Babe Ruth’s explanation for holding out for a pay increase after his 1919 season playing for the Boston Red Sox
Halloween is less than a week away. I’m not a big fan of celebrating creepy-crawly things, monsters, or curses – especially curses.
You see, I grew up in Boston. I was a Boston Red Sox fan. I know all about curses. I grew up wearing what became known as the “Curse of the Bambino” like the poet Coleridge’s albatross around my neck.
I loved baseball from the time I started playing stickball in 1953. Like most kids I knew, I dreamed of one day graduating to real baseball and playing left field for the Red Sox when my hero, Ted Williams retired.”
“Teddy Ballgame,” as his fans came to know him, was one of the greatest hitters in the history of the game. He finished his twenty-year career, which had been interrupted by five years of military service during World War II and the Korean War, hitting 521 home runs with a .344 batting average. Oh, how he could hit! He loved talking with other players about the science of hitting a baseball. I still feel chills when I remember listening to the radio broadcast of “Teddy Ballgame” hitting a pinch-hit home run against Cleveland’s Mike Garcia a few days after he returned home after two years of service in the Korean conflict.
There were so many great moments “Teddy Ballgame” gave the fans of Boston. He hit .406 in 1941, a feat that has not been equaled for the last eighty-two years, or the dramatic home run he hit in the 1946 all-star game off Rip Sewell’s famous “eephus” pitch. He capped off his marvellous career when he hit a home run in his last at bat at Fenway Park on September 28, 1960.
I so wanted to be like him. I considered myself the stickball champion of Chatham Street in my younger days. I also occasionally daydreamed of the day my moment in the sun would come. In my mind’s eye I visualized myself at the plate for my beloved Red Sox at a critical moment in the World Series. The Sox were down by three runs in the bottom of the ninth. There were two outs, with the bases loaded. This was my moment. I strode to the plate and dug in like “Teddy Ballgame” always did. I was expecting a slider inside and that’s what I got. I was ready. I swung and as the ball soared over the “Green Monstah” I could hear the crowd erupt in cheers. I had done it. My beloved Sox had won the World Series I was the hero of the hour, just like “Teddy Ballgame” for the Red Sox or Roy Hobbes from “The Natural.”
But dreams are dreams and reality is reality. The Red Sox were never going to be in the market for a not hit, no field left fielder.
While I never got to sign a big-league contract, I remained a loyal Red Sox fan.
And that now brings me to the “Curse of the Bambino.” Babe Ruth had started his career playing for the Boston Red Sox. According to some, the curse came on the heels of the 1919 season. In 1918 the Bambino batted .300 and hit a league-leading 11 home runs, while also going 13-7 as a pitcher with a stellar 2.22 earned average. The Red Sox won the World Series, the last World Series they would win for many years. Ruth felt that the numbers merited a significant pay increase and he lobbied to have that salary raised from $10,000 per year to $20,000 per year. Red Sox owner Harry Frazee disagreed, and Ruth reluctantly signed a contract for 1919. That year, Ruth responded with an even more impressive performance. He hit 29 home runs and had 113 runs batted in. He also had a 9-5 record as a pitcher. At the end of the season Ruth again lobbied for more money. Frazee once again dug his heels in. The Bambino now had a big problem. Frazee’s primary interest wasn’t baseball. He produced Broadway plays and he wasn’t doing well, but he had what he believed was a great opportunity to produce a winner. He’d been approached by a few moguls about a play titled “No, No, Nanette.” It seemed that Frazee had found his magic fortune cookie. All he needed was some capital. The fortune cookie turned out to be the sale of Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.
This is where the legend of the “curse of the Bambino” actually began. According to that legend, a furious Babe Ruth placed the Red Sox under a curse. They would never win another World Series.
Years passed and the Red Sox could not win the World Series. Were they cursed? Most observers laughed it off until 1946. The Sox were finally in the World Series after a twenty-eight year drought. They were playing the St, Louis Cardinals for all the marbles. The seventh and deciding game was tied 3-3 in the bottom of the eighth inning. Enos Slaughter began the inning with a single. Two outs later, Harry Walker hit a double and Slaughter scored from first base when, according to legend, Red Sox shortstop Johnny Pesky double clutched his relay throw from shallow left field.
