Bambino's Curse

Bitter

That Pedro Martinez took the mound last night just leaves me feeling bitter with the Red Sox management. Cripes, even the Yankees thought it was ridiculous:

``I was definitely surprised,'' said Yankees first baseman Tino Martinez. ``We all understand that he's got a big heart and he's a battler, but he's the future of their team. Why should he go out there and risk the chance of injuring himself? He's a battler and everyone should know that - every Red Sox fan and every Red Sox executive'' (The Boston Herald).

Does it surprise anyone that Martinez threw just 54 pitches, including 34 for strikes, but threw only two faster than 89 mph?

What the hell is going on? They say baseball mirrors our culture as a whole, and in Dan Duquette's apparent idiocy in nearly every action this season he certainly is representative of many of the decisions made by corporate execs in markets other than baseball. (I should add, too, that I'm writing this from work on a Saturday because I need to make up the hours I lost on the Labor Day holiday. The business of America is business, and don't you forget it.)

Addendum, the Curse

If you followed the theme of the past two days here at Bambino's Curse, you may be surprised to read this blurb from yesterday's Sports Guy Newsletter from Bill Simmons:

Finally, I got the following e-mail from my buddy Mike Ryan today: ''My wife's grandfather died this morning. He was 83 and born on November 11, 1918. I think you know why I am telling you this.''

Yikes.

Some things aren't just so easy to cast aside, eh?

To Curse or Not to Curse?

[Note: The original posting for this date was accidently overwritten. The content below consists partially of rewritten material and partially of original content I was able to salvage. -- Edw.]

Writing in his regular Page2 column at ESPN, Bill Simmons takes issue with the notion of a Curse of the Bambino:

Let's make one thing clear: This will be my last Page 2 column that mentions the phrase "Curse of the Bambino."

The only people who keep mentioning "The Curse" are media people and uneducated non-Boston fans.

As someone with a site named after said Curse, this puts me in the awkward postion of having to refute the words of Bill Simmons, probably my favorite baseball sportswriter. Of course, one must take Simmons cum grano salis, as his popularity stems in large part from his wiseass tone. And, to further muddle things, I'm in more or less general agreement with the points Simmons raises. That is to say, I understand why he feels the way he does.

But, as you'd expect, I do beg to differ with the accusation that anyone who mentions the Curse is an uneducated non-Boston fan.

First of all, baseball is a superstitious game. One only need to watch how Nomar makes sure each foot touches each step of the dugout (one of just umpteen of his superstitious peculiarities) or how former Sox player Wade Boggs ate chicken before every game to see examples of this. The game of baseball is a dichotomy of Apollonian, scientific statistical analysis, and Dionysian, gut-feeling, superstition and magic. It's probably this dialectic that makes the game so very fascinating for me personally.

Moreover, as a culture, we love to look outside of ourselves, to curses, to acts of God, to it's the fault of video games and violence in movies that are the cause of all that ails us. It's endemic, yet, with regard to sports, it's also quite fun.

One thing Simmons fails to mention is that the other perennial losing team, the Chicago Cubs, also have curses as a way to explain the frustration of losing. They have the famous Billy Goat hex, and the Mike Royko theorem that if you want to determine the outcome of any particular baseball game, simple calculate which team has more ex-Cubs: That's your loser. (The astute Red Sox fan will remember Bill Buckner was traded to Boston from the Cubs.)

Are these Cubs myths the result of media marketing or uneducated non-Chicago Cubs fans, as following through on Simmons' thesis would suggest? Perhaps.

Or maybe it's that the Cubs and Red Sox are perennial losers, and that makes the idea of a curse attractive. It becomes a symbol of futility, a symbol of the fans enduring, dependable relationship with loss. I mean who wants to come out and say, my team has lost 83 years in a row because they suck and I must be a total loser for rooting for them?

