SPORTS COMMENTARY
Red, White, and Cursed
By Chris Carpenter
CBN.com Producer
CBN.com - It is the way
the 100th edition of the World Series should be. Two teams that personify
the history and heritage of the game. No fancy gimmicks, trendy team colors,
or marketing techniques, just two classic stalwarts in red and blue battling
it out on a field of green.
The comparisons between the two are endless. The Boston Red Sox claim
to have the greatest and most knowledgeable fans in Major League Baseball.
The St. Louis Cardinals say they do. Boston has Ted Williams as their
organization’s greatest player. St. Louis has Stan Musial. The Cardinals
claim Bob Gibson as their greatest all-time pitcher. The Red Sox point
to Roger Clemens. The Red Sox possess a powerful collection of sluggers
this year in Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. The Cardinals counter with
Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen, and Jim Edmonds. Boston has the curse. St.
Louis does not.
For you sports fans who have been cleaning your sock drawer during the
month of October and have not been tuning into the drama that has been
unfolding on television screens from Bangor, Maine to Bend, Oregon, the
Boston Red Sox allegedly suffer from something called the Curse of the
Bambino.
The Red Sox have not won a Fall Classic since 1918 when Babe Ruth (also
known as The Bambino) still wore a red letter B on his hat rather than
the more familiar NY that made him a national folk hero. Two years later,
then Red Sox owner Harry Frazee needed money to finance a Broadway show
that his girlfriend starred in. So to raise the necessary cash, he sold
the Babe to the Bronx Bombers for the paltry sum of $100,000. Not happy
with the transaction, Ruth vowed that he would do everything in his power
to make sure the Boston Red Sox never won another World Series.
And for 84 years, it seems as if the Babe has stayed true to his word.
During that span, the Yankees have hoisted 26 World Series trophies to
the sky. The Red Sox have won zero. The only item they have hoisted in
World Series play is their duffel bags in defeat. So, unless you are between
the ages of 90 and 100, you have never celebrated a Red Sox World Series
championship.
For most of us, curses are nothing more than an exercise in frivolous
futility. ESPN baseball analyst Peter Gammons, a longtime baseball scribe,
describes The Curse as “a silly mindless gimmick that is as stupid
as The Wave.” But 86 years is a long time to wait between championships.
After all, the Florida Marlins won in their fifth year of existence, the
Arizona Diamondbacks in their fourth. Call it coincidence, but the Boston
Red Sox have compiled one of the most infamous, sometimes ghastly, records
of defeat that organized sport has ever seen. When the Red Sox lose they
do so in macabre-esque fashion.
Allow me to illustrate just a few examples. In 1946, the Red Sox had
one of the their best teams in years due to the return of wartime heroes
Williams, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio, and Johnny Pesky. Amassing 104 victories
during the regular season, the Red Sox were heavy favorites to win the
World Series that year against the St. Louis Cardinals. But in one of
the most critical moments of the series, Pesky, who was playing shortstop
that day, inexplicably held onto a cutoff throw that he should have fired
to home plate. Enos Slaughter scored the winning run as a result.
Fast forward to 1978. Boston was the most dominant team in baseball during
the first half of the season. On July 19, the Red Sox led the second place
Milwaukee Brewers by nine games while the New York Yankees were a distant
fourth, 14 games behind. Boston self-destructed in the season’s
second half and ended up tied at the conclusion of the regular season.
A one game play-off was needed to determine who would represent the American
League East in the postseason. Light hitting Yankee shortstop Bucky Dent,
who had homered just four times the entire season, punched a game winning
three run home run over the imposing 37 foot high left field wall off
Boston ace Mike Torrez. Yankees win 5-4.
In Game Six of the 1986 Fall Classic, Boston was just one strike away
from winning it all against the New York Mets until Mookie Wilson trickled
a routine ground ball between Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner’s
legs. Buckner’s tragic miscue allowed Ray Knight to score the winning
run from third. With the Series now tied at 3-3, the Mets won Game Seven.
Let’s move forward to Game Seven of 2003’s American League
Championship Series against the dreaded Yankees. New York third baseman
Aaron Boone, who had hit just .161 during the entire postseason, blasted
Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield’s first pitch of the 11th inning into
the left field bleachers to send New York yet another World Series.
These are just a few of the more notable heart wrenching examples of
what many call The Curse. The list could go on and on. And it does.
However, long suffering Boston fans have become cautiously optimistic
in recent days after their team’s stirring comeback from a 3-0 deficit
to not only earn their first appearance in the Fall Classic since 1986
but they did so by defeating their arch nemesis, the New York Yankees.
But is The Curse over? Longtime Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy,
who authored a book called “The Curse of the Bambino”, says
The Curse is not over until the Red Sox win the World Series. I say pish-tosh.
There never was a curse.
The Curse of the Bambino is nothing more than a trumped up attempt by
fans to explain all of the unfortunate demonstrations of oddity, coincidence,
and distress that has seemingly befallen the Boston Red Sox over the years.
I do concede that there seems to have been an inordinate amount of bizarre
baseball played over the years by this team. I have witnessed some of
it first hand when I covered the team for five seasons. But it is not
a curse. It is merely a rather large amount of misfortune that has intensified
with the ebb and flow of time. Ok, lots of time.
What does the Bible have to say about this? In Exodus 20:4-5, Moses writes,
“You shall not make yourself a carved image – any likeness
of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth, you shall not bow to them nor
serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of
those who hate Me.”
This passage of scripture sounds kind of severe when you read it at face
value but without question it holds a large element of truth. In our daily
lives, we can easily allow many things to become a sort of god to us.
Money, work, pleasure, even trying to figure out why your favorite team
hasn’t won a championship in so long can become a god to us. It
consumes our time and in some cases can forge our identities.
The time we devote to such notions can grow into a sort of god that can
take on a life of its own. When this happens it is best to let go of the
things that are controlling us and let God hold the central place in our
lives. When we do it prevents us from giving into something that can detract
from our relationship with Him.
It is easy for us to blame the inadequacies of events that transpire
in our lives on something that lies beyond the boundaries of rational
thought. It is very easy to do. But never, I repeat, never, allow them
to consume you. For when you do, these events can very easily become your
god.
Information contained within this article from the Tyndale
Study Bible and the Transformer Study Bible.
Tell
me what you think
CBN IS HERE FOR YOU!
Are you seeking answers in life? Are you hurting?
Are you facing a difficult situation?
A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need.
|