The
inaugural 140-game season of the American League began on April 24,
1901. Boston's team was given the nickname "Americans" to
differentiate them from the cross-town National League "Nationals."
The press also dubbed them the Somersets, Plymouth Rocks, Collinsmen,
Puritans and Pilgrims. Team owner John I. Taylor decided that, for
the 1908 season, they would wear white uniforms with red stockings
while playing at home. The name Boston Red Sox was born. Boston was
the strongest team in the newly founded league, finishing first in
six out of their first eighteen seasons. They appeared in five World
Series between 1901 and 1918, winning all five.
In 1914, the Boston Red Sox (now
owned by Joe Lannin) purchased the contracts of Ernie Shore, Ben Egan
and a young pitcher named George Herman Ruth from the minor-league
Baltimore Orioles. Ruth went
by the nickname "The Babe" or "The Bambino." He
was brought up to Boston's major league team on July 11, 1914. That
season, he appeared in four games with a 2-1 record. The Babe had
eighteen wins for the Red Sox in 1915, and 23 in 1916. Boston won
both years' World Series. Baseball writers anointed Babe Ruth as one
of the best left handed pitchers the game had ever known. On October
9, 1916, Babe Ruth pitched a fourteen inning complete game victory
over the Brooklyn Dodgers in game two of the World Series.
In 1917, The Bambino led the league in shutouts (nine) and ERA (1.75),
with a 24-13 record. Lannin sold the team to Harry Harrison Frazee
at the end of 1917. Rosters were being decimated as players left to
fight in World War I. Ruth helped by playing in the field (mostly
in left) when he was not pitching. Despite batting in only 95 games,
he hit the most home runs in the majors. He was on the mound for game
one of the 1918 Fall Classic, where he pitched a complete game shut
out to beat the Chicago Cubs 1-0. He would also get the win in game
four of that series, helping the Red Sox defeat Chicago four games
to two. The Boston Red Sox won three championships in The Babe's first
four full seasons with the team.
In 1919, The Red Sox and Ruth could not agree on a contract; the Babe
settled for $10000 per year (other top players in the league were
earning upwards of $15000). In addition to earning only half of what
he felt was appropriate, The Babe no longer wanted to pitch; Boston's
new owner Harry Frazee and Ruth were not getting along. Babe Ruth
hit a record 29 home runs, more than any other major league team.
Prior to the 1920 season, Ruth was sold to Colonel Jacob Ruppert's
New York Yankees for $100,000, plus a loan collateralized by Fenway
Park. Ruth's .376 batting average, 54 home runs and 137 RBIs generated
attendance of 1,289,422 fans in his first year with the Yankees. That
was the first time in baseball history that a team's home attendance
exceeded one million. This led to the construction of Yankee Stadium,
"The House That Ruth Built." On July 12, 1921, Ruth broke
Roger Conner's record for career home runs when he swatted his 137th
off of St. Louis Browns pitcher Dixie Davis.
The New York Yankees continued to share the Polo Grounds with the
New York Giants until 1923 (when Yankee Stadium opened). That year,
Ruth (batting .393 with 41 home runs) led the Yankees to their first
of a record twenty-six World Series Championships. The Babe hit
his last three home runs (numbers 712, 713 and 714), while playing
for the Boston Braves, in a game against Pittsburgh on May 25, 1935.
He retired eight days later. The Bambino ranks among the best ever
in dozens of pitching and hitting records. He was inducted into
the Baseball Hall of Fame, on February 2, 1936, as one of the five
charter members. The other four were Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy
Mathewson, and Honus Wagner.
Boston has appeared in only five World Series since 1918, losing
four of them in seven games. In 1946, they tied game seven in the
top of the eighth against the Cardinals, but gave up the winning
run in the bottom of the inning. Boston had a 3-0 lead in game seven
of the 1975 Series, but ended up losing by one run to the Reds.
They were one strike away from winning the 1986 Series four times
in game six. The Red Sox then had a 3-0 lead going into the sixth
inning of game seven, but gave up eight runs in the final three
innings to lose the game. The Sox carried a three-run lead into
the bottom of the eighth of game seven of the 2003 ALCS. They allowed
New York to score three runs to tie the game. Then, the Yankees
won on Aaron Boone's home run in the eleventh inning. The Red Sox
lost by five runs to Cleveland in the 1948 American League tiebreaker.
Thirty years later, Boston had a 2-0 lead until New York's Bucky
Dent hit his infamous home run over the Fenway scoreboard in the
seventh inning of the AL East tiebreaker. In 1949, they needed to
win one of their two final games to win the American League (both
against New York). They blew a 4-0 lead in the first game, and lost
the second by a score of 5-3. Many consider Boston's performance
after the departure of Babe Ruth to be attributable to "The
Curse of the Bambino."
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