Boy, will I be glad when this week is over.

Not out of any fear for what the Boston Red Sox may or may not accomplish over the next six days.

That’s a done deal. Contrary to the obsessed ex-jock who couldn’t resist taking one final shot in this space on his way out the door Sunday, I understand that capturing the American League East title is a little bit like a college football team winning the Meineke Car Care Bowl.

It’s a nice trophy. It gets you a little television time. But not exactly something worth throwing a parade if you win or handing over the sharp objects to a trusted friend if you don’t.

Thanks to the three-division format, the wild card and the prevailing rules to crack down on profligate spending (read: none at all), no division title in professional sports is less significant than the AL East.

Nine seasons out of 10, both the Sox and Yankees will win 95 games and make the playoffs.

Heck, if they end in a tie, as was the case in 2005, they won’t even bother with the once-obligatory Bucky Dent Memorial One-Game Playoff. The Bombers get to waste $50,000 worth of champagne by virtue of their 10-8 triumph in the season series.

And the Sox would play on, anyway, in pursuit of their second World Series championship in four years.

We’ve all lost our minds, in part because ESPN has sucked the life out of sports and made every team only as good as their last inning.

That fact-fiction, buy-sell, all-nothing philosophy only compounds the perpetual panic attack that grips New England every year the fourth week of September.

Was anybody else paying attention last year? I know World Series ratings were in the toilet without an East Coast, mega-market team in the mix, but at least a couple of us watched a team that was 83-79 in the regular season (St. Louis) beat one that went 9-20 in September (Detroit).

Momentum is more fickle in baseball than any other sport. Everyone’s season is a hodgepodge of four-game winning streaks and three-game losing skids. And even the best teams are fatally flawed. That’s why they all lose 60 to 70 games.

The Sox seem to have a punchless lineup and an arm-weary pitching staff. Anyone remembers how the Curse was exorcised in ’04? Two light-hitting middle infielders morphed into Murderer’s Row. A pitcher with an ERA of six and in desperate need of a sports psychologist turned lights-out. Another who was literally on his last legs spun two starts that might have ounched his eventual Hall of Fame pass.

Baseball’s playoffs are a different animal. Bad hops, bad throws and bad pitching are magnified.

There’s no piling up wins over the Devil Rays or Orioles any longer. It’s head-to-head, which is why these two teams spend so much time and money playing chicken with each other in the free agent market in the first place.

You don’t have to be great, either, only better than. You can win it all with a whopping winning percentage of .579 in 19 games.

And you can’t start winning a blessed thing until next Tuesday. So chill out, chill the beverages and prepare to enjoy the ride.