The “curse of the Bambino” was becoming ever more real. What else could explain Johnny, Pesky’s double clutch or the fact that the great Ted Williams only hit .250 and drove in only one run in that series. The years rolled on the evidence mounted. In 1948 the Sox lost a one game playoff the Cleveland Indians. In 1949 the Sox won 96 games, leaving them one game behind the dreaded New York Yankees for the American League pennant.
This where I found myself attached to the Red Sox and the “curse. I started playing stickball in 1953. As I wrote earlier, I considered myself the stickball champion of Chatham Street. When it was my turn to hit, I would imitate the stances of my favorite Sox players, especially Ted Williams’ wide stance and perfectly grooved swing. When I wasn’t playing, I took every opportunity to listen to my beloved Sox on the radio. As I did, I couldn’t understand what I was hearing. The Yankees almost always won, but I “knew” my Sox were a better team. After all, we had “Teddy Ballgame.” All the Yankees could muster were Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra or Moose Skowron. Granted, they were good ballplayers, but they were no match for “Teddy Ballgame.”
Ted Williams retired in 1960. His left-field replacement was Carl Yastrzemski, who would himself one day become a hall of famer. Me? I joined the Air Force in 1961.
The years continued to pass. Yastrzemski amassed mountains of great statistics, I hopped around the globe at Uncle Sam’s command, and the “curse of the Bambino” went on. In 1967, Yaz had one of those years. He won the triple crown in 1967 with a .326 batting average, 44 home runs, and 121 runs batted in. The Red Sox made it to the World Series. Would this be the year the curse would be broken? No. True to what had become the form, the Sox teased, but didn’t deliver. St. Louis won the series in seven games.
I got out of the Air Force in 1969. I went to college, then graduate school. I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the curse, but it still lingered in the cobwebs of my mind. Things were quiet on that front until 1978. The Red Sox were leading the American League by 12 ½ games in August. Then the Yankees caught fire, By the time the dust settled the Sox were in a one game playoff with the Yankees at Fenway Park. The Red Sox were winning by two runs in the seventh. In the Yankees’ half of the inning, they got two runners on base. Yankees shortstop Bucky Dent strode to the plate. Almost everyone in Boston knew that he couldn’t hit a baseball even if he had a bat the size of a banjo. At least that’s what we thought. Then the curse reared its ugly head. Light hitting Bucky Dent hit a fly ball that scraped the top of the “Green Monstah” and fell into the net. That home run felt like a dagger to the heart of every Sox fan in the world.
It now seemed certain that nothing could lift the curse. A few groups of fans hired witches in a vain attempt to end it and there were even a few who suggested that Babe Ruth’s body could be exhumed and brought to Boston so we call all apologize to him for what Harry Frazee had done. Nothing worked.
I got married to my wife Nancy in 1986. By that time, I had given up and stopped following the Red Sox. Nancy, who was a St. Louis Cardinals fan, couldn’t understand it. When I tried to explain the “curse of the Bambino” to her she would just roll her eyes in disbelief. I tried tuning it out, to no avail. The Red Sox were in the World Series again. Nancy asked me if I was going to watch, and I responded “No. They’ll break my heart. It’s the dreaded curse.” We spent the next week or so avoiding the games. I can’t remember much of what happened early on that fateful Saturday, October 25th, but I do remember what happened in the evening. Nancy turned on the TV and the World Series was on. It was the sixth game, with the Sox leading three games to two. It was the bottom of the tenth and the Sox were up by two runs. There were two outs with no one on base for the New York Mets. Red Sox reliever Calvin Schiraldi was one strike away from winning the game. Nancy seemed overjoyed. “Oh, Slick, you’ve waited your whole life for this. Your Red Sox are going to win. Sit down and watch.” I told her I couldn’t. “I’m going to the basement. Don’t you understand? Something always happens. It’s the Curse of the Bambino.” With that said, I went downstairs and waited for things to play out. After about a half an hour I came back upstairs. Nancy had a stunned look on her face. “How did you know…how did you know? The ball just went through his legs?” (the now infamous Bill Buckner play). All I could say was “It’s the curse of the Bambino.”
