The Story Behind the Curse of the Bambino"”And How It Was Broken

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See terms and conditions. And we return to our American stories. Many sports teams are cursed, or at least so it feels to the fans of those sports teams. We know these curses by name in some cases. Here to tell the story of the curse of the Bambino is Boston Red Sox beat writer for Mass Live and the co-host of the Fenway Rundown podcast, Sean McAdam. Let's get into the story. You had this group of fans throughout the six state region of New England who grew up knowing only disappointment and expecting that the Red Sox were going to find a way to lose again.

And truthfully, that's what happened often. In 2004, fans went to the gravestones and grave sites of parents and grandparents and people who had not lived to see the Red Sox win at any point in their life. My father was born in 1927 and took me to my first game in 1967. So there's somebody who lived almost three quarters of a century and never saw them win.

The story of the curse of the Bambino dates back better than 100 years at this point. The Red Sox won the World Series in 1918, but soon after ended up selling Babe Ruth to their arch rival New York Yankees. There have been all sorts of stories as to why the Red Sox decided to do this.

Much of it centers around finance. The owner of the Red Sox at the time was in need of an infusion of cash and thought that selling Ruth would solve some of those problems. There's kind of been a debunked theory that he did it to help finance the production of a play on Broadway, No Known Nanette, that has proven to be false over the years, but nonetheless, it was economically motivated. While the Red Sox had been one of the more dominant teams in the American League and all of Major League Baseball in the first 20 or so years of the 20th century, winning five world championships, they then went on a run of futility that saw them not win another pennant until 1946. In 1967, 1975 and 1986, but each time they got to the World Series, they ended up losing every time in seven games and twice to the St. Louis Cardinals. And during the 1980s and 90s, a Boston Globe sports columnist by the name of Dan Shaughnessy came up with a book idea and advanced this notion that the reason the Red Sox had gone so long in between championships was that they were cursed by the ghost of Babe Ruth, who was getting back at them for selling him and had put a curse on the franchise to doom them for decades.

And while that's obviously not true, it was a clever book selling device. With every failure on the part of the Red Sox in the postseason, people began referring to the curse of the Bambino as though it were a real thing. The worst loss of all for the Red Sox was in the 1986 World Series, where they lost in seven games to the New York Mets. Despite leading in extra innings in Game 6, it seemed as if a championship was finally within reach. Major League Baseball had rolled in the champagne into the Red Sox clubhouse in extra innings and in anticipation of them finally winning, they lost that Game 2 and then lost Game 7 as well. And that World Series, as much as anything, sort of provided additional ammunition, if you will, that the Red Sox were cursed by this and would never win. The Red Sox were pretty competitive in the early part of the 21st century.

They won 90 plus games in 2002 under manager Grady Little. And in 2003, though the Yankees won the American League East, the Red Sox qualified for the postseason as the American League Wild Card team. And that eventually led to a showdown between the Red Sox and Yankees in the American League championship to decide the winner of the American League pennant and the American League representative in the World Series.

It was a fantastic postseason and a thrilling ALCS. The Red Sox actually were leading late in the game in the deciding winner-take-all Game 7 at Yankee Stadium. Pedro Martinez, who was their ace pitcher at the time and one of the two or three greatest pitchers in Red Sox history alongside Cy Young and Roger Clemens, late in the game began to falter. People wanted Grady Little, the manager, to lift Pedro Martinez. He tired as the pitch count increased, but Little decided that if he was going to go down, he was going to go down with one of the best pitchers in franchise history on the mound.

And ultimately, that's what happened. And the Red Sox had another October heartbreak. That year was the first year in which the Red Sox were led by a 28-year-old general manager named Theo Epstein, who had cut his teeth as an intern with the Orioles and was a very bright young man, having graduated from Yale and then got a law degree. And he too, befitting his age, was someone who was more analytically driven, was not somebody who did things the old-fashioned way. He was looking for new ways to judge talent and put rosters together.

You took a lot of grief after you told us that, what was the primitive step? Was it RBI or home runs? RBI and home runs, yeah. RBI is always harp on that. We're just trying to learn here. We're trying to learn.

No, I don't think RBI is primitive. I don't think it's extraordinarily relevant. But what was a huge risk to turn the keys over to a franchise with such history, to someone with so little experience, both John Henry and Larry Lucchino determined that Epstein was up for the job. They put the team together. They put a special emphasis on finding players who could remain loose, who weren't bothered by outside pressure, who could deal with questions about the curse of the Bandino and having failed so many times. They had this kind of Band of Brothers mentality led by people like Kevin Millar, who was a cast-off from the Florida Marlins. Not an all-star caliber player, really, but someone who could keep the mood light in the clubhouse.

And after a while, that group started calling themselves the Idiots. And looking back, that was particularly important in the 2004 postseason when they fell behind 3-0. Not many teams would have expected to come back from that. But Kevin Millar famously said before Game 4, don't let us win tonight. He was sending a message to the Yankees that if we win one, you're in trouble. The Red Sox went into 2004 seen as the equal to the Yankees as the season began. As the season wore on, the Yankees continued to exhibit their dominance over the Red Sox. There were a number of memorable confrontations on the field during the year, including some bench-clearing brawls. And when both teams won their first round playoff games and arrived at the 2004 ALCS, the rivalry was at its high point.

There was no time during the 20th or 21st century where it was so intense between the teams. Again, the series was viewed as pretty much a toss-up, but the Yankees dominated early in the series and won Game 3 19-8. And it looked for all the world as Game 4 began that the Yankees were going to once again exert their dominance and come out on top. But the Red Sox battled back and in the ninth inning, tied the game, sent it to extra innings, and later the Red Sox won. They also won Game 5 later that night because the previous Game 4 had finished after midnight.

So the two teams actually technically played two games in one day. And in Game 6, Curt Schilling, who had pitched poorly in his first start in the series, was dealing with a pretty serious ankle injury. And out of desperation, the Red Sox and their medical staff did a very rudimentary and ad hoc surgical procedure on Schilling's ankle the day before to temporarily reattach a tendon in the ankle and allow Schilling to be able to compete and pitch in Game 6, a game the Red Sox had to win. Schilling comes out for Game 6.

You can see on his white sanitary sock blood seeping through evidence of the procedure that was done the day before. And Schilling is absolutely masterful in this game and beats the Yankees to force a Game 7. And the Yankees are absolutely stunned as the Red Sox make baseball history by becoming the first team to rally from being down 3-0 in a best of seven series. And as happy as Red Sox fans were with that result, there was more work to be done. The Red Sox had merely won the pennant. They had not won the World Series and they were facing a very good St. Louis Cardinals team that ended up having the best record of any National League champion in the 2000s. But the Red Sox were riding an incredible wave of momentum and made quick work of the St. Louis Cardinals.

They won the first two games at Fenway, and with the series shifting to St. Louis, the Red Sox never let up on the gas, won the next two games in Busch Stadium in St. Louis, and celebrated their first World Series since 1918. The story of the Curse of the Bambino, here on Our American Stories. Looking for excitement? Chumba Casino is here. Play anytime. Play anywhere. Play on the train. Play at the store. Play at home. Play when you're bored. Play today for your chance to win, and get daily bonuses when you log in. So what are you waiting for?

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