The strange dichotomy of the Bambino Curse

1946: The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Red Sox on Enos Slaughter's "Mad Dash". Since this is the first time the Red Sox have suffered any symptoms of what could possibly be construed as a curse, nothing really bad happens to Slaughter, 3-game winner Harry Brecheen, or most anyone else on the St. Louis roster. But the Cards don't reach the World Series again for 18 years. (They win in '64, beating the Yankees. Which in itself is some sort of convoluted second-hand karma.)

1967: Cards-Sox II. St. Louis beats Boston in 7 in an unspectacular, non-embarrassing and not horrifically heartbreaking fashion. This, and the fact that they actually were the better team (Gibson vs. Lonborg? Come on) is why they escape mostly unscathed and go on to win one more World Series 15 years later against the Brewers. Then they get a Game 7 assbeating from the Royals in '85, and the franchise does not recover (though the almost assured berth in the '04 postseason leaves things open). Again, no big deal.

1975: The Red Sox might as well have won the whole thing, considering all anyone remembers is Game 6. But they didn't, so damn. Anyways, the Reds would have an amazing follow-up year in which they sweep the Yankees in the World Series, and they'd sweep again in '90 (more on that later) -- but let's look back at '75: who was the WS MVP that tied it 3-3 in the 7th inning of Game 7? Pete Rose. And where'd he wind up? Yeah.

1978: AKA The "Bucky Fucking Dent" year. Not as famously AKA "the last year the Yankees would win a World Series for nearly two decades as Steinbrenner set shady PIs on a postseason-slump Dave Winfield, fired Billy Martin about fifty times and kept rings off Don Mattingly's fingers".

1986: Well, what've the Mets done since? Besides see their two marquee players destroy themselves with cocaine?

1988: In which Oakland sweeps the Red Sox in the ALCS, with the help of four-game-saver Dennis Eckersley. The next save opportunity for Eck came in Game 1 of the World Series. And he blew it. Thanks to a gimpy Kirk Gibson. The A's would go on to lose the series. They'd win it in '89, but it was overshadowed by the big San Francisco Earthquake.

1990: Oakland beats Boston's ass in the ALCS again. Then they get swept and humiliated by the Reds. Mark McGwire will hit .201 the following year.

1995: The Indians beat the Red Sox in the Divisional Series. Then they beat the Mariners. Then they go on to help provide the only piece of evidence that the Braves aren't the most futile dynasty of the modern era by losing the World Series to Atlanta. Two years later, they lose to the Marlins. The Marlins. A year later, they beat Boston in the ALDS again and fall to the unstoppable-juggernaut-of-death '98 Yankees in the ALCS. And then Boston beats them in the '99 ALDS as a minor bit of payback. Rumors that Rocky Colavito was spotted at a nearby bar with an Ouija board and a photo of Ruth are never verified.

1999: Here's where the Sox-beater curses begin to sort of intersect. The Yankees beat Boston in the ALCS, then beat the coulda-been nu-Sox Braves in the World Series. The Yankee dynasty continues unabated in 2000, when they beat... the Mets. (see '86.) Everything is just peachy. And then, in 2001, the unthinkable happens: Mariano Rivera is afflicted with a complete nervous breakdown brain-lapse, the Arizona Diamonbacks win the World Series, and the Yankees will go on to drop the Fall Classic to another '90s-vintage expansion team in...

2003: You want to tempt fate? You want to knock around Pedro Martinez and parade around Aaron Boone as some next-gen Bucky Dent? Fine. Go ahead. Enjoy yourselves. I'll be sitting here laughing my ass off as the Greatest Sports Dynasty Ever loses the World Series mere weeks later to the Florida Marlins. In six.