, but is that really such news?

Since baseball returned from the 1994-95 strike with a new playoff format, the World Series winners have included the Red Sox as well as the White Sox (first title in 88 years), Braves (81 years), Cardinals (24 years), Yankees (18 years), Angels (first title ever), Marlins (first title ever) and Diamondbacks (first title ever).

World Series winners ending long droughts are the rule rather than the exception. In the same recent span, the Red Sox won twice in four years, the Marlins won twice in seven years, and the Yankees won three years in a row.

I can only compare it to what happens in the NCAA basketball tournament every year, when journalists react with gleeful surprise that a Cinderella story develops. Hey, you put 64 teams in a single-elimination tournament, and one of them is bound to go a couple of rounds farther than expected.

A team that hadn't won since the Carter Administration has won it all. What else is new?