Introduction
‘The Curse of the Bambino’ is believed to be the longest-running and most famous curse in the history of American sports. The club endured eighty-six years of failure from 1918 to 2004 without a win. Some fans and players took the curse seriously and believed that the team will never perform for the trade of the best-known player of the period. Boston Red Sox won their fifth world series in 1918 led by the famous Babe Ruth also known as the Bambino or the Babe.
Red Sox baseball sold Babe Ruth to New York Yankees in 1920. Just before the sale, Red Sox was one of the most famous clubs whose performance was amazing. After selling him to the New York Yankees, the performance of the New York Yankees rose at a very high speed. The New York Yankees had not won the World Series before but the entry of Babe Ruth into the club brought many changes. Since then, the New York Yankees have won the world series over twenty-five times whereas Red Sox went for about eight decades without it. The number of times that New York Yankees have won the series is more than twice the number of times that any other club has ever won it.
The curse is believed to have been moved to another team since 2004 when the team beat the Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals to win the series. Some of the people who strongly believed in the curse now believe that it does not exist. The fans and the players have some opinions about the curse. The players and the fans have had different perspectives and opinions in addressing the Curse of the Bambino.
The History of Babe Ruth and the Trade
Boston Red Sox bought Babe Ruth in 1924 from the Baltimore club. Baltimore team was not major and could not offer him much money. Boston Red Sox offered Babe Ruth a salary of $3,500 a year which was about three times the amount that he was receiving in Baltimore1. In the next three years that he played for Boston Red Sox, he happened to be the best left-handed player in baseball. Within three years, he managed to win sixty-five times. Bambino managed to carry about a quarter of all the games played against all the opponents.
The man was huge and was called the intimidated batter. Many fans loved him and praised him for his skills2. His efforts cannot be assumed when the Red Sox played against the Brooklyn Dodgers. He and Sherry Smith dominated the entire game. He kept a six-hit shutout record in 1918 which stayed for over forty years. Out of one hundred and eleven games that he played in 1919, he managed to slug twenty-nine of them home. Babe Ruth played for Boston Red Sox for eight years and within this period, the team managed to win four World Series.
Harry Frazee- the owner of Boston Red Sox- wanted to make a new investment and to have a new play on Broadway. As a result, he decided to offer Babe Ruth to Jacob Ruppert who was the owner of the New York Yankees. He was sold for about $100,000. There was also a loan of about $300,000 collateralized by Fenway Park. To many people, the poor performance of the Boston Red Sox has been attributed to the departure of Babe Ruth referred to as the Curse of the Bambino.
As stated before, the Curse of Bambino is the long-running and most famous curse in the history of American sports. This is because the curse lasted for eighty-six years from the time Babe Ruth left the team to the time when the team won a cup in 2004. The deal to sell Babe Ruth had been completed in January 1920 but the club won the last cup in 1918. For eighty-six years, the players and the fans blamed any negative event on the curse. As players were going to participate in the field, they were just attempting to reverse it but they knew that they were quite unfortunate.
Curses and their Origins
A curse is basically a wish that is expressed by a person or a group of people so that some misfortune befalls other people, places, or objects. Curses have been in existence since time immemorial. The curse causes harm to individuals, places, or objects cursed. The harm is believed to be inflicted by a supernatural power. The beliefs of individuals affect the words said against them. In sports, curses are believed to originate from actions that do not please one of the parties involved in the action.
The party, therefore, makes a negative wish against the other. As a result, one wishes to inflict misfortune on either an individual or a team. For example, the curse of the Bambino that caused the Red Sox team to go without a win from 1918 to 2004 is believed to have been caused by the move of Babe Ruth from the club3. The Chicago Cubs Major League baseball team has not won the World Series for many years and it is believed that it is as a result of the Curse of the Billy Goat.
Billy Goat tavern was sent out of a world series with claims that his goat was producing some odor that was disturbing other fans. He cursed them and said that they will never win again. There is a belief that an individual who curses another can bring harm to an end. The players and the fans could at one time think that the curse no longer exists but whenever they had a misfortune, they blamed it.
