Curses: Foiled Again

Matt Bruce

When Mo Vaughn broke his ankle in the 1999 season opener, the Angels' fans and followers had the temerity to refer to their team's "curse." Vaughn scoffed at the idea, since he had put up with a better-known "curse" with his old team, the Red Sox. If you watched this year's American League Championship Series then you probably got your fill of "the curse," since Fox could not stop talking about Babe Ruth, Bucky Dent and Bill Buckner. When the series ended, some fans blamed the umpires. Others just assumed that only a curse could explain the luck the Sox had in the series.

One consequence of such a "curse" is that fans set themselves up for failure, then remember with great vengeance the moments that failure became assured. When ESPN polled web surfers a few weeks ago about the worst moment in Red Sox franchise history, Buckner's error ran even with the sale of Babe Ruth. Note that Ruth's departure guaranteed years of second-division finishes for the Sox, while Buckner's error should have only postponed the title celebration a by day or so. What other player or team would gain national infamy from a mistake that turned a tie into a loss? Lonnie Smith's baserunning blew the 1991 Series, yet does anyone in Atlanta (much less the rest of the country) still care?

The Braves did win it all in 1995, though I suspect that Smith had already been forgiven well before those champagne corks popped. Once the Red Sox win it all, I'd like to think that Buckner would be forgiven, yet I fear that he won't be. The problem I have with this region-wide grudge is that, if you ignore the title drought itself, every team in baseball has had bigger goats than Buckner and worse villains than Dent.

Better fielding from Buckner would have extended Game 6 of the 1986 Fall Classic by at least one more inning. But in 1992, Jose "Chico" Lind's bad fielding cost the Pirates Game Seven of the NLCS. Doug Drabek took a 2-0 lead into the ninth inning and induced the leadoff batter to ground to second. Lind booted the ball and the Braves went on to a three-run rally. Imagine if the Bucs had won that series and toppled Toronto in the Fall Classic. With such altered destinies for Jim Leyland and Bobby Bo, we would have never lived through the 1997-98 Marlins.

Most Cub fans remember that Leon Durham's error cost them the fifth and final game of the 1984 NLCS. The Tigers would have probably smoked the Cubs as easily as they beat the Padres, but a chance is a chance. Given that the Cubs' dry spell is almost a decade longer than that of the Red Sox, it's strange that Durham is so much more obscure than Buckner. Granted, a League Championship Series is one level removed from the title. But that just brings us back to Lonnie Smith, whose mental lapse was arguably more heinous than any physical shortcoming.

Speaking of baserunning mistakes, imagine that the Diamondbacks were a championship-starved charter franchise rather than an expansion team. Or, suppose the D-backs have to wait a few decades for the promised land. Even then, would we tolerate whines of self-pity about Randy Johnson getting picked off second base? How many people will remember that Bobby Chouinard gave up the big grand slam, even by spring training next year?

From Fred Merkle to Mike Piazza (1999 NLCS Game 3, in case you've already forgotten), unfortunate errors figure into a century's worth of team histories. The number of Buckners may be closer to five than to 30, but it's certainly greater than one. When it comes to unfortunate home runs, though, there really are 30 Bucky Dents if you count them right. Even the Devil Rays have one, if you buy into my argument that the hoopla surrounding Wade Boggs and his 3000th hit (a home run) came at the expense of a serious attempt to build a winning ballclub.

Bucky Dent, that runt of a shortstop, had no business popping a fly ball just barely over the Green Monster. So goes the lament. What about Bill Mazeroski? (If you don't know your baseball history, imagine a second baseman with the defensive prowess of Rey Ordonez, though obviously a much better hitter.) The 1960 Yankees had no business losing a seven-game Series after humiliating the Pirates in three of those games. If those Yankees were Red Sox, Maz and Ralph Terry would be sworn at to this day. (To say nothing of Black Jack McDowell and Edgar Martinez in 1995.)

What about Joe Carter? Any stathead can tell you how overrated he was, yet he broke the Phillies' hearts in 1993. Any Oriole fan can tell you about Derek Jeter's lazy fly ball to the warning track in the 1996 ALCS, stolen by Jeffrey Maier as Richie Garcia turned a blind eye. The Indians can choose from Dave Justice (1995, Game 6, 1-0 Braves), Bobby Bonilla (1997, Game 7) and Troy O'Leary (1999 Division Series) in the past four years alone. A decade after the 1989 NLCS, I can still tell you which Cub middle relievers served up home runs to which Giant infielders in three ugly games at Candlestick Park. (Will Clark introduced Greg Maddux to postseason play with a grand slam at Wrigley in that series' opener, then went on to do jack squat for my Rangers in a pair of '90s debacles against the Yankees. The stiff!)

My point is that Red Sox fans (and detractors) have no business acting as though that team has a monopoly on player chokes and screws. Even further, those particular plays have nowhere near as much effect on a team's long-term championship prospects as do boneheaded management decisions and player moves. Could Rocky Colavito have brought a title to Cleveland? What if neither the Athletics of the 1930s nor the Expos of the 1990s had been dismantled? (The latter example assumes, among other things, that Montreal would figure out how to make room for Vlad Guerrero and when to get rid of Delino Deshields.) Need I even mention the alternate universe where Babe Ruth stayed in Boston?

Babe Ruth's departure wasn't even Boston's worst player move. That dishonor goes to their failure to sign Jackie Robinson, even after giving him a tryout. The Red Sox were the last integrated team in the majors. Even aside from moral issues, such narrowing of the potential talent pool is a deadly blow to any team that wants to win it all. In ability and performance, the difference between Jackie Robinson and Pumpsie Green (Boston's first black player) is the difference between Alex Rodriguez and Luis Sojo. Then again, we can guess how certain Boston fans would treat Robinson from how they treat Buckner. No wonder Mo can scoff at how inconsequential the Angels' "curse" is by comparison.

about the author

Matt Bruce's regular Strikethree.com columns often coincide with server outages, but do we blame him? Still, you could offer to rub him with the bat from Dave Henderson's 1986 ALCS homer at mb@strikethree.com.