The Curse of The Bambino
From SoSH
The curse has been used an excuse for why the Red Sox went 86 years without winning a World Series after taking 5 of the first 15 World Series played. It has also been blamed for whenever the New York Yankees managed to defeat the Red Sox in the playoffs. With the Red Sox win in the 2004 World Series, the Curse is considered dead by those that believed in it; there is still a large number of people who believe it never existed.
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Origins
The idea of the curse took shape in the playoffs of 1986. In a news article writer Frederick Waterman wrote that when Babe Ruth left "he carried away with him the good luck and winning touch of the Red Sox." . While the notion of a curse being laid on the Boston Red Sox for its trade of Babe Ruth has its roots in variety of vague articles written by sportscasters the serious mention of the Curse of The Bambino occured in 1986 in the New York Times by writer George Vecsey. Vecsey wrote the original article Game 6 and again after the loss in Game 7 wrote a followup article called "Babe Ruth's Curse Strikes Again". After the 1986 collapse the idea of curse gained popularity and thrust to the forefront again in 1990 when Dan Shaughnessy released a book containing the history of the Red Sox titled "The Curse of the Bambino". The curse gained more and more popularity after tough playoff losses in the late 90's.
The Story
On January 3rd 1920 Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. A Broadway producer, Harry would later be accused of making the sale in order to finance the musical No No Nanette, an accusation that has failed the test of time since it didn't open until 1925. After the sale the Yankees won 26 World Series titles, while the Red Sox had gone to the Series four times before 2004 and each time brought the series to 7 games before losing.
Breaking the Curse
- The following have been attempted to break the curse
- The famous Storrow Drive Sign
- Placing a Red Sox cap on the top of Mt. Everest
- Drowning a piano owned by Ruth into a Sudbury Pond
- A variety of Fenway Exorcisms
- A Break the curse voodoo ceremony performed by Jimmy Buffett
The "Curse" was finally officially broken when the 2004 Red Sox Came back from a 3-0 deficit to defeat the Yankees and proceed to the World Series where they swept the St. Louis Cardinals in four games.
Other Explainations
In 2005, ESPN ran an episode of their show The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame... about Harry Frazee's decision to sell Babe Ruth to the Yankees. They gave the following reasons, in order, for why the sale was reasonable:
- 5. World War I. With rosters depleted because of the war, Ruth saw action as both a pitcher and outfielder. After the players returned, Ruth became bigger than the team because he no longer wanted to pitch and his home runs were the talk of baseball.
- 4. Ban Johnson. The president of the American League since its founding in 1901 effectively limited Frazee to the Yankees and the Chicago White Sox for deals, by pressuring the other five teams (the Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, Philadelphia Athletics, St. Louis Browns, and Washington Senators) not to make any trades with Frazee. This is because Frazee and the owners of the Yankees and White Sox won a lawsuit against the American League because Johnson tampered and cancelled trades between them, a common tactic to that point.
- 3. Babe Ruth's antics. Ruth often spent evenings out in bars, drunk only hours before games. He also jumped the team several times, the final straw being in the final game of the 1919 season.
- 2. Ed Barrow. Frazee's right-hand man, Barrow served as general manager and field manager and knew how much of a troublemaker Ruth was. When Frazee wanted to send Ruth to the Yankees, Barrow, for reasons unknown, said the Yankees did not have any players he wanted. Barrow resigned after the 1920 season, then re-emerged as the general manager of the Yankees and built the team by acquiring seven players from the Red Sox (four of whom had won the World Series in Boston in 1918). Barrow, essentially, executed the REAL betrayal of the Red Sox, not Frazee.
- 1. Babe Ruth's holdout. Ruth forced Frazee's hand by holding out after the 1919 season, demanding $20,000 per year — twice as much as he had been making during the season.
One of the "Best of the Rest" explainations given was Shoeless Joe Jackson. Frazee was set to deal Ruth to his other viable trading partner, the White Sox, for Jackson. The Black Sox scandal, however, prevented that from happening, and Jackson was banned for life.
