Removal of the sign (then re-graffitied to read "reversed the curse") by a crew including GovernorMitt Romney, following Boston's 2004 World Series victory.
Prior to the drought, the Red Sox had been one of the most successful professional baseball franchises. They won five of the first fifteenWorld Series titles, including thefirst in 1903, more than any other MLB team at the time. During this period, Ruth was a contributor to the Red Sox's three championships in1915,1916, and1918. Following the sale of Ruth, however, the once lackluster Yankees became one of the most dominant professional sports franchises in North America, winning more than twice as many World Series titles as any other MLB team.[2] The curse became a focal point of theYankees–Red Sox rivalry over the years.
Talk of the curse as an ongoing phenomenon ended when the Red Sox won the2004 World Series.[3] The Red Sox's championship was prefaced by themovercoming a 3–0 deficit against the Yankees in the2004 American League Championship Series (ALCS), the first and, as of 2025[update], only time an MLB team won a best-of-seven playoff series after losing the first three games.
The curse had been such a part of Boston culture that when a "reverse curve" road sign onLongfellow Bridge over the city'sStorrow Drive was graffitied to read "Reverse The Curse", officials left it in place until the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series. After the World Series that year, the road sign was edited to read "Reversed Curse" in celebration before its removal. On the 20th anniversary of their World Series win, the sign was displayed on aduck boat during the Red Sox 2024 home opener parade.[4]
Although the selling of Ruth has often been noted as the beginning of the Red Sox's decline, the term "curse of the Bambino" was not in common use until the publication of the bookThe Curse of the Bambino byDan Shaughnessy in 1990.[5] It became a key part of Red Sox lore in the media thereafter, and Shaughnessy's book became required reading in some high school English classes in New England.[5][6]
The curse first appears at the end of chapter two in a letter to Mr. Shaughnessy from Rev. Darrell Berger of the First Parish Unitarian Church inScituate, Massachusetts. As an avid fan and occasional baseball writer and broadcaster whose congregation dates from Puritan times, he was in a unique position to place the frustration of Red Sox fans into historical prospective. He replies to Mr. Shaughnessy's inquiry as to why "curse" is an applicable term, citingThe House of the Seven Gables, a tale of how one's continuing ill fortune can be spun into a curse.
Rev. Berger writes
In both cases you have a cursed family because of evil that had been done and it's passed down several generations later. I think of the selling of Ruth as the sin that cannot be atoned for. There hasn't been a savior that can come along and make that atonement. The Sox over and over again keep paying for that sin. Frazee sins against Sox fans by selling Ruth. This severs trust between fans and ownership that has never healed. A curse is also merely a folkwise way of explaining the unexplainable, but who wants to leave it at that? So is the Old Testament.The key for the curse to be lifted is acknowledgement that both sin and curse exist and why, in the same way an alcoholic or any dysfunctional relationship must be named before it can heal. The great danger of a curse is that the closer it gets to being overcome, the greater the anxiety becomes. Anxiety causes bad things to happen and the curse continues.
Although the title drought dated back to1918, the sale of Ruth to the Yankees was completed January 3, 1920.[7] In standard curse lore, Red Sox owner and theatrical producerHarry Frazee used the proceeds from the sale to finance the production of aBroadwaymusical, usually said to beNo, No, Nanette.[8] In fact, Frazee backed many productions before and after Ruth's sale, andNo, No, Nanette did not see its first performance until five years after the Ruth sale and two years after Frazee sold the Red Sox. In 1921, Red Sox managerEd Barrow left to take over asgeneral manager of the Yankees. Other Red Sox players were also later sold or traded to the Yankees.[9]
Neither the lore, nor the debunking of it, entirely tells the story. AsLeigh Montville wrote inThe Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth, the productionNo, No, Nanette had originated as a non-musical stage play calledMy Lady Friends, which opened on Broadway in December 1919.[10] That play had, indeed, been financed as a direct result of the Ruth deal.[11] Various researchers, including Montville and Shaughnessy, have pointed out that Frazee had close ties to the Yankees owners, and that many of the player deals, as well as the mortgage deal for Fenway Park itself, had to do with financing his plays.[10]
Yankee fans taunted the Red Sox with chants of "1918!" one weekend in September 1990.[12] The demeaning chant echoed atYankee Stadium each time the Red Sox were there.[13][14][15] Yankees fans also taunted the Red Sox with signs saying "1918!", "CURSE OF THE BAMBINO", pictures of Babe Ruth, and wearing "1918!" T-shirts each time they were at the stadium.[16] The chant was only heard at Yankee Stadium.[16]
BeforeBabe Ruth left Boston, the Red Sox had won five of the first fifteen World Series, with Ruth pitching for the1916 and1918 championship teams (he was with the Red Sox for the1915 World Series, butmanagerBill Carrigan used him only once, as apinch-hitter, and he did not pitch). TheYankees had not played in anyWorld Series up to that time. In the 84 years after the sale, the Yankees played in 39 World Series, winning 26 of them, twice as many as any other team in Major League Baseball. Meanwhile, over the same time span, the Red Sox played in only four World Series and lost each in seven games.[5]
Even losses that occurred many years before the first mention of the supposed curse, in1986, have been attributed to it. Some of these instances are listed below:
In1946, the Red Sox appeared in their firstWorld Series since the sale of Babe Ruth and were favored to beat theSt. Louis Cardinals.[17] The series went toGame 7 atSportsman's Park inSt. Louis. In the bottom of the eighth inning, with the score tied at 3–3, the Cardinals hadEnos Slaughter on first base andHarry Walker at the plate. On ahit and run, Walker hit adouble to very short left-center field. Slaughterran through the third base coach's stop sign and beat Boston shortstopJohnny Pesky's relay throw tohome plate.[18] Some say Pesky hesitated on the throw, allowing Slaughter to score, but Pesky always denied this charge. Film footage is inconclusive, except that it shows Pesky in bright sunlight and Slaughter in shadow. Boston starTed Williams, playing with an injury, was largely ineffective at the plate in his only World Series.
