Her Red Sox will be back for another run, having just been denied a chance to repeat as World Series champions by Tampa Bay. But what really heightens the expectation is knowing that her first grandchild is due in eight weeks, meaning there will be a fifth-generation Red Sox fan to dress up in gear next season from the Kids area at the MLB.com Shop.

"Traditions and loyalties are as thick as blood, and last for generations," said McEnaney, 55, of Chester, Vt. "I grew up listening to the Red Sox games with my grandfather, and I look forward to doing the same with my newborn grandchild come April. Imagine -- five generations caring for and rooting for the same ballclub. Some things don't change.

"My soon-to-be-born grandson or daughter will have their first Red Sox jersey waiting when they arrive home from the hospital, and we will wear our caps proudly on Opening Day ready to usher in another great season of baseball."

It doesn't matter what team you root for -- this is the kind of rite of passage that all of us can appreciate in some way. Holiday shopping already is well under way at the MLB.com Shop, and McEnaney and every other fan can take 15 percent off kids orders that total more than $50. That sale lasts through 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday, and it will be followed by one sale after another.

This one hits home with parents all over this place, and also with kids themselves. It's Wish List time. It's time to add to those daughters' and sons' wardrobes, because they might have already outgrown that sweater and need a new Diamondbacks Youth Explorer Jacket from Antigua Sport. It's time for a Rangers Authentic BP Performance Youth Cap from New Era -- exactly like the one that Josh Hamilton wears in the batting cage, except kid-sized.

McEnaney, when told about the Kids sale now under way, said she is leaning toward "the hooded sweatshirt." That's the Newborn Full Zip Hood from Majestic Athletic, a way to proudly swath that new baseball fan while adding some warmth.

What would you want if you were a kid who loves Major League Baseball?

Just ask Mike Cieslinski of West Palm Beach, Fla. He knows what worked for him back in the day as a Redbird fan -- an Al Hrabosky "Mad Hungarian" T-shirt that his parents bought him on one of his first visits to old Busch Stadium.

"It was such a cool shirt. It's the type of apparel that you will always treasure as a Baseball fan," recalled Cieslinski, among thousands of fans with a free MLBlog. "I was 15 and grew up a Cardinals fan in Milwaukee, because in the late '60s, Milwaukee did not have a baseball team and I would listen to Jack Buck on the radio on KMOX at night because the signal traveled all over the Midwest. When I see a kid at Busch Stadium wearing a Cardinals jersey today, I think back to when I was that age and the magic of it all. It was the start of a lifetime love of baseball."

Sandy McGuire, 36, lives in the thick of Indians country -- Geneva, Ohio. She said she still treasures her "Rawlings, Reggie Jackson, the finest in the field" mitt that she once spotted in a bin when she was 9. When she went home to her mother's for this past Halloween, she spotted amidst all of the Indians gear a Yankees pinstriped jersey and pants -- the whole uniform -- with the No. 2 on the back, a sign that Derek Jeter's popularity extends beyond the Big Apple.

Mostly, she said in an e-mail to MLB.com about the Kids sale, it was a sign of baseball's unyielding popularity.

"When we're kids, we put on the gloves, uniforms, and jerseys of our heroes," McGuire said. "If they're good guys, our parents will support us and get us that dream present so that we continue to follow our dreams and have someone to look up to. We put on that mitt with a name of someone who inspires us -- hoping that we, too, will make that game-winning save, or hit that series-ending home run, or pitch a battle for the championship in the snow in October.

"We proudly wear the shirts and equipment of our childhood heroes, hoping to repay the jersey our parents bought us with a ring. For some of us, when we watch the game with that jersey, we feel like we're able to show our support for the good guys. Our hometown heroes. When we're kids, they allow us to dream of the games that we'll win. ... I just know that if we're lucky enough to have a kid, I'll be the one teaching him or her to hit and throw and buying the gloves and bats and jerseys.

"As adults, some of us lived different dreams, but our memories live on. We don our coats and jerseys to head to the stadiums or go shopping or to stay home and watch the game. We put on our caps to keep the sun out of our eyes. We want to show our support for the good guys and cast our votes by wearing their numbers and logos. ... We share that understanding of what it's like to stand at the plate for the very first time, just hoping to connect with that strike, and that we don't fall down when taking our strongest cut at an inside pitch. We remember diving for that grounder, or knocking off our trusty hat to follow that fly into our mitt, and holding it there while the rest of our world cheered.

"That's why we smile when we see a kid grinning ear to ear with his favorite uniform on, tossing the ball into the air and catching it. We know his dreams because we once held them too. Even if they were for a different team."

This is baseball tradition. There was no MLB.com Shop back in the 1940s, but Art White, who now lives in Vicksburg, Miss., remembers it as a time when a boy would proudly wear his favorite team's gear just as do the young fans today.

"I remember growing up in Brooklyn in the 1940s -- my younger brother and I did not pass a summer without a "Dodgers" blue jacket and a hat with the stylized "B" on it!" White e-mailed. "My whole adolescence was occupied with arguments about who was the greatest, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle (or Joe DiMaggio) or, of course, Duke Snider! My father used to walk us through Prospect Park to Ebbets Field, starting when I was about 6 or 7. The three saddest days of my life were when catcher Mickey Owens missed the strike-three pitch in the 1941 World Series, Bobby Thomson (I can't say more!), and when the Dodgers moved to the Left Coast when I was in high school."

He and his wife are Cub fans today, and you definitely see plenty of evidence of the growing Cub youth population. Perhaps the Cubs will do in 2009 what the Red Sox finally were able to do in 2004. That was a year when three generations of Red Sox fans got together, and Betty McEnaney says she will never forget that time.

"My mother, Eva Anderson Glacy, was a great fan," McEnaney said. "She took me to my first game when I was 9 (Baltimore won 5-4). I have been a fan forever. I don't have a TV, and I do listen to every game on the radio. I also put together a group and we have season tickets, so I get down to a dozen games a year. My oldest son, Scott McEnaney, is now 30, and has been a fan forever, as is my youngest son, Timothy. Scott is soon to become a father for the first time."

After that happens, you know what the baby will be wearing. That's what baseball fans do, and now is the best time to make it happen.