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Why we need a curse


BainesRules

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I know not crying about losing, being cursed, etc., is a matter of pride for a lot of White Sox fans. But if the media gets behind a White Sox curse, that would be the best possible thing that could happen to this team. What would the curse do for us? Attention, fans, and REVENUE. The supposed curses on the Cubs and Red Sox have led to them becoming among the most popular sports franchises nationally. MLB runs the league like a junior high popularity contest now. The Red Sox have their World Series, and I bet the Cubs have one within five years. I haven't lived in Chicago for many years, and I am always running into Cubs and Red Sox fans. I have not met one single White Sox fan since leaving Chicago! Why is this important? Two reasons: (1) Teams with fans and media coverage get better attendance and higher merchandise revenues. It would be a lot tougher for the ownership group to claim they are operating with a tight budget when kids in Nebraska are wearing Shingo jersies and the Cell is drawing 3 million fans a year. (2) The best players want to play for the glamour teams, like the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Braves, and now the Red Sox, and sadly, the Cubs. What do you think is going through the Adrian Beltre's mind right now-I can stay for a division winner with a huge payroll and national following or I can play for the White Sox and be buried in the back pages of the Cubune's Sports Page.

 

Would it cheapen a World Series victory if we shared it with a bunch of bandwagon fans? I don't care if I'm the only one in the bar who remembers the player behind my user name as long as I'm watching the White Sox win the World Series.

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No, thank you. First of all, just the idea makes my skin crawl. The essential part of a "curse" is b****ing constantly about past losses, Dent or Buckner or the 1969 choke. Woo woo. The Sox have always lost and then moved on, the fans are grown up about the whole thing.

 

Second, even if you could tolerate that atmosphere, it just wouldn't work. What curse would you manufacture? The Black Sox generates no pity, b/c it wasn't the team owner or a goat-wielding fan that did the misdeed -- it was the same players that the fans loved -- the most famous quote, even though it's apocryphal, is directed right at Shoeless Joe. (That's not to say Comiskey didn't have as great responsibility, probably more -- just that he didn't actually do the deed.) What else, the curse of the White Flag trade? The curse of the too-much-sloped upper deck?

 

We're not cuddly, we're not cute. And we play in a big cement part that communicates that (which was, I should add, actually built for our team). Thank God.

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Using your curse theory, if a curse brings attention, fans and revenue, there'd be no incentive to win the World Series. The longer the curse was in effect, the better.

The reasons the Red Sox won are these:

1. They were sold to a guy who DIDN'T want the stupid "curse" any longer

2. He hired a sharp young GM that most other teams would probably have dismissed as "too young"

3. He gave that GM enough financial leverage to acquire GOOD players

 

those 3 things can bust up a "curse"...

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What curse could this team have?? The Blacksox? There's nothing to market there. It's not like Boston who had so many things happen to them mainly against the Yanks.

 

Ok i know.. The curse of the Dybbers Baserunning :lolhitting

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Saw this article on the front page of Yahoo! today--thank goodness the Sox fan they interviewed made sense.

 

USA TODAY

Focus of cursed teams turns to Cubs, White Sox

 

By Anna Johnson, The Associated Press

 

So much for the Curse of the Bambino. Could the billy goat be next?

 

Some long-suffering Chicago Cubs (news) fans allowed themselves to wonder after watching the Boston Red Sox (news) sweep the St. Louis Cardinals (news) in four games to win the World Series (news - web sites) for the first time since 1918.

 

"If they can do it, so can we," said Heather Boughey, 28, of Chicago, who rooted for Boston on Tuesday night at a bar near Wrigley Field.

 

But after a disappointing season, not everyone was as optimistic.

 

"Some curses haven't been lifted," read a headline in Wednesday's Chicago Sun-Times over a columnist's story about visiting a darkened, empty Wrigley Field on Tuesday night while the Series played out elsewhere.

 

The Cubs and crosstown rival White Sox have waited longer than any other teams to repeat as World Series champions. The Cubs last won in 1908, and the White Sox haven't won since 1917.

 

Sox fans blame poor play, at least lately. But fans of the Lovable Losers claim their Cubs are cursed.

 

As the story goes, a local tavern owner put a hex on the team in 1945 when he wasn't allowed to bring his pet goat into Wrigley Field for a game. That was the last year the Cubs even made an appearance in the World Series.

 

The team's subsequent postseason struggles have reinforced the idea, like the ground ball that rolled through Leon Durham's legs in 1984 and took the Cubs' hopes to get to the World Series with it.

 

Just last year, with the Cubs five outs from the World Series, fan Steve Bartman reached for a ball hit toward his front-row seat at Wrigley Field, knocking it away from left fielder Moises Alou. The Cubs then gave up eight runs to the Marlins and squandered another lead in Game 7 the next night.

 

That renewed talk of the curse. Some fans believe that could change because of Boston's win.

 

"It lets us know, whether or not you believe in curses, that if they are true, they can be overcome," said Dave Kunicki, who helps run a Cubs fan newsletter, The Heckler.

 

The curse on Boston - which hadn't won a World Series since 1918 when it, incidentally, beat the Cubs - dates back to 1920 when the team sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees (news).

 

Now that that curse is lifted, Dorothy Stott, 76, of Chicago has renewed hope she will see the Cubs win a World Series in her lifetime: "There's always next year."

 

The White Sox have their own tortured history with the World Series. Eight "Black Sox" players were accused of participating in a gambling scheme to throw the 1919 World Series and were banned from baseball for life.

 

White Sox fan George Bova, 43, of Elmhurst, Ill., called curses "goofy" excuses: They're not to blame for the White Sox not being in a World Series since 1959.

 

"There were tangible reasons that our team wasn't good enough as opposed to cursed baseballs or Babe Ruth being traded," said Bova, who runs a White Sox fan Web site. "Unlike a Cubs fan, we have never turned our losing into some sort of lovable attribute."

 

Curse?

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If a curse can help you, what the F took the Red Sox so long to win it all?  Wasn't it a long enough curse when they were at 30 years?  50 years? 70 years?

There is no f'ing curse in chicago.

 

The Red Sox have actually had MANY world series contenders and they WERE warrant of possibly having a curse.

 

Although, when my f** cub fan friends sometimes subtly talk about there curse, I laugh, and say, maybe when you guys dont suck for 5 consecutive years i will consider it.

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yeah, you know, like the curse of the "Fish Hook" the Florida Marlins had, or the great "Snake Bitten" curse of the Arizona Diamondbacks, or how about the great "Lack of Prayer" curse the Anaheim Angels had? Wait... those teams didn't have a curse and they won the World Series!!! Listen, if next year the White Sox go deep into the playoffs and the Cubs choke again a lot of the fair weather fans will show up and "support" the White Sox.

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Saw this article on the front page of Yahoo! today--thank goodness the Sox fan they interviewed made sense.

 

White Sox fan George Bova, 43, of Elmhurst, Ill., called curses "goofy" excuses: They're not to blame for the White Sox not being in a World Series since 1959.

 

"There were tangible reasons that our team wasn't good enough as opposed to cursed baseballs or Babe Ruth being traded," said Bova, who runs a White Sox fan Web site. "Unlike a Cubs fan, we have never turned our losing into some sort of lovable attribute."

Bova's the guy who runs WSI.

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