This weekend, we can once again give thanks for the Red Sox winning the World Series. If not, can you imagine how insufferable this weekend’s series between the Red Sox and Cubs would be?

As it is, we’ve been hearing a lot of comparisons between the two beloved teams and their fans.

We’ve been watching the games from Wrigley Field and smiling because we know Fenway is better.

What we haven’t had to do is ponder which team is more “cursed.” We haven’t had to have “tales of the tape” comparing the Boston lineage of Babe Ruth, Bucky Dent, and Bill Buckner to the billy goat and Steve Bartman. No need to compare tragic histories – only one’s team history is still intact.

Two years ago, baseball fans braced for a cataclysmic World Series between the Sox and Cubs. I remember having a late-night dinner at Bobby Van’s in Manhattan after the Sox beat the Yankees in Game 6 of the 2003 ALCS. The Sox were getting ready for Game 7, and the Cubs were about to close in on the National League crown.

It would be the Sox and Cubs in the Fall Classic. Everyone had their own idea how the series would play out and each story usually included Armageddon. Sox fan, world-renown author, and Mainer Stephen King spoke of an “apocalyptic RemDawg” getting ready for the two teams preparing to play for a long-coveted World Championship.

Of course, the series never happened. Both teams came within five outs of getting there, and neither did.

At that time, it was another chapter in two of the most frustrating legacies in sports. It seemed as though the two championship droughts would never end. At least until 2004.

That’s when the Sox sent their most popular player, Nomar Garciaparra, to the Cubs in a four-team deal that sparked Boston towards a championship.

Nomar was supposed to help the Cubs make it to the postseason, but that never happened.

Maybe it’s not really the curse of the goat after all. Maybe it’s the curse of Nomar. He left Boston, the Red Sox were freed up and won it all. Now, a black cloud remains over Wrigley Field.

That said, it was a sunny Friday afternoon when this series began, and the Cubs were happy to take advantage of a suddenly vulnerable pitching staff. Bronson Arroyo struggled mightily, throwing 97 pitches over four innings.

All seven runs scored off him were earned. Arroyo, who started the year 4-0, has not won a game since May 5th.

Greg Maddux, who pitched so well for the Cubs, added insult to injury when he took a John Halama pitch deep into the seats for his fifth career home run.

Friday’s game summed up the way most Red Sox fans feel right now. They are still thrilled with last year’s championship, but feeling a considerable amount of angst about the way this team is playing – and pitching.

We’d rather be Sox fans than Cubs fans but we’d take Maddux and Derek Lee over Arroyo and Manny Ramirez in the late Spring of 2005.

Lewiston native Tom Caron is a NESN sports analyst for Red Sox and Bruins telecasts.