There are curses in every civilisation . Ancient Egyptianpriests trampled and evaporate wax effigies of the pandemonium snake Apophis to curse his name . Thebiblical figure Noahcursed his own son , Ham , after the vernal human unwittingly discovered his Padre bare in a drunken grogginess . When they wanted to wreak evil upon their enemies , Irish gentile muttered curse as they stroked and deform bullaun stone . Voodoonecromancers stick pins in fabric dolls to make their opposer suffer . In the sixteenth century , witches were burned at the stake for allegedly witch their opponents . Even onAmerican television , teen comedy " The Brady Bunch " featured an episode where the Brady kids discover a cursed Tiki amulet and are befallen by a rash of bad luck .
It ’s no surprisal , then , that baseball game has its own ample history of curses . For every inspire news report of an underdog ’s victory , there ’s also a tale of some sinister character who has cast his malocchio ( malefic eye ) upon the sport and cursed a role player or even an intact squad .
In this article , we ’ll count down baseball game ’s 10 most legendary curses . Our first expletive involves a stage set of bobblehead statuette and a sport enfranchisement that has n’t won a World Series in more than 25 twelvemonth .
10: The Mets Bobblehead Curse
Rumors of a curse haveplaguedthe Mets for decade . It was n’t until 2002 when Gold ’s Horseradish begin producing commemorating Mets bobblehead skirt , however , that fans had a whipping boy upon which to heap their many woes .
As Ken Belson of The New York Times details , nearly every Met who has ever been memorialized with a bobblehead dame has ended up peter out out the following time of year . Mike Piazza was the first New York Met to have his semblance emblazoned on a bobblehead . The next year , he hit a wee 11 home runs , down from 33 the premature time of year . 2003 ’s success John Franco went down with an accidental injury . Kazuo " Kaz " Matsui ( 2004 ) , Pedro Martinez ( 2005 ) , Paul Lo Duca ( 2007 ) and Jason Bray ( 2010 ) all failed to hold out up to their hoopla after being enshrined in a statuette . 2009 ’s Francisco Rodriguez injured his hired hand when he perforate out his father - in - law , and 2011 ’s Ike Davis was already on the handicapped list when Gold ’s announced that they were commemorate him with a bobblehead [ author : Belson ] .
The bobbleheads may be the least of the Mets worries , however . Some fan swear that the team endure from a curse that ’s even more permeative . What else could excuse why such a promising team has spent so many seasons at the bottom of the league ?
Many conceive the Mets curse is lifting , however . In June 2012,pitcherJohan Santana ( 2012 ’s bobblehead honoree ) pitched a no - batsman for the first time in Mets franchise history . While some say the Mets curse endures ( and will until they win another World Series ) , our next curse has recently been lifted .
9: The Curse of A-Rod
By 2003 , Texas Rangers third baseman Alex Rodriguez had become one of the most valuable player inbaseball . Hisbatting averageswere among the best in the game . He ’d been voted the American League ’s most worthful player ( MVP ) , and his star was on the rise .
Then , in an unprecedented move ( no currently predominate MVP had ever before been trade ) , the Rangers inked a moneymaking mass totrade A - Rod to the Red Sox . Because the trade included a voluntary salary reduction by Rodriguez , Major League Baseball put the kibosh on the deal . In what some buff afterward chew over was a repetition of 1918 ’s cursed trade of Babe Ruth , the Yankees stepped in and snatched up the rising whizz .
At the metre of the trade , in spite of being , by all score , one of the strong player in the plot , Alex Rodriguez had never win a World Series . After the Yankees acquired the star , fans were sure all that was about to exchange . As 2004 passed without a World Series victory , however , fans began piece apart Rodriguez ' career . " Look at how promising teams floundered after they signed A - Rod , " they whisper , " Maybe he ’s doomed ! " By 2005 , sports culture medium began drawing parallels between the A - Rod and Babe Ruth trades and speculating that perhaps Babe Ruth ’s execration of the Bambino , break in 2004 , had morphed into the whammy of A - Rod . As class after year overstep without a World Series win , the curse of A - Rod became legendary .
Then , in 2009 , the Yankees win the World Series . Today , some arrogate the scourge of A - Rod never existed at all . Others blame the Yankee ’s losing run on a coach .
8: The Curse of Donnie Baseball
Long before Alex Rodriguez bat his first ball , baseballsuperstar Don Mattingly ruled the biz . He was so beloved , in fact , that lover christened him with two nicknames : " Donnie Baseball " and " The Hit Man . " By the prison term Mattingly put out in 1996 , most devotee were already taking bets on when he ’d be induct into baseball ’s Hall of Fame .
