The 1967 World Series is referred to, in Ken Coleman’s The Impossible Dream, as “the series nobody lost.” Coleman describes Jim Lonborg as just not having enough steam to make it through Game 7 on two days’ rest. Six innings, six earned runs just isn’t going to get the job done, sadly. As I mentioned in a response to Puma, there’s no talk of curses or anything. Just a great World Series that didn’t break the right way.
Obviously, we’re all referring back to 1967 when considering this World Series—no one even had to listen to the announcers at Game 1 to understand why Yaz was on the mound—Yaz who is less available to the public than I am. But there’s something valuable to looking back to then, too. The 1967 Series is pre-”Curse,” pre-Munson/Fisk, pre-media inflating this Yankee/Sox rivalry to the point where I wonder how much I hate the Yankees just because ESPN tells me to.
Puma, in his comment, seems to suggest that the “curse” is about the Yankees. It’s about beating the Yankees. We sell Ruth, the Yankees win 26 rings, and we win nothing. Part of the stupidity about the myth is that it’s set up in such a meaningless fashion. The Sox would never win a ring by beating the Yankees—so as rivals, they can only be rivals for the pennant. But no one complains that the Sox have “only” won the penant four times since World War II. No one says that that sort of record is indicative of a curse—or of choking or anything. In the past 60 years, it’s pretty much been the same eight or so teams winning the pennant. So even with the best odds, the Sox would have made it, what, 7.5 times? Five seems to be a pretty decent rate. Since 1945, only three teams have been to the WS more times than the Sox (from the AL): New York, Oakland, and Baltimore. The latter two have been six times—so only once more than the Red Sox. Furthermore, though Puma notes correctly that the Sox are 1–3 in the postseason against the Yanks, this victory this year still isn’t the “first” time the Sox beat the Yanks since the sale of Ruth: Every year the Sox made it to the World Series (
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