BOSTON (AP) – Chicago and Boston residents may be adapting to life after baseball, but sporting goods suppliers and retailers are still dwelling on the World Series that might have been.

Companies say they lost millions of potential dollars simply because the two teams with the longest World Series droughts – the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox – failed to advance beyond their league championship games.

“It went from one of the biggest potential World Series of all time to an extremely average to below-average World Series in terms of business,” said Steven D’Angelo, vice president of Twins Enterprises Inc., a national sporting goods supplier headquartered across the street from Boston’s Fenway Park.

Glenn Campbell, executive vice president and general merchandise manager for Hatworld Inc., said the Florida Marlins’ victory over the Cubs in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series last week meant a $4 million loss in hat sales for his company.

It was the same case a day later when the New York Yankees came back to beat the Red Sox in the eleventh inning of Game 7 of the AL Championship Series. The Yankees and Marlins advanced to the World Series, which resumed Tuesday with Game 3 in Miami.

“For the Cubs and the Red Sox there is probably no other team in any sport that would mean as much to retailers as those do,” said Campbell.

The Cubs haven’t won the World Series since 1908 and haven’t even appeared in the Fall Classic since 1945. The Red Sox last championship came in 1918. The two franchises have fan bases that are among the most loyal in all of sports.

“You think you don’t gamble when you’re in the license business but you do,” said Campbell, of the Indianapolis-based Hatworld, which operates more than 400 stores nationwide under the Hatworld and Lids names.

The gambles are called “if-when” orders. Often, nothing is actually printed, but the retailers still take a risk in trying to predict what teams are likely to appear in the World Series and how many caps to order for their stores.

Twins has several thousand accounts with retailers and vendors and D’Angelo said it received the most World Series if-when orders for Cubs and Red Sox hats. Retailers ordered 500,000 hats for a Cubs win and about half that amount for a Red Sox victory.

Campbell said Hatworld – one of Twins’ clients – had ordered 50,000 World Series hats for both the Cubs and Red Sox.

“If either one of those teams win, it’s like hitting the lottery,” said Campbell, who said sales of Red Sox and Cubs hats quintupled when the two teams reached the playoffs. “You could be talking $4 million to $10 million extra in retail sales.”

Hatworld had less confidence in a Yankees-Marlins World Series, shown by its if-when orders of 15,000 Yankees hats and a mere 500 Marlins hats.

Sporting goods companies say the Marlins are still developing a fan base for a 10-year-old franchise compared with the Red Sox and Cubs, teams that are more than a century old.

“Having the Yankees in is always good,” said John De Waal, vice president of global marketing for New Era Cap Company Inc.

Based in Derby, N.Y., New Era has an advantage over its competitors because it is the official licensee of Major League Baseball for 2003 World Series commemorative caps

He said the company was able to sell all of its Yankees-Marlins merchandise although it had higher orders for Red Sox and Cubs products.

The Cubs-Red Sox craze boosted sales because of the teams’ strong hometown followings, said Wendy Liebmann, president of WSL Strategic Retail, a New York consulting firm.

“When a local team is actually in some major sporting event, then you get the people who aren’t the diehards who buy into the sports brand, the franchise,” she said.

Campbell, a St. Louis Cardinals fan, said it’s the luck of the draw with baseball merchandise and stocking too much of one team late in the season can mean falling sales and extra inventory.

He claimed retailers are missing out on $500 million in sales that could have resulted from a Cubs-Red Sox World Series. Campbell groaned as he started listing all the potential retail merchandise that even his stores would not typically sell such as license plates, flags, cups and sweat shirts.

“You don’t lose it because you never had it, but look what you would have gained,” Campbell said. “It’s like this every season. That’s why my hair is gray. That’s why you love it.”

AP-ES-10-21-03 1531EDT