Finally, let's for a moment presume that there really is a Curse. The point is not that a spirit from another realm, i.e., Babe Ruth's ghost, is gumming up the works for the Sox. That's small-scale, ancestor-worship type stuff. What we are talking about with the Red Sox is cosmological. As I've said before, it's Yahweh (the all-powerful Creator of the Universe) who has it in for the Sox. This, I think, is indisputable. I mean all you would have to say is ''Game 6.'' Only a God who would punish wrongdoing unto the ''third or fourth generation'' could come up with creative punishment like that.

If you look at voodoo or Santeria, psychologists will tell you that the curses work because the people truly believe in it. Neurology is full of cases demonstrating the power of our own minds, consciously or unconsciously, over our bodies. Most Red Sox fan feel there is something wrong with the Red Sox, something that predisposes them to defeat, whether they call it a curse or not. Perhaps, then, the collective mental energy of millions of Red Sox fans believing, truly believing that the team will collapse plays a role in that inevitable collapse?

I don't know. But I do know that after experiencing Game 6 in 1986 I've never been the same. The memory of 6 is pure, absolute terror to me, the kind of terror that had me afraid to look into a dark closet as a kid. In my mind, yes, it's a supernatural, boogie man kind of terror whenever I even start to think about 2 outs 2 strikes . . .

So, yeah, I acknowledge a Curse, and I'm neither with the media (unless you want to call a personal website a form of media), nor do I think I'm uneducated on Red Sox history (or otherwise), and I'm certainly not a non-Boston fan.

Simmons may be all done mentioning the Curse, but it's alive and well here.

Feel free to chime in with your own take on the Curse via the comments link below.

Whew! Bad streak stops at 9

Who'd ever imagine that a single win in a now meaningless season could feel so good? But it does. Oh, how it does. I know it's just a game and all that, but I can't help but let it affect me. The Red Sox always find a way to slip into my psyche and begin inserting subtle influences on my personal life. When things are going well for the team, it's a real boost to my mojo. I start walking around all chingao, like a bad ass. Oh, but when they go on one these monumental, crushing plunges down the standings, I become, for lack of a better word, a real prick.

But it helps knowing I'm not the only one who lets it get to me:

The win kept the Sox 9 1/2 games off the pace in both the American League East and wild card races. The 64th consecutive sellout crowd, however, was in no mood to celebrate. Manny Ramirez was booed for the first time in 70 home games after he didn't run out a double-play grounder in the second inning while signs calling for the ouster of general manager Dan Duquette seemed to outnumber the ones making cutesy attempts to get on television.

One of the largest cheers of the evening took place in the sixth inning, when stadium employees futilely attempted to seize an unfurled bed sheet that read: ``Bye Bye Dr. Dan.'' Fans played keep-away with the sign, tossing it from section to section every time one of the censors got close (The Boston Herald).

I wish I would have been there to have seen that! Awesome.

Of course, such fanatical emotions do impact the players as well:

[Bichette] added that the baseball uber alles approach in Boston can be a benefit and a distraction to all players. ''I think there's a positive side to it and a negative side to it,'' he said. ''When there are tense games, and the fans are on our side, and we're rolling and things are going good, you can use them as a 10th player. At the same time, when a team is struggling or there is some controversy going on, and you hear a lot of boos, I think it hurts. So it's a two-edged sword, a double-edged sword'' (The Boston Globe).

Like I said earlier, this win, as meaningless as it was, sure did feel good. I'll most likely make it through the day without getting into a fight over nothing with my wife or snapping at a coworker or giving anyone the one-finger salute on the commute home. What about the rest of you?

9 and counting

The Red Sox dropped their 9th straight last night to Cleveland.

I don't feel like I should even say any more. Everything already seems to have been said.

All day yesterday and when I awoke this morning I had planned on ripping on Duquette, needing to place blame somewhere for this terrible situation we are in; however, the more rational professionals who write about the Red Sox for a living, made me reconsider that path:

. . . please remember that Duquette didn't act alone. His players were in on this, too. They are the ones who quit. Does anyone have evidence that this is the same team that was affectionately known as Dirt Dogs a few weeks ago?

