European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - October 30, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse Sports is Boston forever cursed George Vecsey new York times i Don t know nothing about history Lohn said following game 6 of the world series after Mui Skib u Ilson s strange Little grounder squirmed its w 7 monday night in the Glaum of stadium. Tin sawn seemed to get ,1 Lucky break when rain postponed the game on sunday letting them use brute Hurst monday night and putting Dave Johnson of the mits into the position of using his less effective d tandem of Tim Teufel and Kevin Mitchell. But this franchise has seen other Breaks go Down the Drain in the 68 years. And it happened monday when the mets behind rallied to win a-1 and Lake the series. Long before Boston s Chance at winning thu series vanished through the damaged legs of Bill Buckner in game 6. It was Safe to say the franchise not this current group of players and officials had a history of accidents calamities disasters bad Luck tops and failures. Nobody even used Mcnamara s word there were even two previous examples of ailing players both of them named Dimaggio figuring in the final clutching moments of red sox failure in 1946 and 1949, but More on thai later. The saw had come so close in seventh games of the world series in 1946,1967 and 1975, in the final weekend of the Pennant race of 19-19, and in he one game Eastern division playoff of 1978, that the fans of new England have developed a losers twitch an expectation thai the worst possible thing might happen. The fans knew. 11 had happened so often before. On top of it the red sox from time to time had a reputation As a country club team with great skill but without the Normal barbed humor and collective Wisdom that winning teams must have. Who was it who described the red sox As 25 men taking 25 different cabs on their Way to dinner this year they were nothing like that. This year they became a team As soon As George Steinbrenner and his baseball people traded Don Baylor to the red sox in March Baylor became the Leader the red sox had never had forming a Kangaroo court taunting and teasing the players into becoming closer Lea males. Baylor had played in this league since 1972, Long enough to have some impressions of the red sox. He recalled Over the years you d say Boston has great if Ruth s depart Art tar the Yankees has had Boston under j Cloud since 1919. Hitters but the Quality of the pitching Wii lacking. Sometimes they just could t win he said he had never heard any american league player accuse the red sox of choking that kind of talk was for fans and sportswriters. The players Don t Deal with concepts Kite the curse of babe Ruth but who is to say the whiff of failure has not settled into the steel the Earth the Wood and the very Ozone of Fenway Park there Are a lot of haunted memories in this franchise which won the first world series in 1903, and then won in t912,1915,1916 and 1918, acquiring the child of nature George Herman Ruth from the teeming inner City of Baltimore. Rulh became the Best left handed Pitcher on the team and potentially the greatest slugger in the game yet the owner sold him to the lowly new York Yankees in order to finance one of Frazee s Broadway shows. No no. Nanette. Frazee was ruthless Boston was Ruth less and for 68 years it has never been the same. Any Boston fan can fill in the gruesome details with Blunt opinions How the years from 1919 to 1945 flew by without a Pennant How Ted Williams batted Only .200 and drove in one run in the 1946 world series How Johnny Pesky seemed to hold the Ball an in Slang Loo Long As country Slaughter steamed Home from first with the go ahead run in the last game. But it lakes a real diehard to remember How an injured leg Cost the red sox their splendid Center fielder Dominic Dimaggio moments before Slaughter s immortal dash. Dominic had to leave the game for a Pinch runner after pulling a muscle while hitting a game tying double in the top of the eighth. Dimaggio s replacement Leon Culberson got to Harry Walker s slash to left Center and did relay the Ball to Pesky but the grizzled fans who remember 1946 will insist Dominic would have held Slaughter Al third somehow. Three years Laleff Dominic s brother figured in another melodrama of tension and pain. The red sox went into me final weekend one game ahead with one to play but the red sox blew a 4-0 Lead in the saturday game twice the size of their Lead saturday and the Yankees won 5-4. On the final sunday the Yankees took a five run Lead but the red sox rallied for two runs when Bobby Doerr hit a two run triple Over the head of of Dimaggio who had been plagued thai year with a damaged Heel and later a virus infection. After the triple of Dimaggio took himself out of the game a move of excellent foresight on the part of the famed Clipper who with Victory almost within grasp was t going to let it slip away through any physical shortcomings on his own wrote Lohn Drebinger v he hew York times. The red sox fell Short again in 1949, just As they had in 1946, just As they would fall Short in 1967 when in Lonborg could t Bounce Back on two Days of rest and in 1975 when of Morgan plunked a Fine pitch by in Burton for a game deciding hit and in 197s when the famed slugger Bucky Dent lofted a Home re i Over the notorious left fluid Wall. They fell again this year. They were not just playing the mets. They were lighting a 68-year spell which diehard fans in new England would readily identify even if John Mcnamara did t know Noshin about 16
