Babe Ruth and the Baseball Curse Read online

  This book is dedicated

  to the best team

  anyone could have—

  my wife, Alice; my sons, Steven and Scott;

  and my parents, Kevin and Nancy Kelly.

  —D.A.K.

  For Dad,

  who was stationed in Boston

  while serving in the navy

  and went to Fenway Park

  every chance he got.

  —T.J.

  Contents

  1. Five Outs Away

  2. Turning Trouble into Good Luck

  3. From Rookie to Star

  4. Babe Ruth, the Red Sox, and Trouble

  5. The Yankees’ Hero

  6. So Many Close Calls

  7. Spilled Blood

  8. Three Games Down

  9. More Blood, Some Police, and a Winner

  10. The End of the Curse?

  Author’s Note

  Five Outs Away

  October 16, 2003, was a chilly night at Yankee Stadium. But the Boston Red Sox fans there barely noticed the cold. Their team was close to beating the New York Yankees. If the Red Sox won, they would play in the World Series for the first time since 1986.

  The Boston fans stomped their feet and cheered loudly. The Red Sox were ahead by three runs in the eighth inning. Only one more inning after this and they’d win.

  Boston’s ace pitcher, Pedro Martinez, was on the mound. He had pitched well, but it was late in the game. He had thrown a lot of pitches. His hands were cold.

  Derek Jeter, a star hitter for the Yankees, waited for the next pitch. Pedro threw a fastball. Jeter smacked a double. Pedro was angry. He took his time before pitching again. The next batter hit a single and Jeter scored. One man was on base, but the Red Sox were still ahead by two runs.

  TV cameras zoomed in on Pedro. He looked tired. He needed two outs to end the inning. Grady Little, the Red Sox manager, ambled to the mound. Should he take Pedro out of the game? A new pitcher would have more energy. A new pitcher might easily get the two outs. But Pedro was a star.

  The crowd got quiet. Little talked to Pedro, then headed back to the dugout. He decided to let Pedro keep going. His decision would have big results—big, bad results for the Boston Red Sox.

  Pedro glared at the next batter and adjusted his hat. He blew on his hands to warm them.

  He threw the baseball. The batter swung and blasted a double.

  From behind his glove, Pedro looked nervously at the next batter. He pitched again. Pow! Another double! Two Yankees scored! The game was tied, Red Sox 5-Yankees 5. Finally Grady Little pulled Pedro out of the game and replaced him with another pitcher. Two outs later, the inning was over.

  To win, the Red Sox would have to break the tie. But neither team scored in the ninth inning. The game went into extra innings. Nobody scored in the tenth inning.

  The Red Sox didn’t score in the beginning of the eleventh. It was the Yankees’ turn to try to break the tie.

  Aaron Boone was the first Yankee batter. Boone wasn’t a star. Many Yankee fans didn’t even know who he was.

  Boone swung at the first pitch. Bam! He hit it hard. The ball soared over the third baseman’s head.

  Boston fans held their breath.

  The ball kept going.

  It flew past the left fielder.

  It finally fell into the left-field seats. Aaron Boone had hit a “walk-off” home run—a home run that ended the game.

  The Yankees won, 6 to 5! The Yankee fans exploded with happiness. Their team was going to the World Series!

  Boston fans were stunned. How could they have lost? They had been ahead by three runs in the eighth inning. …

  There would be no World Series championship for Boston this year. No World Series rings. No place to go but home. Once again, the Boston Red Sox had been hit with bad luck.

  The Red Sox knew all about bad luck. They were famous for it. They’d had bad luck for over eighty years, ever since 1920. That’s the year they sold Babe Ruth, one of the best players of all time. And who did the Red Sox sell Babe Ruth to? The team that would quickly become their fiercest rival—the New York Yankees!

  With the Babe, the Yankees played in seven World Series.

  Without the Babe, the Red Sox fell to the bottom of the standings and struggled for years. They made it into the World Series only a few times. Each time they made it to the World Series or even got close, they suffered a heartbreaking loss.

