Cool Beans in Bean Town! Congrats, but…
Now that the Boston Red Sox are going to the World Series, doesn’t that break Babe’s curse? Or, do they have to win the World Series? If it is the latter, then when was the last time the Red Sox made it to the World Series? (I can only recall them being in the play-offs.)
Finally, some poetic justice in baseball!
I’m sure a true Sox fan will correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe they last won the World Series in 1918, and the Babe was sold to the Yankees two years later. Last time the Sox were in the world series was 1986 against the Mets (remember Bill Buckner?) Some folks would say that the Sox have to win the World Series in order to break the curse, but coming back from 3 down against the Yankees is good enough for me!
Apparently fans have tried “exorcising” the curse any number of ways. I think the one they did this year had something to do with bulldozing the house where the Babe’s ex-wife lived. Another popular one was sending divers into some lake to find a piano that the Babe supposedly dumped in. It’s amazing how seriously they take the curse. Although, considering that it’s been 86 years since they last one a world series, maybe not.
Well, first off, the Babe never actually cursed the Sox. I mean, why would he? The trade made his career go through the roof. This talk of a Curse of the Bambino is something that was coined only in the 80s by Dan Shaughnessy.
Second, they’ve been to the World Series before. Last time in 1986. I’m fairly certain they’ll have to win it to make this curse talk end.
In its simplest form, the Red Sox won 5 World Series before 1920, with Babe Ruth on the roster in 1915, 1916, and 1918. In 1920, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees to raise money to fund the Broadway play No, No, Nanette.
Since then, the Red Sox have not won the World Series, and the Yankees have won 26. The Red Sox have reached the World Series 5 times after 1920 (including this year) but have always lost 4 games to 3. Those years were 1946, 1967, 1975, and 1986.
Identifying when the curse was lifted is problematic, since if the Red Sox win, then the curse would have to have been lifted before that or else they could not have won. I suppose that the outcome of the World Series will tell us if last night’s victory lifted the curse or not.
Me, I’m hoping the curse was lifted so the Sox can win and we fans can finally stop annoying the rest of the nation. 
Just to nitpick, he wasn’t sold to fund No, No, Nanette. It’s a myth. That musical didn’t come out for several years after the trade. And Frazee didn’t need the money, he was a giant in Broadway at the time and had produced hit after hit and had millions in the bank.
Ruth was sold because he had become a problem. The Sox stunk in 1919 with Ruth on the roster. Meanwhile, Ruth had begun picking fights with the owner, the manager and had become a genuine clubhouse cancer. Frazee felt he had to get rid of Ruth to prevent the complete disintegration of his team.
Ban Johnson hated Frazee and wanted him out of baseball, so he convinced every owner other than Comiskey and Ruppert to not deal with Frazee. His only option was the $100,000 that Ruppert offered for Ruth. And since he felt he needed to ditch Ruth because of his caustic personality, he made the trade.
It didn’t turn out that well, but it’s telling that none of the Boston papers thought it was a particularly bad deal at the time, rather, they bemoaned that the situation had come to what it had.
I never understood the curse, because a curse is usually put on someone/something as retribution. The Cubs curse is due to some guy wanting to bring his goat to a game. The NY Rangers were cursed never to win the Stanley Cup back in 1940 by some guy (althogh I cannot remember why). THe cruse of the bambino is trying to appease whom exactly? Babe? The baseball Gods?
As I understand that one, it was caused by the hockey gods when the Rangers had the hubris to burn the (paid-off) Madison Square Garden mortgage in the Stanley Cup.
Thanks for the correction, Neurotik.
Can someone explain to me the piano? I know Babe supposedly pushed it into a lake, but I’m not clear on 1) why and 2) why it’s believed by some to be the source of the curse and 3) why anyone thinks if they haven’t found it by now, that they ever will.
Any superstitious types out there who put stock in the fact that it’s been 86 years since the BoSox won a WS, and it was 1986 when they last went.
Surely that numerology has to count for something…
And the curse was broken when they won the cup in '94.
For a further, detailed and well-written exposition on the events surrounding Ruth’s sale to the Yankees, Read this excerpt of Babe Ruth : Launching the Legend
by Jim Reisler, provided by WNYC.org. I promise, if you are at all interested in this, you will not be sorry.
Very good article, except, it continues the myth that Frazee needed the money. He didn’t. The Red Sox were very profitable in 1919, and Frazee’s new production of “My Lady Friends” was earning him $3,000 a week and had a run of a little over a year.
There is no curse. Frazee was a victim of extreme anti-Jewish hatred (funny, since he wasn’t Jewish).
Read more here-
The usual idea is that the Baseball Gods are angry because the Red Sox had been gifted with the best player ever to play the game, and they let him get away. What’s worse, they didn’t trade him for other players, but sold him for filthy lucre.
What has contributed to the legend is the excruciating way in which the Red Sox have repeatedly come close to winning a Series or a Pennant and then had it snatched away at what seems the last possible instant.
1947: The Red Sox lose the seventh game of the World Series to the Cardinals when shortstop Johnny Pesky holds the ball a split second too long and Enos Slaughter scores from first base.
1948: The Red Sox tie Cleveland on the last day of the season by beating the Yankees, then lose a one-game playoff
1949: Needing only one win to clinch, the Red Sox lose the last two games of the season, and the pennant, to the Yankees, who go on to win the Series
1967: The Red Sox lose the World Series to the Cardinals in the seventh game.
1975: The Red Sox play the Reds in the World Series. They win game six on Carleton Fisk’s home run in one of the most dramatic World Series games ever played, then lose the seventh game
1978: The Red Sox lead the Yankees by 14 games on July 20, but the Yanks catch them and force a one game playoff. The Yankees win on Bucky Dent’s home run and go on to win the Series
The Red Sox win the ALCS against the Angels after having been one strike from elimination in game 5. One win from clinching the Series, they lose game 6 to the NY Mets after being up 2 runs in the 10th inning and having the Mets down to their final strike twice. They lose the seventh game.
The Red Sox win the AL East (Yankees being second) but lose the division series to Cleveland in 3 games
The wild card Red Sox (second to the Yankees) lose the division series to Cleveland 3-1
The wild card Red Sox (second to the Yankees) beat Cleveland in the division series, but lose the ALCS to the Yankees 4-1
The wild card Red Sox (second the Yankees) win the division series but lose the seventh game of the ALCS to the Yankees in extra innings on Aaron Boone’s home run
I just want to say, EJsGirl, that that is a very fascinating article. Thanks. ;j
There’s also the fact that the aspect of their loserdom being losing directly to the Yankees is a relatively recent aspect of The Curse. They went from 1919 to 1999 never having once faced New York in a postseason game, and only twice fighting them directly for the pennant at the end of the regular season, in 1949 and 1978. Until the awe-inspiring 1986 choke, their most heartbreaking close call was against the Indians, not the Yankees, in 1948.
The Curse was always just the fact that the Yankees won all the World Series, and Boston couldn’t even win one; the direct competition angle was magnified by the 1978 playoff game and has been dramatically magnified in the last few years when they started playing against each other in the postseason.
Here’s an article from the Sunday paper about a bat used by Babe Ruth which was won by a California youngster in 1923. The bat has resurfaced and is due to be auctioned in December. Some fear that it might be destroyed to ‘lift the curse’.
People keep mentioning the 1949 series against the Yankees.
I’d just like to take this opportunity to recommend Halberstam’s Summer of '49. It’s an absolutely spectacular book.