I’m not sure Nancy believed the curse was real, but I think she did understand how I and millions of others in Boston could come to believe it.
For the next eighteen years things on the baseball front were once again quiet. Then something happened in 2004. The Sox were in the playoffs. As it so often happens, they were playing the Yankees in a seven-game series, with the winner playing the National League champion for all the marbles.
With the thought of the “curse” still lingering in my mind, I decided not to watch the series. That changed when the Yankees won the first three games, including a 19 to 8 rout in the third game. I decided to tune in. Something had hit me like a thunderbolt and I started to believe the Sox were going to make a stunning comeback. I was so convinced I called my brother Bill in Massachusetts and told him. “We’re gonna’ sweep the Yankees now. They aren’t going to know what hit them.” Bill laughed in agreement. “Everyone in Boston knows we’re going to win. We just know it.”
From that point on it was pure joy. There was Dave Roberts’ clutch steal of second base followed by Orlando Cabrera’s that drove him home to tie the game followed by David Ortiz’ (Big Papi) two run homer in the 10th inning to keep the series alive. The drama continued for the next three games. Everyone in Boston now remembers the amazing drama. There were Big Papi’s heroics and Curt Schilling’s bloody sock drama. Journeymen players like Johnny Damon and Kevin Millar made significant contributions. This was a team that refused to lose when it mattered most. They had affectionately nicknamed themselves “the Idiots” before the series started and as the drama played itself out the nickname fit perfectly. After all, who but a team of “idiots” would believe they could beat the mighty Yankees after being done three games to none?
There was one more hurdle. Nancy was a Cardinals fan. What was the best approach to take now? All I could tell her was that I loved her madly, but I just knew the Sox were also
Babe Ruth’s explanation for holding out for a pay increase after his 1919 season playing for the Boston Red Sox
Halloween is less than a week away. I’m not a big fan of celebrating creepy-crawly things, monsters, or curses – especially curses.
You see, I grew up in Boston. I was a Boston Red Sox fan. I know all about curses. I grew up wearing what became known as the “Curse of the Bambino” like the poet Coleridge’s albatross around my neck.
I loved baseball from the time I started playing stickball in 1953. Like most kids I knew, I dreamed of one day graduating to real baseball and playing left field for the Red Sox when my hero, Ted Williams retired.”
“Teddy Ballgame,” as his fans came to know him, was one of the greatest hitters in the history of the game. He finished his twenty-year career, which had been interrupted by five years of military service during World War II and the Korean War, hitting 521 home runs with a .344 batting average. Oh, how he could hit! He loved talking with other players about the science of hitting a baseball. I still feel chills when I remember listening to the radio broadcast of “Teddy Ballgame” hitting a pinch-hit home run against Cleveland’s Mike Garcia a few days after he returned home after two years of service in the Korean conflict.
There were so many great moments “Teddy Ballgame” gave the fans of Boston. He hit .406 in 1941, a feat that has not been equaled for the last eighty-two years, or the dramatic home run he hit in the 1946 all-star game off Rip Sewell’s famous “eephus” pitch. He capped off his marvellous career when he hit a home run in his last at bat at Fenway Park on September 28, 1960.
I so wanted to be like him. I considered myself the stickball champion of Chatham Street in my younger days. I also occasionally daydreamed of the day my moment in the sun would come. In my mind’s eye I visualized myself at the plate for my beloved Red Sox at a critical moment in the World Series. The Sox were down by three runs in the bottom of the ninth. There were two outs, with the bases loaded. This was my moment. I strode to the plate and dug in like “Teddy Ballgame” always did. I was expecting a slider inside and that’s what I got. I was ready. I swung and as the ball soared over the “Green Monstah” I could hear the crowd erupt in cheers. I had done it. My beloved Sox had won the World Series I was the hero of the hour, just like “Teddy Ballgame” for the Red Sox or Roy Hobbes from “The Natural.”
But dreams are dreams and reality is reality. The Red Sox were never going to be in the market for a not hit, no field left fielder.
While I never got to sign a big-league contract, I remained a loyal Red Sox fan.
