Even after you strip away all the myths, legends and downright lies that have become attached to his story and just stick to the facts, you have to accept that George Herman Ruth was a phenomenon. The Babe, as he was universally known, had a hard childhood, being brought up in a reformatory but went on to become probably the single most renowned baseball player in the history of the game. He won the World Series in 1916 and 1918 with the Boston Red Sox. In 1919 the world of baseball was rocked by scandal as members of the Chicago White Sox were shown to have colluded with a betting scam to throw the World Series. Baseball seemed crying out for a hero who could restore the public’s faith in the game and Babe Ruth would fit that position like a glove. So in 1920 Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee decided to sell him to the New York Yankees. The previously run of the mill Yankees went on to dominate the sport for several decades. The Red Sox didn’t win another World Series until 2004. And that, in a condensed form, is the story behind the Curse of the Bambino. Boston were cursed for selling Ruth.
Now, before I get on to curses, hexes and hoodoos in general,
we should probably acknowledge the fact that the term ‘Curse of the Bambino’
didn’t really come into general usage until the publication of Dan Shaughnessy’s
book of the same name in the 1990s. And the fact was that in moving teams, Ruth
was leaving a team that were already in decline and joining one that was very
much on the up. Still, it’s a fact that after 1918, Boston didn’t win another
World Series for 86 years.
You can find several stories of sporting curses or hoodoos
without having to look very hard. In 1912 Tottenham Hotspur beat Liverpool at
Anfield. 73 years later they did it again, having lost on every occasion they
played at Anfield in between. We were riding high in the league at that time in
1985 and dared to dream that this was an omen that this would be our year. It
wasn’t. Everton won the League.
We could say a lot about how psychology influences so
called curses, but let’s just say that when you get down to it, there’s little
or no substance to the idea. So when I refer to the Curse of the Clark Sofa,
meaning the way that the people or teams that I predict are going to win or
that I support in a quiz usually lose, I know deep down that there is really no
such thing as a curse. I know that all this means is that I’m a lousy tipster.
But.
When it comes to superstitions, a kind of mindset, not
unrelated to Pascal’s Wager comes into play. Pascal said basically that it’s
logical to believe in God, because if God doesn’t exist then it hasn’t cost you
anything, and if God does then the rewards for belief are incalculable. So by not
tipping anyone this year I don’t lose anything even if the curse did exist (it
doesn’t). Well, I didn’t claim that it made a lot of sense, to be fair.
2 comments:
Harry Frazee was in so much debt and that he had sold a lot of Red Sox in 1919 and 1920, many of which were to the Yankees due to how close one of his business offices in New York was to the Yankees owner's office. There's a joke that the Yankees before the sale of the players couldn't be that bad because they had three hall of famers on their team. The thing was that those three hall of famers were George Halas, Curly Lambeau, and Jim Thorpe, who are in the football hall of fame, not the baseball one (well, I guess they put Jim Thorpe in the baseball one too).
Jim Thorpe should be in the Olympic Games Hall of Fame too. Instead the bastards stripped him of his medals, and waited until he was dead to admit they were in the wrong and return them.
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