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The Curse of the Bambino was a superstition evolving from the failure of the Boston Red Sox baseball team to win the World Series in the 86-year period from 1918 to 2004. While some fans took the curse seriously, most used the expression in a tongue-in-cheek manner. This misfortune began after the Red Sox sold star player Babe Ruth, sometimes called ''The Bambino'', to the New York Yankees in the off-season of 1919–1920. Before that point, the Red Sox had been one of the most successful professional baseball franchises, winning the first World Series and amassing five World Series titles. After the sale they went without a title for decades, even while the Red Sox won four American League championships from 1946 to 1986, as the previously lackluster Yankees became one of the most successful franchises in North American professional sports. The curse became a focal point of the Yankees–Red Sox rivalry over the years. Talk of the curse as an ongoing phenomenon ended in 2004, when the Red Sox came back from a 0–3 best-of-seven deficit to beat the Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series and then went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals to win the 2004 World Series. The curse had been such a part of Boston culture that when a "reverse curve" road sign on Longfellow Bridge over the city's busy Storrow Drive was graffitied to read "Reverse The Curse", officials left it in place until after the Red Sox won the 2004 Series. After the Red Sox won the last game of the World Series that year, the road sign was edited to read "Curse Reversed" in celebration.〔 ==The lore== Although it had long been noted that the selling of Ruth had been the beginning of a decline in the Red Sox' fortunes, the concept of a "curse" was popularized by Dan Shaughnessy of ''The Boston Globe'' in his 1990 book, ''The Curse of the Bambino'', and became a key part of the Red Sox lore in the media thereafter.〔 Shaughnessy's book became required reading in some high school English classes in New England. The term "curse of the Bambino" was not in common use by the press during the 1920s, nor can it be found through the 1970s, as a search of historical newspapers will illustrate.〔 Although the title drought dated back to , the sale of Ruth to the Yankees was completed January 3, 1920. In standard curse lore, Red Sox owner and theatrical producer Harry Frazee used the proceeds from the sale to finance the production of a Broadway musical, usually said to be ''No, No, Nanette''. In fact, Frazee backed many productions before and after Ruth's sale, and ''No, No, Nanette'' did not see its first performance until five years after the Ruth sale and two years after Frazee sold the Red Sox. In 1921, Red Sox manager Ed Barrow left to take over as general manager of the Yankees. Other Red Sox players were later sold or traded to the Yankees as well. Neither the lore, nor the debunking of it, entirely tells the story. As Leigh Montville wrote in ''The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth'', ''No, No, Nanette'' had originated as a non-musical stage play called ''My Lady Friends'', which opened on Broadway in December 1919. That play had, indeed, been financed as a direct result of the Ruth deal. Various researchers, including Montville and Shaughnessy, have pointed out that Frazee had close ties to the Yankees owners, and that many of the player deals, as well as the mortgage deal for Fenway Park itself, had to do with financing his plays.〔 Yankee fans taunted the Red Sox with chants of "1918!" one weekend in September 1990. The demeaning chant echoed at Yankee Stadium each time the Red Sox were there. Yankee fans also taunted the Red Sox with signs saying "1918!", "CURSE OF THE BAMBINO," pictures of Babe Ruth, and wearing "1918!" T-shirts each time they were at the Stadium. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Curse of the Bambino」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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