These heartbreakers, losers of nine games in a row, reeled in the region and then crushed it. As with all failed love affairs, the warning signs were ignored. We should have known something was wrong when the players began whining in May and never let off the pedal. It was kind of humorous at first. The Sox were the typical nuclear family, one wrong glance away from a dinner-table argument.

Then it got worse.

From spring to fall, they ripped their bosses. Dan. Jimy. Joe. It didn't make a difference. The Sox were a mix between the Rugrats and Bebe's Kids, a bunch of rebels daring management to reprimand them. We should have known they had just as much leadership as they had talent when no one - no one - came out publicly to denounce the bitching. I can remember thinking (and writing), ''Crazy kids. Must not be a problem if they're winning''(Michael Holley, The Boston Globe).

How true. Things did start out coming out of Spring Training in March as tempestuously as they are winding down here in September. Yet the Red Sox went on a real tear in April and May and we all just more or less forgot about the problems. In hindsight, why in the hell were any of us making "this is the year" statements? Then again, I think many of us were circumspect even during the high water mark:

Fifteen games over .500? Tied for first place in late July? It's amazing, it's dumbfounding, it's downright inexplicable. And to be honest, it hasn't even been that much fun for many Sox fans. It's difficult to enjoy a nice summer cruise on the bandwagon, when you keep waiting for the wheels to come flying off (Bill Simmons, July 25, 2001).

So if the demise wasn't completely unexpected, the questions get begged:

''Where do we go from here? What evidence do we have that things won't be just as bad next year?''

''That's why nobody wants to [expletive] play here''

Those were the words uttered loudly by the normally stoic Nomar Garciaparra within earshot of many reporters in regard to the news that pitching coach John Cumberland had been abruptly and inexplicably fired by GM Dan Duquette.

It was bizarre. And truly a Sox moment under the draconian Duke. Disgusted players and coaches whispered to each other or openly cursed as they ate from the postgame spread. It was the event that crowned the worst weekend of the season. First, the Sox have their season destroyed by the Yankees, who now lead the American League East by nine games. Then they have their spirit sucked out of them by their own general manager (The Boston Globe).

And this is probably only the beginning. The next 30 days will give plenty of opportunity for further unraveling of player and fan morale. Everything is dramatic with the Red Sox. Everything is bipolar.

But this season may go down in the history books as one of the most bitter yet.

» What are some other Red Sox moments you remember from past seasons that compare with the flushing sound we heard over the weekend? [Use the comment link below to add your recollections]

Tanked out

Nobody but nobody can express the frustration I and countless others feel on a morning like this better than Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe. When things are going well, I find his 24/7 wait 'til they collapse attitude infuriating, but, at time like these, I'm grateful that he is the spokesperson for my misery.

... the Yankees go about their business from April through August - paying little attention to the noise in Boston - then crush our spirit every autumn. And now it's happening again, right at home, in front of the sad eyes of the Nation. If Mike Mussina takes care of business tonight, this series will take its rightful place alongside the Boston Massacre of 1978, the final weekend of '49, and all the other indignities heaped upon the Olde Towne Team since Babe Ruth was sold to New York (1919).

And he never fails to remind us the Curse:

Speaking of George Herman, would Pedro Martinez like to rethink that challenge he issued May 30, when he said, ''Bring back the Bambino and have me face him and I'll drill him in the ass''?

Martinez pitched a stellar six innings of two-hit, no-walk, six-strikeout, shutout ball yesterday, but he is now 0-for-June-July-August-September since taunting the Big Fella (The Boston Globe).

For me the worst part of it all it the feeling that things won't get better next year. I'm slowly resigning myself to the notion that Dan Duquette could, as so many others have suggested, be the real problem here. And he's not going anywhere.

I'm stuck now with coming up with another month of daily postings in the face of the stark reality that this is another year like all the others that have come before. I've still got many years (God willing) ahead of me, but the other night I was gripped with fear of the very real possibility that I won't see it happen in my lifetime. Heck, there is not guarantee that the game as we know it will even be around in another 50 or so years.

Time to go walk the dog and try and forget about baseball for awhile.