And that now brings me to the “Curse of the Bambino.” Babe Ruth had started his career playing for the Boston Red Sox. According to some, the curse came on the heels of the 1919 season. In 1918 the Bambino batted .300 and hit a league-leading 11 home runs, while also going 13-7 as a pitcher with a stellar 2.22 earned average. The Red Sox won the World Series, the last World Series they would win for many years. Ruth felt that the numbers merited a significant pay increase and he lobbied to have that salary raised from $10,000 per year to $20,000 per year. Red Sox owner Harry Frazee disagreed, and Ruth reluctantly signed a contract for 1919. That year, Ruth responded with an even more impressive performance. He hit 29 home runs and had 113 runs batted in. He also had a 9-5 record as a pitcher. At the end of the season Ruth again lobbied for more money. Frazee once again dug his heels in. The Bambino now had a big problem. Frazee’s primary interest wasn’t baseball. He produced Broadway plays and he wasn’t doing well, but he had what he believed was a great opportunity to produce a winner. He’d been approached by a few moguls about a play titled “No, No, Nanette.” It seemed that Frazee had found his magic fortune cookie. All he needed was some capital. The fortune cookie turned out to be the sale of Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.
This is where the legend of the “curse of the Bambino” actually began. According to that legend, a furious Babe Ruth placed the Red Sox under a curse. They would never win another World Series.
Years passed and the Red Sox could not win the World Series. Were they cursed? Most observers laughed it off until 1946. The Sox were finally in the World Series after a twenty-eight year drought. They were playing the St, Louis Cardinals for all the marbles. The seventh and deciding game was tied 3-3 in the bottom of the eighth inning. Enos Slaughter began the inning with a single. Two outs later, Harry Walker hit a double and Slaughter scored from first base when, according to legend, Red Sox shortstop Johnny Pesky double clutched his relay throw from shallow left field.
The “curse of the Bambino” was becoming ever more real. What else could explain Johnny, Pesky’s double clutch or the fact that the great Ted Williams only hit .250 and drove in only one run in that series. The years rolled on the evidence mounted. In 1948 the Sox lost a one game playoff the Cleveland Indians. In 1949 the Sox won 96 games, leaving them one game behind the dreaded New York Yankees for the American League pennant.
This where I found myself attached to the Red Sox and the “curse. I started playing stickball in 1953. As I wrote earlier, I considered myself the stickball champion of Chatham Street. When it was my turn to hit, I would imitate the stances of my favorite Sox players, especially Ted Williams’ wide stance and perfectly grooved swing. When I wasn’t playing, I took every opportunity to listen to my beloved Sox on the radio. As I did, I couldn’t understand what I was hearing. The Yankees almost always won, but I “knew” my Sox were a better team. After all, we had “Teddy Ballgame.” All the Yankees could muster were Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra or Moose Skowron. Granted, they were good ballplayers, but they were no match for “Teddy Ballgame.”
Ted Williams retired in 1960. His left-field replacement was Carl Yastrzemski, who would himself one day become a hall of famer. Me? I joined the Air Force in 1961.
The years continued to pass. Yastrzemski amassed mountains of great statistics, I hopped around the globe at Uncle Sam’s command, and the “curse of the Bambino” went on. In 1967, Yaz had one of those years. He won the triple crown in 1967 with a .326 batting average, 44 home runs, and 121 runs batted in. The Red Sox made it to the World Series. Would this be the year the curse would be broken? No. True to what had become the form, the Sox teased, but didn’t deliver. St. Louis won the series in seven games.
I got out of the Air Force in 1969. I went to college, then graduate school. I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the curse, but it still lingered in the cobwebs of my mind. Things were quiet on that front until 1978. The Red Sox were leading the American League by 12 ½ games in August. Then the Yankees caught fire, By the time the dust settled the Sox were in a one game playoff with the Yankees at Fenway Park. The Red Sox were winning by two runs in the seventh. In the Yankees’ half of the inning, they got two runners on base. Yankees shortstop Bucky Dent strode to the plate. Almost everyone in Boston knew that he couldn’t hit a baseball even if he had a bat the size of a banjo. At least that’s what we thought. Then the curse reared its ugly head. Light hitting Bucky Dent hit a fly ball that scraped the top of the “Green Monstah” and fell into the net. That home run felt like a dagger to the heart of every Sox fan in the world.
