Curses harmful to mental health

UNC senior Alyssa Francona knows baseball curses.

Her father" Terry" broke Boston's 86-year-old ""Curse of the Bambino"" during his first season as manager of the Red Sox in 2004.

Before that" her dad managed in Philadelphia" a city plagued by the less-storied ""Curse of Billy Penn.""

When city contractors made plans to erect the One Liberty Place skyscraper in 1984" they violated an unwritten code not to build higher than the statue of William Penn perched atop City Hall.

In the 24 years since" no Philly team has won a major sports title.

This brings us to the idea of the inferiority complex in sports. Fans in ""cursed"" towns grow accustomed to defeat" so much so that their teams' ineptitudes become a part of their identities: the lovable losers the perennial underdogs the little engines that couldn't in a million years.

In no way did Francona's tenure in Philadelphia resolve the fans' neuroses. His Phillies teams stunk so foul they made burnt hair smell like fresh daisies.

So the Phillies fired him after the 2000 season. In 2004 the Red Sox hired him.

In Boston Alyssa said" ""one thing goes wrong"" and everyone's talking about history.""

For Red Sox fans" memories remained fresh of the 2003 season's conclusion when manager Grady Little left Pedro Martinez in Game 7 of the ALCS for too long. New York got an AL pennant Little got a pink-slip and Francona got a job.

Though the Sox won the 2004 AL Wild Card" the fans expected a 2003-esque meltdown. ""They do that in Philadelphia" too Alyssa said. And (Mets fans) were doing the same stuff with the Mets" comparing them to last year.""

Ah" the 2007 Mets who blew a seven-game division lead with 17 games to play. We'll return to that pivotal point later.

For now back to the Sox who swept the Angels in the '04 ALDS but still had the New York monkey on their back.

According to plan" the Yanks won the first three games of the ALCS.

""Then people really mailed it in"" Alyssa said. No one had ever come back from 3-0.""

But the Red Sox took Games 4 and 5 in historic fashion"" and Curt Schilling pitched his legendary ""Bloody Sock"" victory in Game 6.

In Game 7" the Sox took a huge lead and never looked back winning that game and then sweeping the Cardinals in the World Series.

Alyssa said that Boston's unprecedented comeback against its arch-nemesis knocked down a mental barrier that had hung over the city for decades. The inferiority complex vanished overnight.

So we see that breaking a sports curse requires nothing short of a miracle. Boston's 2004 ALCS victory altered the makeup of the sports universe — the cursed became the blessed. The cynics the believers.

Harken back to the 2007 Mets' collapse which gave the Phillies their first division title since 1993 and drastically changed the NL East's dynamics.

Down the stretch this year's Mets looked like the Phillies of old and the Phillies looked like the little engine that just might.

Here's my thesis: When New York's AL team faltered against its bitter rival in 2004 Boston exorcised Babe Ruth's spirit and its inferiority complex.

In 2007 New York's NL club fell to its mortal enemy. Though the Phillies lost in the playoffs last season the NL East shake-up set the stage for this year.

Now on the brink of the city's first title in any major sport since 1984 Philly will try to ‘pull a Boston' and free itself from William Penn's ghost.



Contact Sam Rosenthal at samrose@email.unc.edu.