Perhaps the cruelest part of the game of baseball is when fans feel their team is cursed. Red Sox, Giant, Indian, and Cub fans know this dilemma better than anyone.
When a team consistently finds a way not to win a World Series the fans believe that the baseball gods have put a hex on their side. And while the torture of losing gets more painful with each passing year, the euphoria that comes with finally overcoming the curse cannot be equaled.
Boston Red Sox fans know both sides of this equation well.
The Sox followed up a 1918 World Series title by selling Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees a year later. The “Curse of the Bambino” haunted the Red Sox for 86 years.
The Sox managed to win American League pennants in 1946, 1967, 1975, and 1986, but lost all four World Series in seven games, often in excruciating fashion.
When Boston finally broke the spell in 2004, Beantown exploded into such ecstasy that it took two years for all the excitement to calm down.
The Cleveland Indians are another old-time team that seems down on its luck. Theylast won a World Series in 1948. They were swept four straight by the Giants in 1954after winning a then AL record 111 games. For decades they played in a depressing old stadium built during the depression (how apt). There used to be a joke that first prize in a contest was a week in Cleveland. Second prize was two weeks.
The 1989 cult classic, Major League, was based on the futility of the Indians. For a long time it seemed like onlya fictional event could return them to the World Series.
However, in the mid-90s the city went through a transformation with a new stadium, an upscale downtown, and the opening of the Rock-and- Roll Hall of Fame. The revitalized team started selling out every game and in 1997 its fans were rewarded with their team’s first World Series appearance in 43 years.
The only problem was in true cursed fashion the Indiansblew a lead in the seventh game in the bottom of the ninth and lost the title in extra innings. The beat still goes on in Cleveland.
The Chicago Cubs are a story unto themselves. They are the lovable losers. It’s been 103 years since they’ve won a world championship.
They play in storied Wrigley Field, best known for its ivycovered brick walls and as the last major league stadium to install lights. It’s never seen a world championship since it opened in 1917 and hasn’t sniffed a World Series since 1945.
The Cubs and their fans have a right to feel cursed.
Who else could open up a 9½ game lead in late-August and still finish 8 games out (1969), blow a 2-game lead in the league championshipseries when it seemed impossible for them to lose (1984), or have a fan interfere with a fielder catching a foul ball to help cost them a pennant (2004)?
The Cubs seem destined for eternal disaster. Maybe it’s the baseball gods’ retaliation for the infamous Fred Merkle incident in 1908 when a controversial “out” at second base gave the Cubs the pennant. Or perhaps it’s payback for one-time Cubs owner Al Spaulding being the chief protagonist of the “myth” that baseball was invented in Cooperstown. Whatever the reason, the Cubs still hold the record for major league futility.
That brings us to the San Francisco Giants. Until 2010 Giant fans had good reason to feel the most persecuted of all non-winners. After all, the Sox, Cubs, and Indians had at least won a World Series in their respective cities even if it was several generations ago.
The Giants had never won a world title in 52 years on the West Coast despite coming close in 1962 and 2002. To make matters worse, their arch-rival Dodgers had won five World Series since their arrival in Los Angeles in 1958.
There was no reason to think that 2010 would be any different. Other than some good young starting pitchers the team didn’t have much.
Their position players lacked offensive firepower and their general manager was best known for making some of the most bonehead trades and free agent signings in the history of baseball. The fans were not amused.
But then, like magic, something clicked. The mix of fresh-faced rookies and unheralded veterans having career years turned 2010 into a Cinderella season. Even every move the embattled general manager tried worked wonders.
The Giants clinched the division title on the last day of the season and battled their way through three post-season series to become one of the most unlikely world champions in baseball history.
The magical year is beautifully captured in a new book, “A Band of Misfits: Tales of the 2010 San Francisco Giants,” by Andrew Baggarly. It details not only the improbable season but explains how a zany cast of characters came together to form the perfect chemistry to run the table. The book provides an understanding to not only how much the Giants mean to Northern California (1.5 million success-starved fans turned out for the victory parade) but why this team appealed to the nation as a whole.
It’s a tale worth revisiting.
Book Notes
June 2, 2011
Book Notes: Misfits
- Book Notes
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- Memoir reflects on 'roller-coaster life and career' Apparently, the third time wasn't the charm. The way Reynolds described him, the third husband was worse than the first two combined and that's saying a lot. Eddie Fisher literally walked away from Reynolds and their two infant children to chase a sex goddess. At least he got his just desserts when Elizabeth Taylor tossed him aside for Richard Burton.
- 'Who's on Worst?' reveals the ugly in baseball The Baseball Hall of Fame celebrates the greatest players, managers and owners from our national pastime. Any of us who have watched Major League baseball have inevitably seen some of these immortals practicing their craft. But we have also likely witnessed a sample of their opposite brethren, players who shouldn't have been in the Major Leagues. Has there ever been a definitive source that "celebrates" the non-accomplishments of the worst that Major League baseball has to offer?
- Book takes readers on path for equal rights One of the most troubling aspects of our history is race relations. It takes a long time to achieve true equality in a society when the heritage of one ethnic group is slavery and Jim Crow laws. Even today African Americans are more likely to be stereotyped as athletes than doctors, lawyers or entrepreneurs. The path to a "color-blind" nation is still a work in progress.
- Piazza wasn't considered much of a prospect for the majors It's probably going to be a quiet few days in Cooperstown when Hall of Fame weekend rolls around this summer. The baseball writers did not elect anybody this year despite some heavyweight candidates. The problem was that at least three of the poster boys for the steroids era, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa, were on the ballot for the first time. The writers were clearly making a statement when nobody got elected.
- Who would have thought e-books would be so popular? When I was in library school 25 years ago, a future concept was presented that seemed absurd at the time. It was the notion you could read books on a small computerized device about the size of a pocketbook.
- 2012 was a year of great films, future favorites The year 2012 was a blockbuster year for great films. Several of the movies up for Best Picture would have been runaway favorites almost any other time. They will make for easy pickings for the library when they become available on DVD.
- Blockbusters are not the only movies worth watching Hollywood makes enough movies that there are always a few that you don't hear about until they are on DVD. Sometimes they are simply horrible films that end their theater run quickly, but often they are "diamonds in the rough" that made their mark at film festivals.
- Mickey Mantle biography shows the good and the ugly It has become obvious in recent days that bestowing "hero" status on athletes is a misplaced priority.
- Book looks at 50 years of James Bond movies When I was in elementary school, James Bond was all the rage. For some reason I didn't see any of the early films with Sean Connery playing the infamous 007 British spy, but my siblings and several friends certainly did.
- Two thumbs up for the film 'Arbitrage" Arbitrage is a word that 99.99 percent of us probably never heard of until the movie with that title appeared. I looked it up on Wikipedia and discovered why nobody had heard of it. It refers to Wall Street financiers and has a meaning so convoluted that I couldn't figure it out.
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