Bostonians believe in curses, too. Those who live in or grew up around Boston, Massachusetts have long suffered what is known as "the Curse of the Bambino." This refers to the apparent inability of the Boston Red Sox to win the World Series. It hasn’t happened since 1918, and after that win against Chicago Red Sox owner Harry Frazee decided to trade emerging slugger George Herman ("Babe") Ruth to the Yankees. The Yankees went on to demolish the Sox year after year, and the rest is history, or at least an historical curse that has made being a Red Sox fan a kind of personal, inescapable hell.
But all that has seemingly changed. The Red Sox just pulled off a kind of hushed miracle: they came from three games behind in the American League championship, only to steamroller back over the New York Yankees, trouncing them inside their own stadium in Game 7 last Thursday. No team has ever done that before. This was a great come-from-behind victory, the kind of thing you have to sit through a lot of baseball games to experience, but when it happens, it’s very sweet.
The heroes were batters David Ortiz, whose two-run homer put Boston on the board, followed by a grand slam (four runs batted in) by Johnny Damon, who ended with six RBIs for the game. Boston’s pitching pulled the plug on a threatened Yankees rally in the 7th inning, and by then, leading 9-3, only an extreme act of incompetence could have blown it for the Sox.
Yet Red Sox fans are no strangers to extreme acts of incompetence. The 1986 World Series introduced the name "Bill Buckner" to baseball’s hall of shame – he’s the Red Sox fielder who let a ground ball dribble through his legs, allowing two runs to score and handing the Mets the series in Game 7. Red Sox fans felt that pain very keenly: it was as if someone offered you a delicious dessert, then, as you reached for it, dragged a sharp knife across your open palm instead. Ouch.
Buckner was traded to California shortly thereafter and retired in 1989, a miserable wretch, haunted by his Boston mishap, and so the curse lived on. Red Sox fans are not so lucky: they never retire, just keep coming back for more, season after season.
Since the Sox are really New England’s only team, their legion of fans spreads up through Maine and down through Connecticut. Stephen King is a perennial Sox watcher, as is Bay Stater Ben Affleck. While other teams’ fans wear baseball caps as a badge of honor, Red Sox fans wear them as war wounds.
It’s hard to say exactly what makes Red Sox fans so doomful, so aware of the tragic dimensions of the game. We’re a bit like Ahab, lashing ourselves to a fleeting dream, and maybe Herman Melville would have liked the game, or at least found something significant in it. I can remember walking out of Fenway Park one night, after the Yankees had cut the Red Sox off at the knees. The Yankee fans weren’t crowing, though; they were simply threading their way to the subway stations, as if beating the Sox at Fenway was just routine, their natural birthright. No big deal. After all, to paraphrase Chinatown: "Forget it, Jake. It’s just the Red Sox."
The Sox fans, on the other hand, were taunting, jeering and practically spitting at the Yankee fans (who were easy to spot – they had the NY Yankee caps on) as they exited Fenway’s gate. There’s always much gnashing and wailing, much grieving and soul-searching after the Sox lose at Fenway. I’m sure alcohol consumption goes up about 200 percent in the neighboring bars.
Now, of course, the Sox will head to the series again (as of this writing, either against the Houston Astros or St. Louis Cardinals). A lot can still go wrong. There are a thousand and one ways to choke. And curses, like viruses, have a lifespan all their own. But as of now, you can’t make us stop believing.
"We always find a way to make it hard for ourselves," remarked Sox starting pitcher Derek Lowe after returning from the grave with a miracle win in Game 4. He could have been talking about the fans as much as the team. A more hopeful spin came from slugger Damon, after Game 7’s triumph: "We stuck together, and erased history."
Hey, if the Boston Red Sox can do it, so can the Philippines.