Odd Thoughts

The Curse & The Collapse

I guess I'll start with the collapse. Sheesh. The Cards just rolled over and died. On September 27th, I wrote a post about the Cardinals in which I detailed how they had been the most dominant team in almost every category this year. The rolled over the Dodgers and then they shut down the Astros when it really counted, but they sure fell apart in the end. Very few aspects of the St. Louis team did well, although the Cardinal faithful should give some credit to Jason Marquis - he did his job last night. The Cardinals averaged 5.28 runs per game during the season; Marquis holding Boston to 3 should have been enough. The mighty St. Louis offense hit .185 in the series. It's a good thing they got Larry Walker at the end of the year too - not only did he hit their only home runs of the series, but if you take him away the team average is .164.

You might have heard the commentators point out that the Cardinals never had a lead in any game of the series. You also might be wondering if that has ever happened before, and lucky for you, I have the answer, which I will reveal along with several other World Series facts.

The 2004 World Series, by the way, was the 100th in the history of the game. Last year's was the 100th anniversary, but since the 1904 series was skipped because of a feud between the NL and the AL, and the player's strike kept the '94 series from happening, this was the 100th. This was the 18th sweep in WS history. I counted 1907 and 1922 as sweeps even though there were five games played. The winning teams in those series (The Cubs and the New York Giants) both won 4 and tied 1. For four of the World Series there were 9 games possible, thus making a sweep require five wins - it never happened. In fact no series ever even went the whole 9 games, though three series did go eight. The rest of the count is 21 five-game series, 22 six-game series, and 36 seven-game series. Anyway, of the 18 sweeps, the loosing never held the lead in three other World Series. The Yankees never led the Dodgers in 1963, The Dodgers never led the Orioles in 1966, and the Giants never led the A's in the earthquake series of 1989.

And now The Curse of the Bambino is over. Some will say there never was a curse, and for the record, I do not believe that supernatural forces governed and/or worked against the Red Sox. However, some fishy things have happened to them between 1918 and 2004. Most of us know about Aaron Boone, Bill Buckner, and Bucky Dent. But not as many know about some of the other Boston collapses.

The Red Sox were in the World Series against the Big Red Machine in 1975. The Sox trailed in the series 3-2 heading back to Fenway. I got this recap of games 6 & 7 from mlb.com:

Then, Game 6. Fred Lynn's three-run homer in the bottom of the first inning gave Boston a 3-0 lead, but Cincinnati took a 6-3 lead with three runs in the fifth, two in the seventh and one more in the eighth. Bernie Carbo erased that deficit with a three-run homer of his own in the bottom of the seventh, and after 11 ½ innings it was still 6-6. Carlton Fisk led off the bottom of the 12th and, in a moment immortalized by TV cameras, he hit a long drive down the left-field line. With Fisk apparently "willing" the ball fair, it carried the Green Monster for a game-winning home run, sending the Fenway faithful home happy.

In Game 7, the Sox took a 3-0 lead in the third on Carl Yastrzemski's RBI single and a pair of bases-loaded walks, but they would score no more. Meanwhile, Tony Perez hit a two-run homer in the sixth, and Pete Rose tied the game in the seventh with a run-scoring single. In the top of the ninth with two outs, Joe Morgan came through with his second game-deciding hit of the Series, this one a single that scored Ken Griffey to give the Reds a 4-3 edge. Will McEnaney came on to retire the Red Sox in order in the bottom of the ninth, and Cincinnati had its first World Series since 1940.

The Sox missed an AL East title in 1972 by half a game. The were in the World Series against St. Louis in 1967. Again the Sox returned to Fenway for games 6 & 7 trailing 3-2. Here's the mlb.com recap:

Fenway Park hosted Game 6, and the Red Sox stayed alive with an 8-4 triumph. The score was tied at four until the bottom of the seventh, when Boston sent 10 men to the plate and scored four times to break the game open.

Game 7 matched Gibson and Lonborg. Gibson was brilliant once again, allowing only three hits, but Lonborg was working on just two days rest and clearly didn't have his best stuff. The Cardinals scored two runs in the third, two in the fifth, and three more in the sixth off Lonborg to put the game away. Gibson struck out George Scott to end the 7-2 contest, and the Cards were World Series champions once again.

In 1949, the Red Sox had a 1 game lead over the Yankees with 2 games left to play in the season. The Yankees came to town, and you can probably guess what happened. Yanks take two from Boston to win the pennant, and then take 4 of 5 from Brooklyn to win the World Series. They missed another pennant to the Indians by 1 game the year before (these were Ted Williams teams, by the way).

In 1946, the Red Sox returned to Fenway with a 3-2 series lead over the Cardinals. The flat out lost game six. Here's the recap of game seven:

Game 7 was, fittingly, a tight, dramatic affair. Trailing 3-1 in the eighth, the Red Sox tied the contest on Dom DiMaggio's two-out, two-run double. But with two outs in the bottom of the eighth, the Cardinals took a 4-3 lead when Harry Walker singled to center field, Enos Slaughter scoring all the way from first base after Boston shortstop Johnny Pesky hesitated for a split second before throwing home. Harry Brecheen, who picked up his third win of the Series with two innings of scoreless relief, escaped a two-on, nobody-out jam in the top of the ninth to clinch the World Series for St. Louis.

They've had 12 other second place finishes and 5 other postseason appearances that are not even chronicled here. Before the curse they won 5 of the first 15 World Series and were in the series one other time. It's been a long and painful 86 years.

Fittingly, the Red Sox will unfurl their new World Series flag and receive their rings in the first series of the 2005 season. Their opponent? The New York Yankees.

Posted by chefchuddy at October 28, 2004 03:23 PM