In1949, the Red Sox needed to win just one of the last two games of the season to win the pennant,[21] but lost both games to theYankees,[22] who won a record five consecutive World Series from1949 to1953.
In1967, the Red Sox surprisingly reversed the awful results of the1966 season by winning the American League pennant on the last weekend of theregular season.[23] In theWorld Series, they once again faced theCardinals, and just as in 1946, the Series went toGame 7, which St. Louis won, 7–2, behind their best pitcherBob Gibson; Gibson defeated Boston aceJim Lonborg, who was pitching on short rest and was ineffective. Gibson even hit ahome run against Lonborg in the game.[24]
In1972, the Red Sox ended the regular season with a three-game series against theDetroit Tigers, over whom they held a half-game lead in theAmerican League East. Detroit won two of the three games to capture the division by half a game. (Due to theplayers' strike at the beginning of the season and the decision ofCommissionerBowie Kuhn not to reschedule any strike-cancelled games, the Tigers ended up playing and winning one more game than the Red Sox, finishing with a 86–70 record to Boston's 85–70.)[25]
In1975, the Red Sox won the pennant and met thedynasticCincinnati Reds in theWorld Series. The Red Sox wonGame 6 on awalk-off home run bycatcherCarlton Fisk, setting the stage for the decidingGame 7. Boston took a quick 3–0 lead and were seven outs away from the championship, but the Reds tied the game. In the top of the ninth, the Reds brought in the go-aheadrun on aJoe Morgansingle that scoredKen Griffey, Sr., winning what is regarded as one of the greatest World Series ever played.
In1978, the Red Sox held a 14-game lead in the American League East over theYankees on July 18.[26] However, the Yankees subsequently caught fire, eventually tying Boston atop the standings on September 10 after sweeping a four-game series atFenway Park, an event known to Red Sox fans as the "Boston Massacre."[27] Six days later, the Yankees held a3+1⁄2 game lead over the Red Sox, but the Sox won 12 of their next 14 games to overcome that deficit and force aone-game playoff on October 2 at Fenway Park. The memorable moment of the game came when light-hitting YankeeshortstopBucky Dent cracked a three-run home run in the seventh inning that hit the top of the left field wall (theGreen Monster) and skipped out of the park, giving New York a 3–2 lead. The Yankees held on to win the playoff game, 5–4, eventually winning theWorld Series.
Red Sox fans attempted various methods over the years to exorcise their famous curse. These included placing a Boston cap atopMount Everest and burning a Yankees cap at its base camp[35] and finding a piano owned by Ruth that he had supposedly pushed into a pond near hisSudbury, Massachusetts farm,Home Plate Farm.[36]
In 1976,Laurie Cabot was brought in to end a 10-game losing streak.[37] While the losing streak ended, the Curse of the Bambino did not.
InKen Burns's 1994 documentaryBaseball, former Red Sox pitcherBill Lee suggested that the Red Sox should exhume the body ofBabe Ruth, transport it back to Fenway and publicly apologize for trading Ruth to the Yankees.[citation needed]
Some declared the curse broken during a game on August 31, 2004, when a foul ball hit byManny Ramírez flew into Section 9, Box 95, Row AA and struck a boy's face, knocking two of his teeth out.[38] Sixteen-year-old Lee Gavin, a Boston fan whose favorite player was Ramirez, lived on the Sudbury farm owned by Ruth. That same day, the Yankees suffered their worst loss in team history, a 22–0 clobbering at home against the Cleveland Indians.[39][40][41]
Some fans also cite a comedy curse-breaking ceremony performed by musicianJimmy Buffett and his warm-up team (one dressed as Ruth and one dressed as awitch doctor) at a Fenway concert in September 2004. Just after being traded to the Red Sox,Curt Schilling appeared in an advertisement for theFord F-150 pickup truckhitchhiking with a sign indicating he was going to Boston. When picked up, he said that he had "an 86-year-old curse" to break.[42]
In2004, the Red Sox once again met the Yankees in theAmerican League Championship Series. The Red Sox lost the first three games, including losing Game 3 atFenway by the lopsided score of 19–8.[43]
The Red Sox trailed 4–3 in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 4.[44] But the team tied the game with a walk byKevin Millar and a stolen base by pinch-runnerDave Roberts, followed by an RBI single against YankeecloserMariano Rivera bythird basemanBill Mueller, and won on a two-runhome run in the 12th inning byDavid Ortiz.[44] The Red Sox won the next three games to become the first and only MLB team to win a seven-game postseason series after losing the first three games.[45]
The Red Sox then faced theSt. Louis Cardinals, the team to whom they had lost in1946 and1967, and led throughout the series, winning in a four-game sweep.[46] Cardinals shortstopÉdgar Rentería, who wore the same number as Ruth (3), was the final out of the series, a ground ball back to pitcherKeith Foulke.[46][47]Fox commentatorJoe Buck famously called the grounder with: "Back to Foulke.Red Sox fans have longed to hear it: The Boston Red Sox are World Champions!"
