ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Champagne soaked the floor and dripped from the plastic sheets protecting the lockers. Adam Kennedy wandered the clubhouse from interview to interview, clutching the American League championship trophy as if it were a newborn baby. The Anaheim mayor (yes, there is one) made the rounds, slapping so many people on the back that half the roster might wind up on the disabled list. The players straight-shotted enough champagne, tequila and whiskey to fill the Betty Ford Clinic to capacity.

And amid all this, Angels reliever Ben Weber took a drag on his cigar, looked at a couple reporters and asked the day's most important question:

	Adam Kennedy gets a big lift after his big day helped lift the Angels into the World Series.

"Is the curse still here or do we have to get past the next level, too? Do we have to keep proving ourselves?" Weber said. "I'm just wondering."

No, Ben. The curse is over. It died at age 41 in the seventh inning Sunday afternoon when No. 9 hitter Adam Kennedy hit his third home run of the afternoon -- that's right, three home runs by the No. 9 hitter -- and the Angels rallied for a postseason record-tying 10 runs against the Minnesota relievers, building a lead so big not even Gene Mauch could squander it with a bullpen full of lefty-righty possibilities.

Finally. After 42 seasons, 16 managers, seven logos, three names and three failed postseasons, the Los Angeles/California/Anaheim Angels are going to the World Series. No more talk about losing the final three games of the 1982 playoffs. No more mention of being one strike away and losing the final three games in 1986. No more talk of Dave Henderson and Donnie Moore.

With Sunday's 13-5 victory, the Angels finally are the American League champions, 41 years and 42 seasons after joining the league.

"I think we put to rest a lot of the demons when we made it to the playoffs," Angels veteran Tim Salmon said. "And it just keeps getting better. I feel like we keep putting more and more dirt on those demons."

Oh, you could hear those demons snarling and sharpening their pitchforks in the top of the seventh inning when the Twins took a 5-3 lead by scoring three runs with the previously untouchable Francisco Rodriguez on the mound. Suddenly, that Angels bullpen didn't seem quite so invincible, a return trip to Minnesota and the Metrodome seemed all too possible and -- hey, wasn't that the smell of brimstone in the October air?

"We did not want to go back to Minnesota," Weber said. "The advantage would have swung their way."

Worse than that, there would have been so many stories about the curse that they just might have overloaded the Internet and brought the entire Web to a standstill. The Angels tried to deflect curse stories this week but finally came clean after Sunday's victory.

"Heck, people were talking about it in spring training," Weber said. "We were standing around the outfield one day and everyone was concerned about the stadium being cursed because it was built on an ancient Indian burial ground. We were going to go get an exorcist or a Catholic priest or something to get rid of the curse. I'm like, 'I don't want to be on an Indian burial ground.' And then they start bringing up the lead they blew in 1995 and about Mo Vaughn hurting himself in the dugout his first game here and all these freak injuries and I remembered how I broke my ankle last year. I know I'm just a reliever but it was a freak injury to me.

	“	Heck, people were talking about [the curse] in spring training. We were standing around the outfield one day and everyone was concerned about the stadium being cursed because it was built on an ancient Indian burial ground. .... I'm like, 'I don't want to be on an Indian burial ground.' And then they start bringing up the lead they blew in 1995 and about Mo Vaughn hurting himself in the dugout his first game here ... ”
		— Angels reliever Ben Weber

"That burial ground rumor went around for a couple days before someone dispelled it. Someone said, 'No, no, no. That was just bull----."

Ahh, but a good curse story doesn't die that easily.

"We started the season 6-14 and people started bringing it up again," Weber said. "They even brought up Donnie Moore, can you believe that? That's all you hear, that we were cursed. I read a story where the guy said, 'This guy died in a car crash. And this guy died in car crash.' I don't even know who those guys were but I'm thinking, 'Oh, my God. I'm going to die in a car crash.'

"It's not funny. I'm just trying to play baseball. I don't want to die. It's definitely not humorous."

So, that's what the Angels faced when they came to bat in the bottom of the seventh. Not just a bullpen that had been one of the league's best this season but a four-decade legacy of failure so disheartening that it provoked actual fear of death and the supernatural.

And then up to the plate stepped Kennedy, with no outs, runners at first and second and Minnesota lefty Johan Santana on the mound.

Kennedy homered his previous two at-bats, slamming a solo shot to right in the third inning and another solo shot in the fifth. Naturally, Anaheim manager Mike Scioscia signaled for Kennedy to lay down a sacrifice bunt.

"On the first pitch, I wanted to see if we could move the runners along," Scioscia said. "But when we saw that Minnesota was pitching him aggressively, we figured we had a better chance with him swinging away."

Kennedy fouled off the bunt, fouled off two more pitches and then slammed an 0-2 pitch over the fence. He is the fifth player to hit three home runs in a postseason game, joining the likes of Reggie Jackson, George Brett and Babe Ruth (who did it twice).

"It hasn't sunk in yet," Kennedy said. "But I'm sure this whole night will be a good night."

Kennedy's home run gave Anaheim a 6-5 lead. You could hear the demons whimpering over the crowd noise. But the inning wasn't over.

Minnesota's pen was the key to their success this season but the relievers finally ran out of gas this weekend. J.C. Romero allowed a game-deciding home run to Troy Glaus in Game 3 Friday night, five relievers gave up five runs in the seventh inning Saturday and four gave up 10 hits and 10 runs (both postseason records) in the seventh inning Sunday. The first eight batters reached base and Anaheim sent 15 men to the plate.

Quick. Someone test that Rally Monkey's urine for steroids. "At one point I was thinking, 'Man, those guys got eight runs. We can score eight runs, too,'" Twins center fielder Torii Hunter said. "Then I had to get real with myself. They had it in the bag."

Not that they were taking anything for granted. Given the club's history, the Angels weren't about to risk anything, not even the victory celebration. "Salmon was in the dugout, saying, 'Don't pile on. We don't anyone to get hurt.'"

Hey, Salmon knows. He's been here 10 years. He was there when the Angels blew a 13½-game lead in 1995. He heard the stories about the blown playoff leads in 1982 and 1986. But when the final out was recorded and the final stake driven home, he could not contain himself any longer. He grabbed the championship trophy and ran a victory lap around this supposedly cursed field.

"That curse is all I heard about," Salmon said, champagne dripping down his back. "Well, I hope those guys (from the past) can rest a little bit now, knowing that the demons have been buried."

Of course, as anyone who plays for a team owned by a movie company should know, demons have a nagging habit of coming back in a sequel. After all, the Angels haven't won the World Series yet. And the Red Sox can tell them some stories about how cruel that curse can be.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com.