Curse of the Black Sox
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The Curse of the Black Sox (also known as the Curse of Shoeless Joe) (1919–2005) was a
superstition A superstition is any belief or practice considered by non-practitioners to be irrational or supernatural, attributed to fate or magic, perceived supernatural influence, or fear of that which is unknown. It is commonly applied to beliefs and ...
or "
scapegoat In the Bible, a scapegoat is one of a pair of kid goats that is released into the wilderness, taking with it all sins and impurities, while the other is sacrificed. The concept first appears in the Book of Leviticus, in which a goat is designate ...
" cited as one reason for the failure of the
Chicago White Sox The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and p ...
to win the
World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...
from until . As with other supposed baseball
curses A curse (also called an imprecation, malediction, execration, malison, anathema, or commination) is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to one or more persons, a place, or an object. In particular, ...
, such as the crosstown
Chicago Cubs The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...
'
Curse of the Billy Goat The Curse of the Billy Goat was a sports curse that was supposedly placed on the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise in 1945, by Billy Goat Tavern owner William Sianis. The curse lasted 71 years, from 1945 to 2016. During game 4 of ...
(1945–2016), or the
Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight ...
'
Curse of the Bambino The Curse of the Bambino was a superstitious sports curse in Major League Baseball (MLB) derived from the 86-year championship drought of the Boston Red Sox between and . The superstition was named after Babe Ruth, colloquially known as " Th ...
(1918–2004), these "curses" have been publicized by the popular media over the course of time.


The curse: 1920–1958

The White Sox were dealt a severe blow in 1919 by the
Black Sox scandal The Black Sox Scandal was a Major League Baseball game-fixing scandal in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate led ...
, with several star players being suspended at a crucial time late in the 1920 season. Conventional wisdom has it that the Sox were headed for another pennant and championship and that the suspensions knocked them out of the race. In reality, the last game for the "Eight Men Out" was September 27, just three games from the end of their season. At that point the Sox had won 3 in a row and were sitting at 95–56 with 3 games to play. The
Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive F ...
were also in a hot streak, at 94–54 with 6 games to play, and halfway through a four-game sweep of the
St. Louis Browns The St. Louis Browns were a Major League Baseball team that originated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the Milwaukee Brewers. A charter member of the American League (AL), the Brewers moved to St. Louis, Missouri, after the 1901 season, where they ...
. The Indians were just a few percentage points ahead of the White Sox. The Indians would close the season with 4 wins and 2 losses, and finish with a 98–56 record. The Sox would lose 2 of their final 3 to finish 96–58.1920 Chicago White Sox at Baseball Reference
/ref> If the Sox had swept their final series against the Browns and the Indians record stayed the same, the American League would have had its first pennant playoff. Even discounting any morale boost the Indians might have received from the news of the Sox players' suspensions, the Sox return to the World Series was by no means ensured, even if there had been no suspensions. If they had finished tied, it would be noted that the Indians had won 12 of the clubs' 22 meetings, but the Sox had taken 2 of 3 in their most recent series. In any case, the Sox finished in second place, two games behind the Indians, who went on to win (and make some history) in the
1920 World Series The 1920 World Series was the championship series for Major League Baseball's 1920 season. The series was a best-of-nine format played between the American League (AL) champion Cleveland Indians and the National League (NL) champion Brooklyn ...
. However, the
New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...
, who finished in third place just a game behind the Sox in
Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...
's first year with the club, would go on to win the next three American League pennants, starting a dynasty that would be a difficult hurdle for the other AL clubs, including the White Sox, for many decades thereafter. With the players' suspensions becoming permanent, the Sox fell to seventh place in 1921. It would be the mid-1930s before the team returned to the upper half of the league, and the early 1950s before they became regular contenders again.


The curse: 1959–2005

When the White Sox finally won their next pennant, in 1959,
Jack Brickhouse John Beasley Brickhouse (January 24, 1916 – August 6, 1998) was an American sportscaster. Known primarily for his play-by-play coverage of Chicago Cubs games on WGN-TV from 1948 to 1981, he received the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hal ...
called the final out of the pennant-clinching game: ''"A forty year wait has now ended!"'' At that time, four decades was the longest stretch any major league team had gone without a World Series appearance (the crosstown Cubs had only gone 14 years after winning their last pennant). In that sense, the Black Sox "curse", or the apparent pall cast over the franchise for some decades in the wake of the scandal, had also finally ended. Despite the team's pennant victory, however, they lost the
1959 World Series The 1959 World Series featured the National League champion Los Angeles Dodgers beating the American League champion Chicago White Sox, 4–2. Each of the three games played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum drew record crowds, Game 5's atte ...
to the
Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn ...
in six games. The White Sox remained competitive for the next several years, but were not quite good enough to win. After a slump, they became contenders again starting in the late 1970s, and qualified for post-season play by winning the
American League West The American League West is one of Major League Baseball's six divisions. The division has five teams as of the 2013 season, but had four teams from 1994 to 2012, and had as many as seven teams before the 1994 realignment. Although its teams curr ...
division title in
1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP is officially completed (this is consid ...
and
1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...
and the
American League Central The American League Central is one of Major League Baseball's six divisions. This division was formed in the realignment of 1994 by moving three teams from the American League West and two teams from the American League East. Its teams are all loc ...
division title in
2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...
. The "curse" discussion was revived by the national media during the 2005 post-season, when the Sox won their first league championship since 1959 (an even longer wait than before, 46 years). During the ensuing
2005 World Series The 2005 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 2005 season. The 101st edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the American League (AL) champion Chicago White Sox and the National ...
, the White Sox swept the
Houston Astros The Houston Astros are an American professional baseball team based in Houston, Texas. The Astros compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division, having moved to the division in 2013 after ...
for their first World Series championship in 88 years (87 if the cancelled 1994 World Series is excluded). Some of this discussion found its way to the official World Series film DVD. For example, White Sox center fielder
Aaron Rowand Aaron Ryan Rowand (born August 29, 1977) is an American former professional baseball center fielder in Major League Baseball. He played for the Chicago White Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, and the San Francisco Giants and won two World Series cham ...
, in an interview for the DVD, compared the 2004 Red Sox with the 2005 White Sox: "If they could break their 'curse', so could we." In one of those ways that patterns appear to emerge in sporting events, the White Sox World Series win in 2005, along with the
Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight ...
win in 2004, symmetrically bookended the two teams' previous World Series winners and the long gaps between, with the Red Sox and White Sox last Series wins having come in 1918 and 1917, respectively.


