The Curse of the Bambino

Writing in the Sunday "Week in Review" section of The New York Times, Charles McGrath* asks A Return to the Bronx: Who’s Cursed Now?  He doesn't quite come out and say that the New York Yankee move from "The House That Ruth Built" to its new digs may have visited a curse on the Yankees, but he sure hints at it.

If you were a Yankees fan with a paranoid bent, however, you could be forgiven for fretting that reverse juju is now at work, going back to last spring, while the new stadium was still going up, when a construction worker with Boston sympathies buried a Red Sox jersey bearing the name of David Ortiz, the team’s designated hitter, under some freshly poured concrete.  Tipped off, the Yankees management went to considerable expense to excavate the offending garment.

But maybe they should have left it there, or thought twice about changing homes in the first place.  How better to explain the Yankees’ sputtering start this season, or the astral winds wafting home-run balls out to right-center field with unnatural frequency?  And not that baseball superstition can entirely explain the economic collapse, but the new stadium does seem to be suffering from an attendance jinx.  There have been so many no-shows that management recently slashed the price of some of the most expensive seats, especially the embarrassingly visible ones behind home plate, and is offering freebies to many season-ticket holders.

The Comic "Tank McNamara" talked about the new stadium several different times, including this comic from 30 November 2008.

I touched on this before, at this post, but Commenter Kad Barma did pooh pooh the idea, and then got in a dig at J D Drew.  I realize J D Drew is trailing the team batting average, but I am more optimistic.  On the other hand, I am less well informed than Kad.

As for the idea of a Curse, Moses gives us one at Exodus, Chapter 20.  In one of my two classes this semester we had to read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which centers on a curse.  Notwithstanding the Pulitzer Committee giving the author a prize in 2008 for this book, I am careful in attributing to a curse something that I can attribute to the laws of physics or to common human cupidity or stupidity.  But, the Bambino does test that thesis.

This week might be a test of the thesis.

Regards  —  Cliff

* Charles McGrath appears to be a commentator on popular culture subjects for The New York Times.