Baseball Curses: The Curse of the Bambino
The Boston Red Sox did not manage to win any World Series during the 86 year time period from 1918 to 2004. The Red Sox were on a winning high before 1918 so it seemed rather strange when they all of a sudden they could not manage any World Series win. According
to superstition this was because of the Curse of the Bambino.
The curse supposedly began after the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth, who was nicknamed The Bambino to the New York Yankees. Before selling, the Red Sox were the most successful team among all franchises, in the baseball league. They had the honour of winning the
first ever World Series and later winning five more. After the supposedly cursed selling they went on to have a World Series drought which last for a staggering length of time of 8 decades and 6 years.
After Babe joined the Yankees, they were literally lifted from the ashes and managed to win 26 World Series out of the 39 that they played in. That is double the amount of wins that any other team has managed. Before Ruth, they had never had even any World
Series appearance. However the Boston Red Sox won none.
Harry Frazee is the man who was supposedly named as the invoker of the curse. After Ruth’s series of successes with the Red Sox, he asked for a pay increase which the manager could not have afforded. This along with the fact that he wanted to finance his
play were the two reasons why he made the decision to sell Ruth to the Yankees.
Prior to Ruth’s selling, Boston had won five out of the 15 World Series. At that time the Bronx Bombers were a low level team who did not show any signs or potential of becoming the mighty empire that they are now.
Like any other curse, there have been many attempts to reserve the curse since it began in 1918. One was when Boston fans placed at Red Sox cap at the tip of the Mount Everest and burned a Yankees cap at the base. A street sign that said Reverse Curve was
vandalized and it was turned into Reverse the Curse, the sign was not replaced until 2004 when the Red Sox finally managed to win the World Series.
When someone found a piano that was owned by Ruth, it was pushed into a pond which was near Sudbury in Massachusetts. Sudbury was a farm owned by Ruth.
The curse was lifted in 2004 when the Red Sox miraculously defeated the Bombers and later the St. Louis Cardinals. According to fans the curse was broken in 2004 when a foul ball by Manny Ramirez of the Red Sox went flying into a box and struck Lee Gavin’s
face, a 16-year-old die-hard fan of Ramirez. The boy lived in Sudbury, the farm was owned by Ruth. The hit resulted in the boy losing two of his teeth and the Yankees served their worst defeat ever in team history against the Cleveland Indians.
According to many Red Sox fans, the curse is finally broken as the Red Sox managed to win the World Series in 2004. Superstitions are strong amongst many baseball fans, most take them with a grain of salt and trepidation.
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