It now seemed certain that nothing could lift the curse. A few groups of fans hired witches in a vain attempt to end it and there were even a few who suggested that Babe Ruth’s body could be exhumed and brought to Boston so we call all apologize to him for what Harry Frazee had done. Nothing worked.
I got married to my wife Nancy in 1986. By that time, I had given up and stopped following the Red Sox. Nancy, who was a St. Louis Cardinals fan, couldn’t understand it. When I tried to explain the “curse of the Bambino” to her she would just roll her eyes in disbelief. I tried tuning it out, to no avail. The Red Sox were in the World Series again. Nancy asked me if I was going to watch, and I responded “No. They’ll break my heart. It’s the dreaded curse.” We spent the next week or so avoiding the games. I can’t remember much of what happened early on that fateful Saturday, October 25th, but I do remember what happened in the evening. Nancy turned on the TV and the World Series was on. It was the sixth game, with the Sox leading three games to two. It was the bottom of the tenth and the Sox were up by two runs. There were two outs with no one on base for the New York Mets. Red Sox reliever Calvin Schiraldi was one strike away from winning the game. Nancy seemed overjoyed. “Oh, Slick, you’ve waited your whole life for this. Your Red Sox are going to win. Sit down and watch.” I told her I couldn’t. “I’m going to the basement. Don’t you understand? Something always happens. It’s the Curse of the Bambino.” With that said, I went downstairs and waited for things to play out. After about a half an hour I came back upstairs. Nancy had a stunned look on her face. “How did you know…how did you know? The ball just went through his legs?” (the now infamous Bill Buckner play). All I could say was “It’s the curse of the Bambino.”
I’m not sure Nancy believed the curse was real, but I think she did understand how I and millions of others in Boston could come to believe it.
For the next eighteen years things on the baseball front were once again quiet. Then something happened in 2004. The Sox were in the playoffs. As it so often happens, they were playing the Yankees in a seven-game series, with the winner playing the National League champion for all the marbles.
With the thought of the “curse” still lingering in my mind, I decided not to watch the series. That changed when the Yankees won the first three games, including a 19 to 8 rout in the third game. I decided to tune in. Something had hit me like a thunderbolt and I started to believe the Sox were going to make a stunning comeback. I was so convinced I called my brother Bill in Massachusetts and told him. “We’re gonna’ sweep the Yankees now. They aren’t going to know what hit them.” Bill laughed in agreement. “Everyone in Boston knows we’re going to win. We just know it.”
From that point on it was pure joy. There was Dave Roberts’ clutch steal of second base followed by Orlando Cabrera’s that drove him home to tie the game followed by David Ortiz’ (Big Papi) two run homer in the 10th inning to keep the series alive. The drama continued for the next three games. Everyone in Boston now remembers the amazing drama. There were Big Papi’s heroics and Curt Schilling’s bloody sock drama. Journeymen players like Johnny Damon and Kevin Millar made significant contributions. This was a team that refused to lose when it mattered most. They had affectionately nicknamed themselves “the Idiots” before the series started and as the drama played itself out the nickname fit perfectly. After all, who but a team of “idiots” would believe they could beat the mighty Yankees after being done three games to none?
There was one more hurdle. Nancy was a Cardinals fan. What was the best approach to take now? All I could tell her was that I loved her madly, but I just knew the Sox were also going to sweep the Cardinals. And that’s the way it happened. The Sox swept the Cardinals, winning their first World Series championship since 1918, an eighty-six-year drought. The “curse of the Bambino” was lifted, and life could now go on.
I don’t follow baseball anymore, any more than I need to follow after Halloween ghosts, goblins, monsters, and curses.
Kids will come to our door in a few days, and I’ll give them candy, but I won’t feel inclined to say things like “Happy Halloween.”
I do realize, as Sweeney Todd’s mother once said, “There’s demons lurkin’ about.” While I’m sure there are some, I’m not going to treat them like celebrities. If anyone cares to ask, I’ll tell them that a far more important curse than the “curse of the Bambino.” has been lifted from humanity in the person of Jesus.