Curse of the Bambino

The Curse of the Bambino was a superstitious sports curse in Major League Baseball (MLB) derived from the 86-year championship drought of the Boston Red Sox between 1918 and 2004.  The superstition was named after Babe Ruth, colloquially known as "The Bambino", who played for the Red Sox until he was sold to the New York Yankees in 1920.  While some fans took the curse seriously, most used the expression in a tongue-in-cheek manner.

Prior to the drought, the Red Sox had been one of the most successful professional baseball franchises. They won five of the first fifteen World Series titles, including the first in 1903, more than any other MLB team at the time.  During this period, Ruth was a contributor to the Red Sox's three championships in 1915, 1916, and 1918.  Following the sale of Ruth, however, the once lackluster Yankees became one of the most dominant professional sports franchises in North America, winning more than twice as many World Series titles as any other MLB team.  The curse became a focal point of the Yankees–Red Sox rivalry over the years.

Talk of the curse as an ongoing phenomenon ended when the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series.  The Red Sox's championship was prefaced by them overcoming a 0–3 deficit against the Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series (ALCS), the first and, as of 2022, only time an MLB team won a best-of-seven playoff series after losing the first three games.

The curse had been such a part of Boston culture that when a "reverse curve" road sign on Longfellow Bridge over the city's Storrow Drive was graffitied to read "Reverse The Curse," officials left it in place until the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series. After the World Series that year, the road sign was edited to read "Reversed Curse" in celebration.

Lore About the Curse

Although it had long been noted that the selling of Ruth had been the beginning of a decline in the Red Sox' fortunes, the term "curse of the Bambino" was not in common use until the publication of the book The Curse of the Bambino by Dan Shaughnessy in 1990.  It became a key part of Red Sox lore in the media thereafter, and Shaughnessy's book became required reading in some high school English classes in New England.

Although the title drought dated back to 1918, the sale of Ruth to the Yankees was completed January 3, 1920.  In standard curse lore, Red Sox owner and theatrical producer Harry Frazee used the proceeds from the sale to finance the production of a Broadway musical, usually said to be No, No, Nanette.  In fact, Frazee backed many productions before and after Ruth's sale, and No, No, Nanette did not see its first performance until five years after the Ruth sale and two years after Frazee sold the Red Sox. In 1921, Red Sox manager Ed Barrow left to take over as general manager of the Yankees. Other Red Sox players were also later sold or traded to the Yankees.

Neither the lore, nor the debunking of it, entirely tells the story.  As Leigh Montville wrote in The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth, the production No, No, Nanette had originated as a non-musical stage play called My Lady Friends, which opened on Broadway in December 1919.  That play had, indeed, been financed as a direct result of the Ruth deal.  Various researchers, including Montville and Shaughnessy, have pointed out that Frazee had close ties to the Yankees owners, and that many of the player deals, as well as the mortgage deal for Fenway Park itself, had to do with financing his plays.

Yankee fans taunted the Red Sox with chants of "1918!" one weekend in September 1990.  The demeaning chant echoed at Yankee Stadium each time the Red Sox were there.  Yankee fans also taunted the Red Sox with signs saying "1918!", "CURSE OF THE BAMBINO", pictures of Babe Ruth, and wearing "1918!" T-shirts each time they were at the Stadium.

Attempts to Break the Curse

Red Sox fans attempted various methods over the years to exorcise their famous curse. These included placing a Boston cap atop Mount Everest and burning a Yankees cap at its base camp and finding a piano owned by Ruth that he had supposedly pushed into a pond near his Sudbury, Massachusettsfarm, Home Plate Farm.

In 1976, Laurie Cabot, the Official Witch of Massachusetts, was brought in to end a 10-game losing streak. While the losing streak ended, the Curse of the Bambino did not.

In Ken Burns's 1994 documentary Baseball, former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee suggested that the Red Sox should exhume the body of Babe Ruth, transport it back to Fenway and publicly apologize for trading Ruth to the Yankees.

Some declared the curse broken during a game on August 31, 2004, when a foul ball hit by Manny Ramírez flew into Section 9, Box 95, Row AA and struck a boy's face, knocking two of his teeth out.  16-year-old Lee Gavin, a Boston fan whose favorite player was Ramirez, lived on the Sudbury farm owned by Ruth. That same day, the Yankees suffered their worst loss in team history, a 22–0 clobbering at home against the Cleveland Indians.

Some fans also cite a comedy curse-breaking ceremony performed by musician Jimmy Buffett and his warm-up team (one dressed as Ruth and one dressed as a witch doctor) at a Fenway concert in September 2004.  Just after being traded to the Red Sox, Curt Schilling appeared in an advertisement for the Ford F-150 pickup truck hitchhiking with a sign indicating he was going to Boston.  When picked up, he said that he had "an 86-year-old curse" to break.

End of the Curse

In 2004, the Red Sox once again met the Yankees in the American League Championship Series.  The Red Sox lost the first three games, including losing Game 3 at Fenway by the lopsided score of 19–8.

The Red Sox trailed 4–3 in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 4.  But the team tied the game with a walk by Kevin Millar and a stolen base by pinch-runner Dave Roberts, followed by an RBI single against Yankee closer Mariano Rivera by third baseman Bill Mueller, and won on a two-run home run in the 12th inning by David Ortiz.  The Red Sox won the next three games to become the first and only MLB team to win a seven-game postseason series after losing the first three games.

The Red Sox then faced the St. Louis Cardinals, the team to whom they had lost in 1946 and 1967, and led throughout the series, winning in a four-game sweep.  Cardinals shortstop Édgar Rentería, who wore the same number as Ruth (3), was the final out of the series, a ground ball back to pitcher Keith Foulke.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Bambino