Alan Jackson - Remember When

- Boston Red Sox Nostalgia

The Curse of the Bambino was a superstition cited as a reason for the failure of the Boston Red Sox baseball team to win the World Series in the 86-year period from 1918 until 2004. While some fans took the curse seriously, most used the expression in a tongue-in-cheek manner.[citation needed]

The curse was said to have begun after the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth, sometimes called The Bambino, to the New York Yankees in the off-season of 1919-1920. The Red Sox had been one of the most successful professional baseball franchises, winning the first World Series in 1903 and amassing five World Series titles prior to selling Ruth. After the sale, the once-lackluster Yankees became one of the most successful franchises in North American professional sports.

Talk of the curse as an ongoing phenomenon ended in 2004, when the Red Sox came back from a 0-3 best-of-seven deficit to beat the Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series and then went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals to win the 2004 World Series.

The curse had been such a part of Boston culture that when a road sign on the city's much-used Storrow Drive was vandalized from "Reverse Curve" to "Reverse The Curse", officials left it in place until after the Red Sox won the Series in a 4-0 sweep.


Michael Yastrzemski (pronounced /jəˈstrɛmski/, (born August 22, 1939), nicknamed "Yaz,"[1] is a former American Major League Baseball player. Yastrzemski played his entire 23-year career with the Boston Red Sox, primarily as a left fielder, with part of his later career played at first base and as a designated hitter. Yastrzemski is an 18-time all-star, the possessor of seven Gold Gloves, a member of the 3000 hit club, and the first American League player in that club to also accumulate over 400 home runs. He is second on the all-time list for games played, and third for total at-bats. He is the Red Sox' all-time leader in career RBIs, runs, hits, singles, doubles, total bases, and games played, and is second on the team's list for home runs behind another Red Sox great, Ted Williams, his predecessor in left field. In 1967, Yastrzemski achieved a peak in his career, leading the Red Sox to the American League pennant for the first time in over two decades, in that season being voted the American League MVP, and being the last winner of the triple crown for batters in the major leagues. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989.

Yastrzemski was born in Southampton, New York to Carl Yastrzemski, Sr. and Hattie Skonieczny. Both his parents were of a Polish background, and young Carl was bilingual from an early age. Raised on his father's potato farm, Carl played on sandlot baseball teams with his father, who, he maintains, was a better athlete than he was. "Yaz" attended Notre Dame on a basketball scholarship (his career L.I. high school scoring mark broke one previously held by Jim Brown) briefly before embarking on his baseball career, signing with the Red Sox organization, which sent him to the minor-league Raleigh Capitals in 1959, where he led the league with a .377 batting average,[1] then moved him to the Minneapolis Millers for the post-season and the 1960 season.[2] Yastrzemski, who had studied business at Notre Dame, fulfilled a promise to his parents by finishing his degree at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., in 1966.

Theodore Samuel "Ted" Williams (August 30, 1918July 5, 2002) was a left fielder in Major League Baseball. He played 21 seasons with the Boston Red Sox, twice interrupted by military service as a Marine Corps pilot. Nicknamed The Kid, the Splendid Splinter, Teddy Ballgame, and The Thumper, he is generally considered one of the greatest hitters ever.

Williams was a two-time American League Most Valuable Player (MVP) winner, led the league in batting six times, and won the Triple Crown twice. He had a career batting average of .344, with 521 home runs, and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966. He is the last player in Major League Baseball to bat over .400 in a single season (.406 in 1941). Williams holds the highest career batting average of anyone with 500 or more home runs. His career year was 1941, when he hit .406 with 37 HR, 120 RBI, and 135 runs scored. His .551 on base percentage set a record that stood for 61 years. An avid sport fisherman, he hosted a television show about fishing and was inducted into the IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame.