THE CURSE OF RUTH...

It was recently brought to my attention that the post of a picture of Babe Ruth beside the Red Sox winning the World Series was neither a question nor an answer. As I assumed that the "Curse of Ruth" is well known and rehashed over and over and over again, plus the Yankees had just taken a ½ game lead over the Red Sox, no further explanation should be added. I apologize for that so the only way to rectify the problem is to rehash it one more time.

So tell me Jim, I keep hearing about the "Curse of Ruth" and how it has been reversed. Just what was the "Curse of Ruth"?

The story starts as the nascent American League came to terms with the already established National League, to pit their regular season winners against each other in a playoff called the World Series. One of the premier teams of the new American league, was the Boston Pilgrims who, in 1903, represented the American League in the first World Series beating the Pittsburgh Pirates 5 games to 3. During the teens, the Pilgrims, who had changed their name to the Red Sox, went on to win the Pennant and the World Series in 1912, 1915, 1916, and 1918. The last three series were won with the help of the new pitching phenom that Boston acquired from the Baltimore farm system, George Herman "Babe" Ruth. Baseball Historian.com writes...
Ruth was the best left-hander in baseball. He chalked up 18 wins in 1915, 23 in 1916 and 24 in 1917. In all 3 of those years opponents batted under .220 against him. In 1916 he led the league with a 1.75 ERA and spun a league leading nine shutouts. In 1917, Ruth was 24-13, completing 35 of the 38 games he started. He allowed only 244 hitters in 326 innings.
In the 1918 World Series vs. the Chicago Cubs, Babe Ruth hurled a 6-hit shutout in Game 1. In Game 4, the Cubs scored their first run in the 8th inning to break Ruth's record string of 29 1/3 scoreless innings. Ruth's mark stood until 1961 when Whitey Ford broke it.
The Boston Red Sox won four World Series in the eight years Babe Ruth played on the team. They sold Ruth to the New York Yankees for $125,000 and a $300,000 loan because Boston's owner Harry Frazee needed the cash to invest in a new play on Broadway (No, No Nanette). As noted since the cash transaction, Boston's inability to win a single World Series Title has been attributed to "The Curse of the Bambino."
Since, that time, not only have the Yankees gone on to win 26 World Series while Boston none (until 2004 of course) but the team was beset by tragic loses that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory time and time again. Up until this year, Boston fans knew it was just a matter of time before something would go sour and the BoSox would tank. Some of the most memorable chokes are as follows:

1946 - In its first World Series appearance since 1918, Boston loses in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals. The play that turned the tables took place in the bottom of the eighth inning, during game seven, with the score 3-3. Hall of Famer, Enos Slaughter had singled with no outs but looked to be stranded there when the next two batters left him still standing there. When Harry Walker got a hit to center field, Slaughter took off running and easily made it to third. The center fielder, Culberson, chased down the ball and threw it into short stop, Johnny Pesky. Pesky, probably assuming that Slaughter was about to stop at third and watching out for Walker rounding first and heading for second, held the ball for just a moment before he saw that Slaughter had run through the third base coach's stop sign and was headed for home. By the time Pesky threw the ball to the catcher, Slaughter had scored the go ahead run and the Cards beat the Sox 4-3.



1967 - One year removed from a ninth-place finish in 1966, "The Impossible Dream" Red Sox -- after winning the pennant on the last day of a magical season -- lose a seven-game World Series to Bob Gibson (three complete-game wins) and, again, the St. Louis Cardinals.

1975 - Boston coughs up a 3-0 lead in Game 7 to lose the World Series to the Big Red Machine after Carlton Fisk's walk off home run in the bottom of the 12th to beat the Reds in Game 6.

1978 - The Red Sox, who held a 14-game lead on the Yankees in late-July and trailed by 3 1/2 with eight to play, catch up to force this one-game playoff for the AL pennant. Down 2-0 in the seventh, Bucky Dent -- who was batting .140 in his previous 20 games and had only four home runs on the year -- takes a 1-1 Mike Torrez pitch barely over the Green Monster for a 3-2 lead. The Yankees go on to win the game 5-4 and, one series later, their 22nd championship title.

1986 - One strikeout away from winning the Series, the infamous "Slow roller down the baseline" that went through Bill Buckner's legs leads to a 5-3 loss in game 6 and loss of game seven to the N.Y. Mets.

These are only the most gut wrenching turn arounds. The Sox history is full of lesser stories of woe.
So it is with the "Curse of the Babe".(Or could it be that a team with a small ballpark in a large metropolitan area just never bothered to spend the big bucks for a winner when it could fill the park and make a sound profit on T.V. revenue while fielding a sometimes contender and then finally decided to "buck up" and show the world that even the second highest team in baseball can win a World Series in baseball today? ...... Naaaaah!) Many Red Sox fans feel that having come to a World Series trophy by overcoming the Yankees and the Cardinals, two of their biggest obstacles, they have surely reversed this overstated curse. However, as I write this, the Sox and the Yanks are tied for first place in their division with three game series against each other this weekend. As the looser will probably be out of the wild card race, the winner takes all. We will soon see if the Bambino has been chased away for good, or was he really out drinking with Pete Alexander and passed out for 4 days last year.

Now Jim has a question. So much has been made about the length of time it has taken the Bosox to win a World Series (1918 - 2004) and the Cubs to win a World Series (1908), why, then have I never heard a word about the Chicago southsiders' (White Sox) dearth of World Series wins? The last time they won the series was 1917. They should have won the series in 1919 (Say is ain't so, Joe!), but threw the game to the Reds in the infamous "Black Sox" scandal! Haven't won since, tell me that is not worthy of a curse!