This is perhaps one of the most famous curses in sports. While most call it a curse ina tongue in cheek manner, some believe it was a real curse. The Curse of the Bambino is of course the supposed curse put on the Boston Red Sox that led them to a 86 year World Series winless drought from 1918-2004. This article will take a look at the history of the curse, when it was broken and more.
The curse first came about at the end of the 1919-20 season, when the Boston Red Sox sold the contract of Babe Ruth (also known as The Bambino) to the New York Yankees. Ruth was a star player and many people were not a fan of the move. Prior to this trade, the Red Sox had been one of the best teams in baseball as they had won five of the first fifteen World Series titles, while the Yankees were fairly lackluster.
(source: baseballcontinuum.com)
While some joke about the curse, in a sense, it may have been real. In the 84 straight years after the sale of Ruth’s contract, the Yankees would appear in 39 World Series’ and win 26 of them (which is twice as many as any other team in the majors). In that same span, the Red Sox would appear in 4 and not win a single one. This curse became one of the focal points in the now legendary Yankees and Red Sox rivalry that is one of the absolute biggest in sports.
Many a losses throughout the last century or so have been blamed on this curse, including the four World Series losses the Red Sox suffered among other losses as well. The curse was such big news in sports and in Boston that many Red Sox fans tried to “break the curse” in a number of ways including putting a Red Sox hat on the top of Mount Everest and other crazy ideas. None worked, and the curse kept on going.
(source: graysky.org)
It wasn’t until 2004 when the curse was finally broken, but even then it didn’t look like it would be. The Yankees were up 3 games to 0 on the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS and it looked all but locked up that the Yankees would move on to the World Series and the Curse of the Bambino would continue. However, the Red Sox battled back and actually managed to win a game 4 in which they trailed in the 9th inning and actually went on to win the next three as well to become the first MLB team to ever come back from a 3-0 series deficit. They went on to meet the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series and swept them to win their first World Series Championship in almost a century and break the Curse of the Bambino in the process. Interesting enough, the final out of the series was hit by Edgar Renteria, who just so happened to wear number 3, the same number as Babe Ruth.
(source: archive.boston.com)