  Some fans thought the Red Sox were jinxed because of the sale. They thought the Red Sox were doomed to fail because of Babe Ruth and the baseball curse.

  Turning Trouble into Good Luck

  Babe Ruth’s life was full of good luck … and bad. When he was a kid, it was mostly bad luck.

  Back then, he was called George Herman Ruth. His childhood was hard and his parents poor. Six of his seven brothers and sisters died as babies. His parents were too busy working to take care of him. That left Ruth plenty of time to get into trouble.

  He got into so much trouble that when he was seven, his father sent him to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys. St. Mary’s was a school in Baltimore for boys who were orphans. It was also for boys whose parents didn’t or couldn’t take good care of them. Parents were allowed to visit their children one Sunday a month and on holidays. But during the twelve years that Ruth was at the school, his parents rarely showed up. He only went home a few times. He was very lonely.

  At school Ruth found the strict routines hard. The people who worked at St. Mary’s said he was “incorrigible.” That meant he didn’t behave well. He was a problem.

  But being difficult probably helped Ruth. Boys who got into trouble had to see Brother Matthias. Brother Matthias was in charge of discipline at the school. But he was also in charge of the school’s baseball team. He saw something special in Ruth. He taught Ruth how to play baseball.

  Brother Matthias was a tall, strong man. He could belt a baseball farther than Ruth ever thought possible. Ruth tried to be like him. He wanted to do everything that Brother Matthias did. He copied his walk. He copied his swing. Ruth learned quickly. By the time he was twelve, Ruth was playing with sixteen-year-old boys.

  But even on the baseball team, Ruth got into trouble. One time, his big mouth got him into a fix that changed the rest of his life. As usual, Ruth was playing catcher for his team. The other team was beating them badly. They were getting lots of hits and scoring lots of runs.

  Ruth’s team switched pitchers, but it didn’t help. Crouching behind the plate, Ruth finally couldn’t take it anymore. He burst out laughing at his own pitcher!

  Brother Matthias was not happy. He called a time-out and walked over to Ruth. Brother Matthias asked why he was laughing. Ruth told him he was laughing because the pitcher couldn’t throw a ball that the other team couldn’t hit.

  Brother Matthias decided to teach Ruth a lesson. He told him to go out to the mound and pitch.

  Ruth stopped laughing. He had never pitched in his life! There was no way he could pitch now.

  Brother Matthias wouldn’t listen. Since Ruth knew so much about pitching, he should show his team how it was done!

  Ruth was ashamed. He took off his catcher’s equipment. He borrowed a glove and walked to the mound. He didn’t know where to start.

  On the mound, he tried to figure out where to put his feet. He turned and pulled his large, strong body into position. Suddenly he felt comfortable. The pitching position felt right to him. Out of nowhere, he threw a blazing fast pitch. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world!

  For the rest of his years at the school, Ruth was a pitcher. Then one day in February 1914, the owner of a minor league team c
ame to the school. Jack Dunn needed a new player for his team, the Baltimore Orioles. He had heard about Ruth and wanted to watch him play.

  Dunn was so impressed that he asked Ruth to join the Baltimore Orioles. Ruth was just nineteen years old. He was amazed that anyone would ask him to play baseball for a living.

  Then Dunn said that Ruth would earn $600 a year! Ruth’s jaw dropped. Not only was he going to play baseball, but they were going to pay him for it! He couldn’t believe his good luck. But since Ruth was young and still in school, Dunn had to sign paperwork to become Ruth’s legal guardian. Newspapers in Baltimore called Ruth “Dunn’s babe.”

  A few weeks later, Ruth left St. Mary’s behind. He boarded a train to North Carolina for spring training with the Orioles. A few months later, Ruth was sold to the Boston Red Sox. In a very short time, George Herman Ruth had gone from being a troubled kid in school to being a major league pitcher for one of America’s top teams.

  Would bad luck follow him to the Red Sox? Or good luck? Or perhaps both?

  From Rookie to Star

  When Ruth joined the Boston Red Sox, they were one of the best teams in the league.

