prelude to a curse

Any theologian worth his salt has a little streak of pantheism in him. God is in everything. Any theologian wishing however much to be not of the world but still in it should always read the sports pages.

Is Mark Maguire’s bat a holy relic? How about Brooks Robinson’s glove?

Scholars and writers more learned and eloquent than myself have certainly made the connection between religion and baseball. They invoke the timelessness, the rhythm, the mystery and the simplicity of the game to elevate baseball from mere sport to holy ritual.

As a theologian and a baseball fan I can’t help but subscribe to parts of this philosophy. I won’t go so far as to say that I am a Christian today because of Carl Yastrzemski, but I do understand the martyrs better because of the Boston Red Sox.

All of mankind’s religions have their dark tales, tales of floods and plagues and even curses. If baseball is not simply a sport but some kind of peculiar latter day religion, the darkest tale in its canon is the Curse of the Bambino.

The legend is not complicated. The Boston Red Sox have not won a World Series, despite four game seven appearances, since they traded one George Herman (Babe) Ruth, Jr., the Bambino, to their arch enemies the New York Yankees for money in the dark year of 1919. In that time, the Yankees have won the Series 26 times.

The mishaps, meltdowns, bad trades and bonehead plays are too numerous to be disregarded as coincidence. The Red Sox haven’t been a bad team or a poorly run organization. Bad trades are part of every franchise’s history including the Yankees. But the Red Sox trades historically come back to haunt them like no other club in baseball.

Are they cursed? Yes, they are. Are they the only ones? That bears some examination.

What about the other Sox, the White Sox who haven’t won a World Series since they conspired to lose one, for money, in 1919? The White Sox drought has lasted longer than Boston’s and is surpassed only by their cross-town rivals the Chicago Cubs. Is the entire city of Chicago operating under a baseball curse? Sportswriters don’t seem to think so.

The truth about the Cubs and the White Sox is they haven’t been successful ball clubs. There have been a few great players and some good seasons for both. The Cubs may have very well been robbed last year of a World Series appearance by the poor judgment of one unfortunate fan who now finds himself in the FBI Witness Protection Program.

That bizarre incident notwithstanding, Chicago teams have never been victim to the sustained barrage of spooky last minute acts of God that have shot down the otherwise competent Red Sox, the single most famous example being the shocking error of the otherwise competent Bill Buckner.

Most religions have a scapegoat or two as well and poor Bill Buckner, with a lifetime batting average of .289 over 22 seasons, wears the horns in this pantheon.

That established, who are the other mythic figures in the Red Sox tale and can we, by identifying them, find a hidden prophecy?

Bearded Johnny Damon - batting average six feet under the Mendoza line and needing an extra base hit even more than a haircut - was he the unlikely instrument of God against the despised Yankees? He may have been.

But he is not the Messiah. His unkempt appearance holds the clue. He is the one who goes before, the one who makes clear the path. He is the voice of one crying in the wilderness of Red Sox Nation, “Make straight the way of …”

Who is the Red Sox saviour? Martinez? Ramirez? Has he even been born yet?

That is the mystery of Red Sox faith.

As for this year the St. Louis Cardinals, the best team in baseball this season, may have some say in the outcome, curse or no curse.

-T.J. Godfrey