The 2007 American League Division Series (ALDS), the opening round of the 2007 American League playoffs, began on Wednesday, October 3 and ended on Monday, October 8. The 2007 AL Division Series consisted of three AL division champions and one wild card team, participating in two best-of-five series. They were:
- (1) Boston Red Sox (Eastern Division champions, 96–66) vs. (3) Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (Western Division champions, 94–68): Red Sox win series, 3–0.
- (2) Cleveland Indians (Central Division champions, 96–66) vs. (4) New York Yankees (Wild Card qualifier, 94–68): Indians win series, 3–1.
Although the Red Sox and Indians ended the regular season with the same record, the Red Sox received home-field advantage by virtue of winning the season series against Cleveland, five games to two. The Red Sox also got to choose whether their series started on October 3 or October 4, the first time a team was given this choice. Although the team seeded first normally faces the wild card team, the Red Sox are in the same division as the wild card Yankees, so played the Angels instead.
The Red Sox and Angels met for the third time in the postseason, following the 1986 AL Championship Series and the 2004 ALDS, with Boston winning all three and extending their postseason victory streak over the Angels to nine consecutive games (the Angels hadn't beaten the Red Sox in the playoffs since Game 4 of the 1986 ALCS). The Indians and Yankees met in the postseason for the third time with the Indians winning, following their triumph in the 1997 ALDS and the Yankees' win in the 1998 ALCS.
The Red Sox and Indians met in the AL Championship Series, with the Red Sox becoming the American League champion and going on to beat the Colorado Rockies in the 2007 World Series.
Famous quotes containing the words american, league, division and/or series:
“It isn’t the oceans which cut us off from the world—it’s the American way of looking at things.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“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)
“Every day the fat woman dies a series of small deaths.”
—Shelley Bovey, U.S. author. Being Fat Is Not a Sin, ch. 1 (1989)