The Curse of the Bambino is believed to have caused major effects to the players and the fans for various reasons. Some of the people believed in magic and luck so that any misfortune that befell them was seen to have been caused by the curse4. The team also had many fans and enjoyed the support. The belief by many fans caused fear both to players and fans.
The 1986 World Series
The loss that Boston suffered in 1986 is believed to have been caused by the error that Bill Buckner made specifically in Game 6. The fans and players attributed the loss to the Curse of the Bambino. It happened on a Saturday, October 25, 1986. The New York Mets were playing against Boston Red Sox. Boston Red Sox were just about to win the game but Bill Buckner made a mistake that allowed The New York Mets to extend the series into a seventh series5. This led to a loss with the New York Mets winning four games to three against the Boston Red Sox.
In the first game, Boston Red Sox managed to beat their opponents by 1-0. Bruce Hurst headed the Boston Team. In the second game, Boston managed a 9-3 victory over the New Yorkers. This time around, Roger Clemens led the team. It is however noted that the performance of Clemens in the game was a bit poor. The third game was quite challenging to Boston red Sox. They lost 7-1 against the New Yorkers.
Boston also lost the fifth game to the New Yorkers where the scores were 12-7. The game was now at a draw where each team had drawn 2-2. Boston Red sox won the fifth game by 4-2. If Boston won the sixth round, they could have become the champions of the 1986 World Series.
Game six was the most challenging for the two teams. Boston was the first to score. They had a 2-0 lead scored by Dwight Evans and Marty Barrett. The New York Mets equalized in the fifth inning but Barrett scored for Boston giving them a 3-2 lead6. The New York Mets managed to equalize and the game went all the way to the ninth inning as a draw. This meant extra time to determine the team that won the sixth game. The extra time seemed to favor the Red Sox that the New Yorkers. They were leading at 5-3 and they only had a few minutes to win the series. The scoreboard had flashed congratulating them for being the 1986 World champions.
The New Yorkers made a superb comeback where they drew at 5-5. The ball that led to the Boston appeared very easy for Bill Buckner to handle. The game ended at 6-5 with New York Mets leading and the game was to proceed to the seventh round because they were still at a draw. It was a common trend for the Boston Red Sox to replace Buckner with Dave Stapleton whenever the side was leading towards the end on an inning.
This is because Dave was better than Buckner in defense. This time around, it was decided that Buckner completes the inning. In the seventh game, New Yorkers beat the Boston Red Sox at 10-9 and they became the 1986 world champions7. Many similar weird events occurred in 1948, 1949, 1967, 1972, 1975, 1978, 1986, 2003, and many others. Many fans and players said that the misfortune was a result of the curse of the Bambino. Some pictures that exist indicate that Buckner wore Chicago Cub batting gloves when he played the game. This meant that there was a double curse. Before this loss, the fans had blamed any mistakes made by their players on the Curse of Bambino.
The 2004 World Series
2004 happens to be the year when the Boston Red Sox were to break the Curse of the Bambino. The game was between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals. This time around, the Red Sox won the first four of the seven best bringing the game to an end. The win in game one was led by Mark Bellhorn where Boston led 11-3. The team is reported to have made four major mistakes in the first game but it still won.
The second win was led by Curt Schilling. This time around, Boston led 6-2 against the Cardinals. Pedro Martinez led the team in the third game where Boston beat the cardinals 4-1. The fourth game ended 3-0 and the Boston Red Sox became the 2004 World champions. This appears to be the end of the curse in that the club won the title again in 2007. The Red Sox won the title this time when the total lunar eclipse was experienced for the first time when the baseball world champions were being carried on8.
Some fans viewed it as a fortune that had come to counter the Curse of the Bambino. After the win, other fans argued that the ghost of Babe Ruth had seen their suffering and that he had decided to end the suffering that they had gone through for eighty-six years. The players on the other had a moment of happiness feeling that the longest and most famous curse had come to an abrupt end. They felt that the win had reversed the curse and they could now win the series with their efforts.
