The Curse and the Mystique

Anyone who knows anything about Baseball has heard of the curse. The Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees so the Red Sox owner at the time, a guy named Harry, could finance a play called "No No Nanette". the rest, as they say, is history. The Yankees go one after that sale to win 26 world championships while the Red Sox won exactly none, that is until 2004 but more on that later.

Between 1921 and 1964 and then 1996 to 2001 the Yankees were almost always the team to be reckoned with. Their lineups boasted names that could fill the roster of many all star teams several times over. Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Allie Reynolds and Joe DiMaggio just to name a few. Heck, even some of the players that did not fit into their plans in the long term ended up being All Stars in their own right, Jackie Jensen and Al Lieter are prime examples of players who made a name for themselves playing for other teams but started their careers in a Yankee uniform.

The Red Sox had their own share of players that made them a force to be reckoned with at times over the years. Perhaps the greatest hitter the game has ever seen in Ted Williams or Joe D's brother Dom. In later years they could put guys like Fisk, Rice and Lynn out on the field. Yet, no matter what quality they could boast the Yankees always seemed to have some intangible advantage, something that most people could not put their hands on but somehow they knew it existed. In New York we called it mystique.

This mystique showed up year after year at the stadium and on some occasions it was intertwined with the curse. In 1949 the Red Sox went to New York needing to win one game of the remaining two. They could not get it done and the Yankees once again went off to the World Series. In 1978 the Red Sox had a 14 game lead in the going into mid July. The Yankees rallied to force a one game playoff to choose the winner of the American League East. Any Red Sox fan will know what happened when I say "Bucky "Bleeping" Dent".

Bucky bleeping Dent became the symbol of Red Sox futility for many years. It took a ball of the bat of Mookie Wilson of the Mets in the 6th game of the World Series that bounces between the wickets of one Bill Buckner to eclipse the pop fly home run back in 1978. Since this is about the Yankees and the Red Sox we should get back to that. Bucky Dent passed his crown of infamy to Aaron Boone or Aaron bleeping Boone as he is known around these parts.

Outside of hitting a series clinching home run to win the World Championship the place all of us baseballphiles have dreamed to do it is in the clinching game of the series that gets you to the World Series. Aaron Boone off of Tim Wakefield, extra innings game 7. What more could you want? the curse and the mystique lasted for one more year. Then came 2004,