In the fall of 2003, HBO produced the Emmy Award-winning documentary calledThe Curse of the Bambino, directed by filmmaker George Roy. It featured commentary from native Boston celebrities such asDenis Leary, narrated byBen Affleck. After the 2004 World Series, the ending of the documentary was re-filmed with a number of the same celebrities and it was retitledReverse of the Curse of the Bambino, narrated byLiev Schreiber. Schreiber's character was also introduced reading a copy of the book in the 2015 filmSpotlight.
The British memoirFever Pitch, about authorNick Hornby's obsession with theArsenal FC Englishsoccer team, was adapted into anAmerican film of the same name by theFarrelly brothers. The American adaptation was about an obsessive Red Sox fan. It was made during the 2004 World Series, which forced the filmmakers to rework the story; the Red Sox were not originally supposed to make it to the World Series.
In the movie50 First Dates,Adam Sandler's character Henry Roth reminds his girlfriend about what happened in2003 including a screen capture showing the Red Sox winning the World Series, until the next clip shows the title 'just kidding'. The movie was released in February 2004.
On the television showLost,Jack and his fatherChristian often use the phrase "That's why the Sox will never win the damn series" to describe fate. Inseason 3,Ben shows the end of the 2004 game to try to convince Jack that theOthers have contact with the outside world.
In the movieMoneyball,Brad Pitt's characterBilly Beane talks to the Boston Red Sox's owner about a job as GM after taking theOakland A's to a 20-game winning streak. When the Red Sox's owner asks Billy Beane why he returned his call, he says because he wants to help them end the Curse of the Bambino.
An episode of the children's TV seriesArthur titled "The Curse of the Grebes" has Elwood City's baseball team losing two of its games in the world championship series due to events based directly on Bucky Dent's homer and Bill Buckner's error. The episode states that the team had not won a championship in 87 years and that their opponents, the Crown City Kings, had won 25 since then. Johnny Damon, Edgar Renteria, andMike Timlin all voice caricatures of themselves.
The 2004Dropkick Murphys song "Tessie" was released as a single in June, 2004, and referenced the singing of the 1903 song of the same title which had been sung by theRoyal Rooters when theBoston Americans won the1903 World Series. The song intended to "bring back the spirit of the Royal Rooters and put the Red Sox back on top", which would break the curse of the Bambino, in the 2004 Major League pennant race. Their version became the official song of the Boston Red Sox2004 World Series run, and was included on the Dropkick Murphys 2005 albumThe Warrior's Code with added audio of theWEEI broadcast of the last play of the2004 World Series. The song is still played at Red Sox games.
TheBen Harper song "Get It Like You Like It" from his 2006 albumBoth Sides of the Gun includes the lines "In 1918 the Great Bambino kicked a piano into Willis Pond. ButJohnny Damon swung his bat, grand slam, that was that. An 86-year curse is gone."
James Taylor "Angels of Fenway" (Album –Before This World) released June 15, 2015. Taylor sings "86 summers gone by. Bambino put a hex on the Bean. We were living on a tear and a sigh. In the shadow of the Bronx machine..."
The curse is referenced in Valve'sTeam Fortress 2, with an achievement named "A Year To Remember". It can be unlocked by obtaining 2,004 lifetime kills with the Scout, who is himself a Boston native and baseball enthusiast.
In mobile game "Pinball Deluxe Reloaded" on one of the tables there is a mission of lifting curses, one of which is named "Curse of the Bambino".[48]
^Maske, Mark (September 25, 1990)."Pennant Chases in East Still Flying High, West All but Flagged".The Washington Post. p. E3.Yankees fans had taunted the Red Sox all weekend with chants of '1918, 1918!'—the last time Boston won the World Series—and the Red Sox are not allowed by long-suffering New Englanders to forget the pain they have wrought with years of excruciating near misses.
Picture of the graffitied "reverse curve" road sign
Memories of a Curse | DCR Preserves Red Sox History
