THE SPORTING LIFE Pondering life after the Empire struck back BY IAN DONNIS

In the aftermath of the Yankees’ lopsided victory over the Red Sox on Saturday — the first of two embarrassing weekend defeats to the dreaded Pinstripers — New York Times sports columnist Harvey Araton suggested that the angst of Boston boosters over the conflict is misplaced — since the Sox will very likely find their way to post-season play through the wild card. It’s a nice thought, and perhaps even a rational one, but it entirely misses the point.

In classic Red Sox fashion, our hopes were raised only to be disappointed. On Friday night, after beating Mariano Rivera earlier in the summer with a Bill Mueller home run, Boston staged another improbable comeback win against the Dracula-like New York stopper, chinking his justly deserved aura of invincibility. Although the optimistic among us couldn’t resist interpreting this as a positive omen, the satisfaction — as well as reasonable hopes of snatching the division title — proved short-lived after the Yankees hammered the Sox in the subsequent games of the three-game series.

Was this what it came down to? That after becoming world-beaters following the seismic mid-season trade of Nomar Garciaparra to the Cubs, and making fast work of serious opponents like the Athletics, Angels, and Rangers, the Sox are relegated again to their perennial second-place status in the American League? Although the Boston bats and Derek Lowe can certainly rebound after Saturday’s miserable outing (how could he pitch any worse?), the nightmare in New York seemed like an eerie encapsulation of past, present, and, perhaps, future.

Baseball is a sport characterized by notoriously streaky playing. Just as the previously questionable Yankee starting pitching shined during the Sox series, two of the Boston hurlers — part of an entirely stalwart crew just a few weeks back — stumbled badly in New York. For realists, the sub-par games tossed by Lowe and Pedro Martinez — combined with the storyline of Lowe’s topsy-turvy psyche and the Yanks’ ability to get the best of Pedro during game seven of last year’s crushing championship series — don’t inspire much confidence. There are other worries beyond the ugly specter of the Bronx Bombers. The Minnesota Twins, powered by likely AL Cy Young winner Johan Santana, could prove surprisingly strong, should the Sox go against them in the wild card.

But if the events of this past weekend inspire pessimism and Calvinistic brooding in Red Sox Nation, we know that baseball is about not just George Steinbrenner’s leading payroll and the Yankees’ record 26 world championships, but also uncertainty and the ability of the mighty to fall unexpectedly. Heard of the Florida Marlins, George?

Like Angry Bill, the outwardly cynical fan depicted in Still, We Believe: The Boston Red Sox Movie, we surround our fragile dream with battle-hardened psychic calluses, steeling ourselves for the worst. Like participants in a 12-step program, we acknowledge our weakness — and secretly hope against guarded hope that this somehow might still yet be the year.