Curse exorcised when Red Sox end 86-year drought
BOSTON — Yesterday was a glorious day to be a Red Sox fan.
Oh, maybe not as life-altering as the night before — dubbed "Boston Baseball's Bastille Day" by Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy — but the afterglow was pretty satisfying in its own right.
Reading the New York papers alone had to have been nearly as sweet as the victory. The tabloids were splashed with fear and loathing toward the Yankees, from the front of the Daily News ("THE CHOKE'S ON US") to the back of the Post ("WHAT A CHOKE!").
Not surprisingly, Kevin Brown and Alex Rodriguez bore the brunt of the criticism, but no one was spared, from manager Joe Torre (second-guessed like never before) and general manager Brian Cashman to Tony Clark and Gary Sheffield.
Yankee Nation, predictably, is in an uproar of incrimination, and that warms the cockles of Red Sox faithful everywhere.
Page 3 of the Daily News was a full-sized picture of Babe Ruth, with a tear trickling down his left eye. Heck, Pedro Martinez, who once said he wished they could dig up Ruth so he could drill him in the butt, even felt the need to come to the defense of the big fella.
"The Bambino is a good man," Martinez told reporters after the game. "He did a lot of things for the community. He's not a bad man; why would he put a curse on anybody?"
Ah, The Curse. As prevalent as the notion was in the American League Championship Series aftermath that the Red Sox had finally shaken off their 86-year hex, instigated in lore when they sold Ruth to the Yankees in January 1920, two years after their last World Series title, technically they did not.
Oh, you could hold a seminar at Harvard on this issue, but I say The Curse isn't over, definitively, until the moment the Red Sox win the World Series, which they should do, based on momentum and comparative talent.
But you could argue they should have beaten the Cardinals in 1946 and '67, the Reds in '75, and the Mets in '86 — the other years since 1918 that the Red Sox beat out the Yankees, at least indirectly, for the AL pennant, and failed to take home the championship. Falling in seven games each time, no less.
This was a glorious, cathartic achievement for the Red Sox, one that will live in the franchise's lore and the region's collective psyche for eternity. But even Shaughnessy, the poet laureate of The Curse and author of its definitive history, "Curse of the Bambino, " cautioned in the Globe:
"Boston baseball fans need to remind themselves that the job is not yet done. Sweet as it was to beat the Yankees, the Sox still have to win a World Series before they throw off the dreaded pox in the home of Hub hardball."
I posed the question electronically yesterday to Steve Buckley, the astute sports columnist for the Boston Herald and a New England native as steeped as anyone in the hearts and mindset of Red Sox Nation. His e-mail reply is illuminating:
"First off, I don't do the curse. It's just a gimmick — a clever one — but a gimmick nonetheless. If people want to write about why the Red Sox haven't won the World Series since 1918, they should explore the Big Three: Racism, Alcoholism and Cronyism. Those are the reasons the Red Sox failed for so many years.
"For instance, was it a curse that the Sox invited Negro Leaguers Jackie Robinson, Sam Jethroe and Marvin Williams to an April 1945 tryout at Fenway Park and then never even contacted them?
"Was it a curse that Joe McCarthy was past his prime — and drinking too much — when he managed the Red Sox? Ditto with Mike Higgins and others.
"Now, if you want to throw out the curse and address the simple issue as to whether Sox fans will be happy beating the Yankees ... and not winning the World Series ... my answer is a strong no. When people talk '1918' it's understood we're talking about the World Series here, not beating the Yankees.
"The fact is, the Red Sox HAVE beaten the Yankees. In 1988, for instance, the Yankees got off to a fast start in the AL East, and then faded, and then the Red Sox had their Morgan Magic run and took over first place. The Yankees came into Fenway in September, as I recall, with a chance to make things interesting, and got blown out.
"And in '75, I recall the Sox winning twin 1-0 games in a doubleheader in New York (at Shea, as Yankee Stadium was being remodeled) to put some distance between the teams.
"The Red Sox-Yankees thing is not what this is all about. It's all the rage now as the historic comeback over the Yankees is still fresh in everyone's minds, but if the Sox get blown out in the World Series then, well, 1918 still has meaning."
So, Sox fans, party on, and savor the moment, but don't forget that all manner of potential misery still lies ahead.
If and when the World Series is safely in hand, that's when it will be time to put The Curse in the hearse.
Then, the first time the Yankees come to Fenway Park in 2005, having gone four long, agonizing years without a World Series title, Sox faithful can finally unleash a response to the time-honored taunt of New York fans: "Nineteen-eighteen! Nineteen-eighteen! Nineteen-eighteen!"
Instead of having nothing to come back with but the childish "Yankees suck! Yankees suck!" they can let them have it where it hurts:
"Two-thousand! Two-thousand! Two-thousand!"
Larry Stone: 206-464-3146