Skeptics

There is a large faction of White Sox fans who dismiss the idea of a curse against the White Sox as a ridiculous (yet successful) ploy by the national media to sensationalize the team in efforts for increased ratings, instead attributing their drought to the more obvious reason: team mismanagement. The Comiskeys were very conservative spenders (which many hypothesize to be the reason that the Black Sox scandal even occurred in the first place) and it was not until 1958 that the family gave up majority ownership to
Bill Veeck William Louis Veeck Jr. ( ; February 9, 1914 – January 2, 1986), also known as "Sport Shirt Bill", was an American Major League Baseball franchise owner and promoter. Veeck was at various times the owner of the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Br ...
, who was an innovative marketer but lacked sufficient resources to compete with wealthier teams. Ownership then passed to the Allyn brothers, who almost moved the team to
Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...
while mediocre on-field performance continued. The team was then reacquired by Veeck, who sold it to current majority owner
Jerry Reinsdorf Jerry Michael Reinsdorf (born February 25, 1936) is the owner of the NBA's Chicago Bulls and MLB's Chicago White Sox. He started his professional life as a tax attorney with the Internal Revenue Service. He has been the owner of the White So ...
, who also owns the NBA's
Chicago Bulls The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago. The Bulls compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division. The team was founded on January 1 ...
on the West Side of town.


See also

*
Baseball superstition Baseball is a sport with a long history of superstition. From the Curse of the Bambino to some players' refusal to wash their clothes or bodies after a win, superstition is present in all parts of baseball. Many baseball players — batters, p ...
*
Black Sox scandal The Black Sox Scandal was a Major League Baseball game-fixing scandal in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate led ...
*
Curse of the Bambino The Curse of the Bambino was a superstitious sports curse in Major League Baseball (MLB) derived from the 86-year championship drought of the Boston Red Sox between and . The superstition was named after Babe Ruth, colloquially known as " Th ...
– A similar superstition surrounding the
Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight ...
(ended in 2004) *
Curse of the Billy Goat The Curse of the Billy Goat was a sports curse that was supposedly placed on the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise in 1945, by Billy Goat Tavern owner William Sianis. The curse lasted 71 years, from 1945 to 2016. During game 4 of ...
– A similar superstition surrounding the
Chicago Cubs The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...
(ended in 2016) *
Curse of Rocky Colavito The Curse of Rocky Colavito (1960-present) is a phenomenon that supposedly prevents the Cleveland Guardians of Major League Baseball (MLB) from winning, be it the World Series, the American League (AL) pennant, reaching postseason play, or even g ...
– A similar superstition surrounding the
Cleveland Guardians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central division. Since , they have ...
(ongoing) * Curse of the Colonel – A similar superstition surrounding the
Hanshin Tigers The Hanshin Tigers (Japanese: 阪神タイガース ''Hanshin Taigāsu'') are a Nippon Professional Baseball team playing in the Central League. The team is based in Nishinomiya, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and is owned by Hanshin Electric Railway ...
(Japanese baseball) *
Curse of Coogan's Bluff The Curse of Coogan's Bluff (also known as the Curse of Eddie Grant) (1958–2010) was a baseball-related superstition that allegedly prevented the San Francisco Giants Major League Baseball franchise from winning the World Series following the clu ...
– A similar superstition surrounding the
San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Yor ...
(ended in 2010) *
Sports-related curses A sports-related curse is a superstitious belief in the effective action of some power or evil, that is used to explain the failures or misfortunes of specific sports teams, players, or even cities. Teams, players, and cities often cite a "curse" ...


References


Further reading

*
Kevin Baxter, "White Sox end the curse with pitching, speed, and power", ''Miami Herald'', October 28, 2005Donovan Burba, "Hometown dilemma: Can a Cubs fan find joy in Sox success", ''Concord Monitor'', October 21, 2005Mike Hart, "The List: Odds on breaking the curse(s)", ''Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel'', November 2, 2005
{{Sports-related curses Chicago White Sox
Black Sox The Black Sox Scandal was a Major League Baseball game-fixing scandal in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate le ...
Urban legends American folklore