Players and four-in-hand are n’t the only ace to find fault for baseball game ’s most fabled curses , however . Our next unsaved squad , Japan ’s Hanshin Tigers , blames its lover . Find out why next .
7: The Curse of the Colonel
Most of the curse on our listing are the result of avarice , disrespect or questionable decision - making on the part ofbaseball ’s players , double-decker or team owners . Blame for the swearword of the Colonel , however , rest squarely with the fans .
Almost 30 years ago , a squad call the Hanshin Tigers won the Japan Series in anupset victoryover the Seibu Lions . overweening fans took to the street to celebrate . The party ended up on a bridgework neglect a local channel , where help plunged into the river one by one , each man shouting each player ’s name as he jump from the bridge . It so happened that the act of instrumentalist surmount the number of willing jumpers . As luck would have it , there was a lifetime - size statue ofColonel Sandersstanding in front of a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken eating house . The crowd seized it and tossed it into the river in honor of MVP Randy Bass . Thus begin a losing stripe that continues to this day .
In 2009 , a body was spotted in the canal , and diver were sent in to recover it . alternatively of retrieving a corpse , however , it turned out that they had rescued the trunk of the desecrated Colonel Sanders statue . buff were bright that recovering the statue would conk out the curse . No such fate . The Tigers ' losing bar uphold – for now .
Fans may be to find fault for the curse of the Colonel . In our next segment , however , it ’s a memorial statue that hold the grudge .
6: The Curse of Billy Penn
When it was erected in 1901 , Philadelphia City Hall , top with a statue of townspeople founder William Penn , was the tallest edifice in the world . sport fans never connected the statue with the success of its sports teams until one foreboding daytime in March 1987 . On that sidereal day , a newskyscraper , One Liberty Place , was rear , overshadow the statue of Billy Penn by almost 400 fundament . Immediately , Philadelphia sports teams were plunged into a decades - long lose stripe .
The jinx of Billy Penn not only affected hometownbaseballheroes , the Phillies . It also affected Philadelphia ’s other sport dealership . In the year that One Liberty Place overshadowed the statue of William Penn , The Flyers lose the Stanley Cup finals , the Eagles crashed and burned in the NFC Championships and the 76ers bollocks up the NBA finals . There was even a Pennsylvania race horse that bombed at Belmont .
Some mockery at the idea that a statue could curse the sport dream of an total city . Those scoffers were silenced , however , when the Phillies rally to win the 2008 World Series . It sprain out that a couple of enterprising ironworker had snuck a statuette of William Penn onto the top of The Comcast Center , which in 2007 had surpassed One Liberty Place as Philly ’s tallest building .
The curse of Billy Penn is n’t the only famous baseball curse to have been levied by an inanimate object . The curse of Captain Eddie is coming up next !
5: The Curse of Captain Eddie
In 1918 , New York Giants player " Captain Eddie " Grant became the firstmajor league ball playerto become flat inWorld War I. The squad honour him with a commemorative plaque at center field in New York ’s Polo Grounds in New York . oversee by Captain Eddie , the Giants go on to win the World Series in 1921 and then again in ' 22 , ' 33 and ' 54 .
Then , in 1957 , distressed with the diminishing physical term of the Polo Grounds , the Giants relocated to San Francisco . Captain Eddie ’s brass disappeared . buff storm the playing field after the team ’s last game at the Polo Grounds , and some say the brass was looted . Others take it was simply lost in the move . In any suit , the Giants seemed to lose their mojo after they made the move to San Francisco . As decennary sink with no further World Series wins , a fable ricochet up that Captain Eddie had cursed the Giants .
Finally , squad possessor Peter Magowan order a replacement plaque . It was installed in AT&T Stadium in 2006 , and in 2010 , the Giants win the World Series . reinstall the plaque may have repeal the curse of Captain Eddie , but for close to a century , it looked like nothing would pull through the Red Sox from their curse . funny ? Read on .
4: The Curse of the Bambino
The curse of the Bambino is likely the most fabled curse in all ofbaseball . The story goes like this : Once upon a sentence , there was a wildly successful baseball game team called the Red Sox . They get ahead the first - ever World Series in 1903 , and in the decade that followed , they stock a idea - boggling five more wins . They owed much of their success to their star player Babe Ruth , also hump as " the Bambino . " Then , in 1919 , theRed Sox traded Babe Ruth to their archrival , the Yankees . 86 long and frustrating years pass before the Red Sox at long last won the 2004 World Series , breaking the curse of the Bambino .
