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The Curse of the Bambino
The inaugural 140-game season of the American League
began on April 24, 1901. Boston's team was given the nickname "Americans" to differentiate them from the
cross-town National League "Nationals." The press also dubbed them the Somersets, Plymouth Rocks,
Collinsmen, Puritans and Pilgrims. Team owner John I. Taylor decided that, for the 1908 season, they
would wear white uniforms with red stockings while playing at home. The name Boston Red Sox was born.
Boston was the strongest team in the newly founded league, finishing first in six out of their first
eighteen seasons. They appeared in five World Series between 1901 and 1918, winning all five.
In 1914, the Red Sox (now owned by Joe Lannin)
purchased the contracts of Ernie Shore, Ben Egan and a young pitcher named George Herman Ruth from
the minor-league Baltimore Orioles. Ruth went by the nickname "The Babe" or "The Bambino." He was
brought up to Boston's major league team on July 11, 1914. That season, he appeared in four games
with a 2-1 record. The Babe had eighteen wins for the Red Sox in 1915, and 23 in 1916. Boston won
both years' World Series. Baseball writers anointed Ruth as one of the best lefthanders the game had
ever known. On October 9, 1916, he pitched a fourteen inning complete game victory over the
Brooklyn Dodgers in game two of the World Series.
In 1917, The Bambino led the league in shutouts
(nine) and ERA (1.75), with a 24-13 record. Lannin sold the team to Harry Harrison Frazee at the end
of 1917. Rosters were being decimated as players left to fight in World War I. Ruth helped by
playing in the field (mostly in left) when he was not pitching. Despite batting in only 95 games,
he hit the most home runs in the majors. He was on the mound for game one of the 1918 Fall Classic,
where he pitched a complete game shut out to beat the Chicago Cubs 1-0. He would also get the win
in game four of that series, helping the Red Sox defeat Chicago four games to two. Boston won three
championships in The Babe's first four full seasons with the team.
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The Yankees continued to share the Polo Grounds
with the New York Giants until 1923 (when Yankee Stadium opened). That year, Ruth (batting .393
with 41 home runs) led the Yankees to their first of a record twenty-six World Series Championships.
The Babe hit his last three home runs (numbers 712, 713 and 714), while playing for the Boston Braves, in a game against Pittsburgh on May 25, 1935. He retired eight days later. The Bambino
ranks among the best ever in dozens of pitching and hitting
records. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, on February 2, 1936, as one of the five
charter members. The other four were Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, and Honus Wagner.
Boston has appeared in only five World Series since
1918, losing four of them in seven games. In 1946, they tied game seven in the top of the eighth
against the Cardinals, but gave up the winning run in the bottom of the inning. Boston had a 3-0 lead
in game seven of the 1975 Series, but ended up losing by one run to the Reds. They were one strike
away from winning the 1986 Series four times in game six. The Red Sox then had a 3-0 lead going
into the sixth inning of game seven, but gave up eight runs in the final three innings to lose the game.
The Sox carried a three-run lead into the bottom of the eighth of game seven of the 2003 ALCS. They
allowed New York to score three runs to tie the game. Then, the Yankees won on Aaron Boone's home run
in the eleventh inning. The Red Sox lost by five runs to Cleveland in the 1948 American League
tiebreaker. Thirty years later, Boston had a 2-0 lead until New York's Bucky Dent hit his infamous
home run over the Fenway scoreboard in the seventh inning of the AL East tiebreaker. In 1949, they
needed to win one of their two final games to win the American League (both against New York). They
blew a 4-0 lead in the first game, and lost the second by a score of 5-3. Many consider Boston's
performance after the departure of Babe Ruth to be attributable to "The Curse of the Bambino."
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