The Myth of the Curse of the Great Bambino

I read recently that baseball is “a game of routine, of watching one at-bat after another, hoping something different happens, of relishing the little things that happen along the way.” After reading that, I felt like I could finally stop wondering why I love the game so damn much. A lot of people complain that it’s slow and rarely exciting, and frankly, I can’t argue with them. That’s true. But maybe we baseball fans like the routine. Maybe the game of statistics isn’t really about statistics at all — it’s about those rare but precious moments when something extraordinary happens and we get to witness a miracle.

That’s certainly how I felt when I watched the 2004 American League Championship Series Game 7, and the Red Sox finally took what many of us felt was their rightful place: ahead of the Yankees and in the World Series. It had been nearly 20 years since their last ALCS win, and we had suffered excruciating heartbreaks in 1999 and 2003 when they were oh so close but didn’t quite make it. (For my part, I still think that 1999 was handed to the Yankees by the umpires.) And if they won! It would be the first time since 1918 that they had finally triumphed as World Series Champions.

How do nearly 100 years go by without this kind of success on a team with such a rabid, loyal fan base? I mean for God’s sake, they had Ted Williams for 21 years! (Ok, ok, minus a few for military service.) And it’s not like winning isn’t part of the Red Sox pedigree. Under their first name the Boston Americans (as the flagship American League team) they won the first World Series in 1903. Then they had Babe Ruth.

And then, they didn’t. About one and a half years after winning the 1918 World Series, the Red Sox let Babe Ruth go to the Yankees. As they say, the rest is history. And as many superstitious baseball fans have it, the rest is the Curse of the Great Bambino. 2004 thus became not just the year the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years: it was also the year that many believed that the gods of baseball had decided to stop punishing Boston and its Red Sox for getting rid of Babe Ruth and, at the time, celebrating the departure.

Maybe that’s part of it. But I can’t help but think that there’s another side to this story. If the baseball gods were mad about Babe Ruth, they must have been furious at Tom Yawkey. Who’s that? Yawkey was the owner of the Red Sox from 1933-1976 and an adamant believer in the baseball color line. So adamant, that he passed up the chance to sign Willie Mays who went on to a distinguished Hall of Fame career. He insisted that Mays was not the Red Sox’s “kind of player.”

He was right. The Red Sox (and Boston I suspect) didn’t want to win nearly as much as they wanted to hold onto their white supremacist view of the world. While Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Joe Black, and Willie Mays helped their teams to World Championships, the Red Sox languished in their racist homogeneity. They were the last team to integrate people of African descent into their team, and as a result, by the 1960s, they were one of the worst teams in baseball. Frankly, they deserved that 86 year losing streak.

You might be thinking, “How can you wish that upon the fans?” Because the fans were white Bostonians who acquiesced. They resisted integration in schools and in the workplace for even longer than parts of the deep South. In fact, parts of the city continue to resist the presence of people of colour to this very day. Throughout the 70s and 80s they continued to be a mostly white team and the fans, for the most part, loved them.

The baseball gods could only shake their heads, wondering when these guys would ever learn. So maybe it’s not an accident that in 2004, the Red Sox finally did it. The 2004 Red Sox lineup was a real gem, including some of the best players of the era who also happened to be Afro-Latino: Pedro Martinez, Orlando Cabrera, Manny Ramirez, and David Ortiz. Where would the Red Sox be without these guys? Still cursed is my guess.

To this day, the Red Sox have a hard time maintaining a Black fan base, and it’s my understanding that Blacks still prefer to play elsewhere. What a shame. This great team may have won the 2007 World Series and it may be in the running for another trip this year, but they could be greater. As we consider the loss of Manny Ramirez to the Dodgers (who finally have a real shot at World Series baseball for the first time in 20 years), we should think hard about the 53 runs batted in (RBIs) in 53 games for the Dodgers, with a batting average of .396. I have to take pause. Yeah, he was a bit of an ass to the fans, and he pushed an old guy around. He should have been suspended and fined for that unsportsmanlike behavior. But the fans went nuts — they hated him. And I just have to wonder, are the Red Sox going to miss their chance at baseball’s ultimate success again because still, even today, the curse of racism hangs over their heads?

I’m shaking my head thinking, “When will these guys ever learn?” But I’m not talking about the Red Sox or Bostonians or baseball in particular. I’m talking about racists, sexists, etc. Anyone who thinks that they can do better by excluding people because of who they are. And I’m talking about the people who may not actively participate in that behavior, but who acquiesce. When you watch it happen and do nothing, you curse not just your community, but yourself too.

For my part, I’m a Red Sox fan because I love Boston, and I love the sense of community that exists in Red Sox Nation. But I am in the precarious position that all people of colour are in when they live in a nation that was founded on and bred with racism: our home doesn’t want us, but still, we’re at home. I can only hope that with time home will become a place of peace, justice and good will, regardless of the colour of my skin. That one day I too can safely walk the streets of Southie, like the white men I know. That I will not always be the only Black woman in the room at work. The story of the integration of baseball is the story of integration, and I don’t want anyone to forget that we’re not done.

A couple of final notes: Deep down, I will always be a little girl from Los Angeles who loves the Dodgers because they are my home team, and they were home to Jackie Robinson, the first Black player of Major League Baseball’s modern era. And as for why the Chicago Cubs continue to lose and lose and lose (to the Dodgers this week, I might add), well, my theory is that maybe that team just sucks.

*Dedicated to the great players of the Negro Leagues and to Jackie Robinson.*

Photograph of Jackie Robinson (left) congratulating Willie Mays after the New York Giants beat the Brooklyn Dodgers and won the 1954 World Series Championship.

Edit, October 5, 2008: Since writing this (in my usual one hour and under spree), I have discovered a few resources that cover this story. The first is an NPR story about a book by a Black Bostonian and Red Sox fan/sports writer, Howard Bryant, about the Red Sox’s and Boston’s history of racism. There’s also an article from Diversity Inc about the loss of Manny Ramirez. I kind of object to the way the article characterizes certain players as simply Latino instead of Afro-Latino or Black Latino, ignoring the fact that if no one heard their accent everyone would assume they were just like any other Black guy on the street. Anyway.