There were unnumbered attempts to break the curse its 86 - year history . Beginning in the early 1990 ’s fans regularly falsify a " Reverse Curve " sign to scan " Reverse the Curse . " In 1992 , a Boston radio station held anexorcismin front of Fenway Park . In 2001 , uber - devotee Paul Giorgioclimbed Mount Everestand left a Red Sox ball ceiling on an altar at the elevation . In the lead - up to the 2004 derangement of the curse , Ford Motor Company even aired a TV commercial message featuring a hitchhiker who was on his elbow room to Boston to because he had " a scourge to break . "
Though legendary , most would agree that the Red Sox probably did n’t deserve to suffer for 86 geezerhood . The team that suffered from our next curse , however , merit everything they got .
3: The Curse of the Black Sox
In 1919 , sulphurous oversalary disputes , eight White Sox players put their head together and figured out a way to get the money they felt was their due . The dodging they concocted resulted in one of thebiggest scandals in baseball history .
As ringleader Arnold " Chick " Gandil confessed in a 1959 Sports Illustrated article , he was approached by two men , " Sport " Sullivan and Arnold Rothstein , who propose a confederacy to throw the 1919 World Series . Soon , another risk taker , Bill Burns , got twist of the deal and state he ’d top their fling . Rather than choose between the two deals , eight greedy White Sox conspirators decided to cash in from both company . Earnest money was exchanged , and the tidy sum was sealed .
Before they could throw the series , however , newsperson started sniffing around . Conspiracy rumorsran rearing and several histrion got cold feet . In his clause , Chick allow in to the scheme , as well as to the fact that the players go for $ 10,000 in earnest money , but he maintain that the Sox did n’t really switch the game . finally , the eight players were put on test and found to be impeccant . However , they were banned from baseball game for life , and for the next 86 years , the team live as the White Sox suffered the curse of the Black Sox . The curse was in conclusion lay to rest in 2005 when the White Sox won the World Series .
Unlike the curse of the Black Sox , our top two most legendary baseball game jinx of all fourth dimension remain unploughed .
2: The Curse of Rocky Colavito
The White Sox were n’t the only squad to be anathemise because of greed . The execration of Rocky Colavito , some say , can also be traced right away back to the tight - fisted financial practices of the Cleveland Indians universal director , Frank Lane .
Right fieldsman Rocky Colavito was a star player , a real homerunhitter . In the two season that precede his deal in 1960 , Colavito had more household runs than any other player in the American League . He thought that entitled him to a raise , but Frank Lane dissent and traded him to the Detroit Tigers . Maybe it was the cold-blooded - hearted way team manager Joe Gordon broke the news to him , coming up to Colavito on the subject and assure him " That ’s the last time you ’ll ever bat for the Indians , " but Colavito is still bitter about the trade . He ’s quoted in a 2010 Cleveland Plain Dealer article as articulate , " I loved Cleveland and the Indians . I never wanted to leave " [ source : Pluto ] .
The Indians buy Colavito back in 1965 , but the move did n’t reverse the curse . This , Colavito maintains , is because he did n’t blaspheme the Indians ; Frank Lane did . Whatever the reason , the curse remain . The Cleveland Indians have n’t come through a World Series title since 1948 . That could change in 2016 , however . Our next curse has been in effect even longer . receive out which team has the longest - running curse in baseball story next .
1: The Curse of the Billy Goat
In the former days ofbaseball , the Chicago Cubs were prizewinners . They took home the World Series title in both 1907 and 1908 . In 1916 , loaded industrialist William Wrigley buy the team and hired parvenu sports author William Veeck to help him operate it . Under the guidance of the " double Bills , " the Cubs won the National League pennon four times .
The team had a few fallow twelvemonth watch their 1938 pennon win , but nothing that kindle whispers about a swearing . Then , in 1945 , William " Billy Goat " Sianis tried to bring his preferred butt , Murphy , into Wrigley Field for plot four of the World Series . Sianis and Murphy enjoy the game until owner P.K. Wrigley , who had inherit the Cubs from his beginner William , ejected them from the sports stadium claim that the goat sense . Incensed , Billy Goat Sianis leave the athletic field muttering a curse on the team . Since then , it ’s been downhill for the Cubs .
In 1969 , the Cubs had all but cinched the crown and a shot at the World Series when , in a essential moment , a black cat streaked across the subject field . Not only did the Cubs turn a loss that wash , they also choked in 1984 , 1989 and 2003 . In fact , the Cubs are presently suffer from thelongest championship droughtin all of American sports history . It does n’t get much more unredeemed than that ! But that could finally change this class when the Cubs face the Indians .
Fans can be pretty rabid about their sports team . The next time you ’re tempted to place a condemnation on your favorite team , remember the curse of the Billy Goat and think twice about where you aim your evil oculus !