  They had won the very first World Series in 1903. In fact, the Red Sox were so good that they won five of the first fifteen World Series!

  During that same time, the New York Yankees never even made it to the World Series. They played very badly. Many seasons they finished in last place.

  Ruth wasn’t quite ready to play major league baseball. At first the Red Sox sent him to their minor league team in Providence, Rhode Island. In Providence, he helped make the team the best in the league. By the end of the season, Ruth had moved up to the Boston Red Sox and Fenway Park.

  Fenway Park is the home of the Boston Red Sox. Today it is the oldest major league baseball stadium. The Red Sox have played there since 1912. It opened the same week that the famous ship the Titanic sunk.

  When he first joined the team, his teammates went out of their way to tease Ruth because he was new. Sometimes they were even mean to him. They sawed his bats in two. Sometimes they wouldn’t let him go near the batting cage. As a pitcher, he was supposed to pitch well, not bat well.

  But Ruth pitched well for the Red Sox, and his teammates grew to like him. He pitched in four games in that first year and won two. It was a good start for a young pitcher.

  After the season, Ruth married a waitress he met at a coffee shop in Boston. Her name was Helen Woodford. They bought a small farmhouse in Sudbury, Massachusetts, about thirty minutes west of Boston.

  In 1915, Ruth’s pitching was better than ever. He won eighteen games for the Red Sox and lost only eight. That’s a very good record. He also hit four home runs that year. They were the first home runs of his major league career. Four might not sound like a lot, but the entire team only hit ten home runs that year! He helped the Red Sox make it to the World Series, where they won again.

  Even though he was now a professional baseball player, Ruth never seemed to grow up. He even had a big smiley face like a baby’s. Ruth’s nickname was “the Bambino,” which means “baby” in Italian.

  Many times he acted like a kid. He liked pulling silly stunts, trying new things, and simply horsing around. Ruth was often more interested in having fun than in doing what he was supposed to do. Sometimes he wore the same underwear for days at a time. He just didn’t feel like changing. He claimed to be able to burp louder than a tractor. He’d prove it to anyone who would listen.

  Back in his first spring-training session with the Baltimore Orioles, Ruth had spent hours riding up and down in the elevator. He had never been in an elevator before. He loved the way it whooshed between floors.

  At that time, elevators had people whose job was to run them. The elevator operators opened and closed the doors and pushed the buttons. After hours of riding the elevator, Ruth talked the operator into letting him handle the controls. Ruth gave the elevator operator most of his money to let him try.

  But Ruth was so excited that he forgot to close the door of the elevator. He was still looking down the hallway when he pushed the UP button. Whoosh! The elevator started up with Ruth leaning halfway out. His friends yelled for him to watch out! Ruth stepped back just in time. He barely escaped a very bad accident.

  But the team’s manager found out. He gave Ruth a terrific bawling out. Ruth felt ashamed. He had almost hurt himself while fooling around.

  Ruth was so sad that his teammates took pity on him. His manager said that he was just like a “babe in the woods.” That’s another way of saying he was kind of innocent. From then on, the rest of his team just called him “Babe.” It’s a nickname he would have for the rest of his life.

  Even though he was a “babe,” Ruth was amazing on the field. He was a powerful pitcher. For example, in 1917, he won twenty-four games! He even pitched thirty-five complete games. That means that he pitched the whole nine innings, from start to end, by himself. That rarely happens today.

  In the 1916 World Series, Babe Ruth pitched a fourteen-inning complete game. It’s a record that still stands. In one of the games in the 1918 World Series, Ruth didn’t give up a single run to the other team. That’s called a shutout.

  Babe Ruth was one of the best pitchers in the world. His good luck at escaping a life of poverty had rubbed off on the Red Sox. Ruth helped them win three World Series—in 1915, 1916, and 1918.

  For Babe Ruth and the Red Sox, 1918 was the high point. Ruth hit home runs. He pitched incredibly well. The Red Sox won the World Series again. It looked like nothing could stop them.

  But the next year, 1919, something did. Maybe it was just fate. Maybe it was Babe Ruth’s bad luck. Maybe it was the Red Sox’s bad luck. Or maybe it was the start of the Curse of the Bambino.