Many are the times that the players felt that their efforts deserved better results but abnormal mistakes had caused the losses. The players associated these mistakes with the Curse of the Bambino. Surprising after 2004, some players argued that the curse never existed. To them, the misfortunes were just a lack of luck and never a curse.
The Curse of Bambino Today
Following the victory acquired by Boston Red Sox in 2004, many believed that the curse had come to an end9. There is the belief that the curse was moved to the New York Yankees. The fans and players argue that since the breaking of the curse in 2004, the Yankees have had many misfortunes such as failure to sell their tickets in the new stadium. This way, the misfortunes that used to befall Red Sox will be directed to the other team.
Those who believe in the curse argue that it cannot be gone but has been transferred to another team. According to them, a curse never ends but can be transferred to another team. Those who strongly believed in the curse, believe that a time has come for their team to acquire its previous status. They believe that the team has had enough of the suffering and that the ghosts of the one who had cursed them had decided to have mercy on them. They believe that the misfortunes of the curse cannot befall them once again as long as the curse was broken. Any mistakes made by the players are now normal mistakes and not misfortunes brought by the curse.
The opinions of both the players and the fans have greatly changed whereas the players go for a game. They believe that it is only their mistakes that can fail them and never an outside cause. The fans on the other hand have come to support their teams because they believe that with the curse, there is no way that the team could have won. This is especially following the 2004 win against the Cardinals. The team had not only won but had won superbly by beating the opponents in the first four games out of the possible seven.
Conclusion
The curse of the Bambino is believed to be the principal cause of the long period that the Boston Red Sox baseball team went without winning in the World Series. The superstition came after the owner of the club sold Babe Ruth who was one of the best players in the period. Babe Ruth had helped the team win the series four times in eight years when he played for it. He was sold to the Yankees and helped the team win the series twenty-six times.
A curse is a wish made by an individual as a result of an action taken against him or her aimed at bringing harm to the other party. It can either be an individual, a group of individuals, or a place. The 1986 world series was the unluckiest that the club ever experienced in its history. The team lost to the New York Mets when a very simple ball passed between the gloves worn by Buckner. Players and fans attributed the misfortune to the curse of Bambino. When the team won in 2004 against the St. Louis Cardinals, players and fans believed that the curse had been broken and that the misfortune could no longer befall them. The team won the World Series again in 2007.
Reference List
Baseball Almanac. “1986 World Series.” 2000. Web.
Cossette, E. “Bambino’s Curse.” 2001. Web.
Hardy, J. D. Baseball and the Mythic Moment: How We Remember the National Game. New York: McFarland & Company, Inc, Publishers, 2007.
MacRae, S. The Boston Red Sox. New York: The Roman Publishing Group, Inc, 2010.
Schwartz, L. “Lovable Ruth was everyone’s Babe.” 2007. Web.
Wann, D. L. & Zaichkowsky, L. “Sport Team Identification and Belief in Team Curses: The Case of the Boston Red Sox and the Curse of the Bambino”. 2009. Web.
Footnotes
- Cossette, E. “Bambino’s Curse.” 2001. Web.
- Schwartz, L. “Lovable Ruth was everyone’s Babe.” 2007. Web.
- Cossette, E. “Bambino’s Curse”. 2001. Web.
- Hardy, J. D. Baseball and the Mythic Moment: How We Remember the National Game. ( New York: McFarland & Company, Inc, Publishers. P.179. 2007).
- Baseball Almanac, “1986 World Series.”2000. Web.
- Baseball Almanac, ‘1986 World Series.’ 2000. Web.
- Baseball Almanac,. ‘1986 World Series’.2000.
- MacRae, S. The Boston Red Sox. (New York: The Roman Publishing Group, Inc. 2010).
- Wann, D. L. and Zaichkowsky, L.‘Sport Team Identification and Belief in Team Curses: The Case of the Boston Red Sox and the Curse of the Bambino.’ 2009‘. Web.