The 2004 American League Division Series (ALDS), the opening round of the 2004 American League playoffs, began on Tuesday, October 5, and ended on Saturday, October 9, with the champions of the three AL divisions—along with a "wild card" team—participating in two best-of-five series. They were:
- (1) New York Yankees (Eastern Division champion, 101–61) vs. (3) Minnesota Twins (Central Division champion, 92–70): Yankees win series, 3–1.
- (2) Anaheim Angels (Western Division champion, 92–70) vs. (4) Boston Red Sox (Wild Card, 98–64): Red Sox win series, 3–0.
The higher seed (in parentheses) had the home field advantage. The Angels received home field advantage rather than the Twins due to their winning the season series 6–4 against Minnesota. Although the team with the best record was normally intended to play the wild card team, the Yankees played the Twins, rather than the wild card Red Sox, because the Yankees and Red Sox are in the same division.
The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox went on to meet in the AL Championship Series (ALCS). The Red Sox became the American League champion, and defeated the National League champion St. Louis Cardinals in the 2004 World Series for their first World Championship since 1918.
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“No slogan of democracy; no battle cry of freedom is more striving then the American parent’s simple statement which all of you have heard many times: ‘I want my child to go to college.’”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you. In famine he will redeem you from death, and in war from the power of the sword. You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, and shall not fear destruction when it comes. At destruction and famine you shall laugh, and shall not fear the wild animals of the earth. For you shall be in league with the stones of the field, and the wild animals shall be at peace with you.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 5:19-23.
“That crazed girl improvising her music,
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling she knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship
Her knee-cap broken.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)