  Babe Ruth, the Red Sox, and Trouble

  The year 1919 was not a good one for the Boston Red Sox. In fact, for some Red Sox fans, 1919 was the beginning of the end.

  It should have been a great year for the team. They had won the World Series in 1918. Babe Ruth was their star pitcher. Many people thought they would come back in October to win another World Series. But they didn’t.

  It started off badly for both the Red Sox and Babe Ruth. In 1919, Ruth didn’t show up for spring training with the rest of the team. He was holding out for more money.

  Ruth had played so well in 1918 that he felt he should get a raise. He had made $7,000 in 1918. Ruth wanted $15,000 for one year or $30,000 for three years. But Harry Frazee, the new owner of the Red Sox, thought that was too much. World War I was going on and fewer people had paid to see the Red Sox that year. Frazee said he didn’t have the money.

  But Babe Ruth didn’t give up. Late in March, Ruth and Frazee agreed on a new contract. It would pay Ruth $30,000 over three years. Ruth headed down to spring training.

  Frazee and the Red Sox were getting a lot for their money. By 1919, Babe Ruth had decided he wanted to be a hitter instead of a pitcher. So instead of pitching thirty to forty games, Ruth pitched in only seventeen in 1919. But he played the outfield in over 110 games. That meant he had many more chances to bat—and many more chances to hit home runs!

  Ruth’s home runs were not enough for the team, though. By the middle of the season, the Red Sox had lost a lot of games. They weren’t good enough to make it to the championship. There would be no World Series for the Red Sox that year. Their luck had run out.

  But Babe Ruth was getting hot. He was hitting home runs. Lots of them.

  Ruth used the same baseball bat in each game. It was made of dark ash wood. He wouldn’t let anyone touch it, not even the batboys. Ruth carried it on and off the field himself.

  One day, the bat cracked while Ruth was hitting. After the game, he sat down and tried to fix it himself. He used a small hammer, some tiny nails, and tape to hold the splintered bat together. It seemed to work.

  However, a short time later, Ruth was using the bat when he was called out on a strike. Ruth thought it was a bad pitch, but the umpire said
it was strike three. Ruth was out. He was furious at the umpire.

  Ruth smashed the bat down on home plate!

  CRACK! The bat splintered apart! His tiny nails and tape couldn’t take the beating. It couldn’t be fixed. Ruth stomped back to the dugout.

  After Ruth calmed down, one of his teammates asked him for the broken bat. Ruth said, “Take it.” He never wanted to see the bat again. Later on, the teammate gave the bat to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. It’s still there today.

  Even without his favorite bat, Ruth kept belting the ball. Fans loved to watch him hit home runs, even if the Red Sox were losing. He made the game exciting. Ruth was thrilled with the attention. He knew that many of the fans were coming to see him.

  Off the field, Ruth didn’t always follow the rules. Sometimes he skipped Red Sox games to make extra money. People paid him to come to special events. But what really made his manager mad was when Ruth stayed out late after games and didn’t show up on time the next day.

  Red Sox owner Harry Frazee was also worried about Ruth. In 1919, he asked the Red Sox manager, Ed Barrow, to keep an eye on Ruth. He wanted to make sure that Ruth got to bed and had plenty of sleep. He didn’t want Ruth staying out all night.

  One time, after beating the Washington Senators, Ruth didn’t come back to his hotel until after four in the morning! That day, the Red Sox lost. Barrow waited in the lobby of the hotel for Ruth to come back. But he didn’t return. Finally Barrow asked a hotel employee to let him know when Ruth showed up.

  At six o’clock in the morning, the hotel employee woke Barrow up. Ruth had just come in! Barrow got dressed and went to Ruth’s room. He could hear Ruth talking to his teammate. He could see light coming from a crack at the bottom of the door. He knocked on Ruth’s door. The voices stopped. The light clicked off.

  Barrow opened the door and walked in.

  Ruth was in bed. He had the covers pulled up to his chin, but he was awake.