December 26, 1919: The Yankees Purchase Babe Ruth

Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert,

manager Miller Huggins, and slugger Babe Ruth

December 26, 1919: The New York Yankees purchase the contract of outfielder George Herman "Babe" Ruth from the Boston Red Sox. It is the most famous transaction in the history of North American professional sports -- or, if you're a Red Sox fan, the most infamous.

Let's take a step back, to properly set it up: On July 30, 1919, Harry Frazee, owner of the Red Sox, traded pitcher Carl Mays to the Yankees for pitchers Bob McGraw and Allen Russell (neither of whom ever did much for either club) and $40,000. There was a hell of a to-do about this, as Mays had left, or "jumped" the Sox and gone home, and was suspended. At the time, the rules said you couldn't trade a suspended player.

This trade pretty much split the American League: Frazee, Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert, and Chicago White Sox owner Charlie Comiskey were on one side; on the other were AL founder and President Ban Johnson and the owners of the other 5 clubs. They were the brothers John and Ben Shibe and Connie Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics, former Yankee manager Clark Griffith of the Washington Senators, Frank Navin and Walter Briggs of the Detroit Tigers, Phil Ball of the St. Louis Browns, and Sunny Jim Dunn of the Cleveland Indians.

The National Commission, which oversaw baseball in those days, ruled in favor of Frazee and Ruppert, and Mays became the 1st major player to go from Frazee's Sox to Ruppert's Yanks. There would be more. (Mays' role in the death of Cleveland Indians player Ray Chapman is a story for another time.)

As a result of the Mays contretemps, Frazee, Ruppert, and Comiskey, now known as "the Insurrectos," could pretty much now only make deals with each other, as the other AL owners, "the Loyal Five," wanted nothing to do with them.

Due to circumstances that Frazee should have been able to control, but didn't, he had to get rid of Babe Ruth, who, in 1918 and '19, had gone from being baseball's best lefthanded pitcher to being the biggest power hitter in the game, but also the biggest headache. He was already a carouser, and he was demanding that his salary be doubled from $10,000 to $20,000 for the 1920 season.

So Frazee sold the Babe to the Yankees, mainly because Ruppert was willing to pay $125,000 for Ruth's contract; while the other possibility, the White Sox, were run by Comiskey, a notorious cheapskate. (His parsimony led to a problem with that year's World Series, as you may be aware.)

So if you're a Red Sox fan, don't blame Frazee for what happened: He didn't have much choice, unless he wanted the press and the public to think Ruth was running the team.

The deal was announced on January 5, 1920. People in Boston weren't happy about it. But nobody could have foreseen what would result from it. Ruth revolutionized the game with the Yankees, turning the home run from a rare thing into a common occurrence. And there would be more deals between Ruppert and Frazee, as Mays would be joined on the Yankee pitching staff by former Sox Waite Hoyt, "Bullet Joe" Bush and "Sad Sam" Jones.

From 1918 to the present... Yankees 27, Red Sox 0. Without cheating, anyway.

UPDATE: The Red Sox have a team Hall of Fame. From their 1912, 1915, 1916 and 1918 World Champions: Manager Bill Carrigan, shortstop Everett Scott, 3rd baseman Larry Gardner, left fielder Duffy Lewis, center fielder Tris Speaker, right fielder Harry Hooper, and pitchers Smoky Joe Wood, Dutch Leonard, Herb Pennock and Babe Ruth.

But from the 1920s, they have inducted only outfielder Ira Flagstead and pitcher Red Ruffing -- and, in Ruffing's case, it's only because he's in the main Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, and that for what he did later, after he was... traded to the Yankees. From the 1930s: Team owner Tom Yawkey, general manager Eddie Collins, shortstop and manager Joe Cronin, catcher Rick Ferrell, and pitchers Lefty Grove and Wes Ferrell. That should give you an idea of how bad the Sox were from the 1919 sale of Ruth until Yawkey bought the team in 1933.

*

December 26, 1919 was a Friday. It was the off-season for baseball, The NFL and the NBA did not yet exist. The NHL did, but it held no games that day.

In Western Canada, there was 1 game in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. The Victoria Cougars beat the Seattle Metropolitans, 2-1, at the Patrick Arena, built by the hockey-playing brothers Lester and Frank Patrick, in Victoria, the capital of the Province of British Columbia. 

This was no mean feat, as the Metros had won the PCHA title and reached the Stanley Cup Final in the previous season, against the NHL Champion Montreal Canadiens, but it was called off due to the Spanish Flu epidemic. In 1917, they had beaten the Canadiens to become the 1st American-based team to win the Stanley Cup. They would go on to win the PCHA title again in 1920, but lose the Stanley Cup Final to the Ottawa Senators, and fold in 1924.

The Cougars would win the West Coast Hockey League title in 1925, and beat the Canadiens, making them the last team from outside the NHL to win the Stanley Cup. They moved to the Western Hockey League, and won their title in 1926, but lost the Stanley Cup Final to the Montreal Maroons. Along with their league, they folded, but the bulk of their players were signed for a new team in the NHL. While not officially true, it can legitimately said that the Victoria Cougars still exist today, as the Detroit Red Wings.

In Britain, December 26 is known as Boxing Day, and England's Football League plays on the day, usually nearby rivals, to make it easier for people to travel. In this era, there tended to be what Americans would call a split doubleheader: Two teams facing each other at one's ground on Christmas Day, and at the other's ground the next day.

For North London team Arsenal, it wasn't a nearby team on this occasion. On the 25th, they lost to Derby County, 2-1 at The Baseball Ground, so named because Derbyshire was one of the few parts of the British Isles where baseball caught on, but only briefly. By this point, the stadium had been redeveloped so that playing baseball there was just about impossible, and you had a stadium which, like the Polo Grounds in New York, was named for a sport that was not being played there. On the 26th, Arsenal and Derby played at Highbury, and Arsenal won, 1-0.

October 27, 2004: The Curse of the Bambino Is Broken

October 27, 2004: The Curse of the Bambino is finally broken. Well, sort of. The Boston Red Sox win their 1st World Series in 86 years with a 3-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, in Game 4 at Busch Memorial Stadium.

Derek Lowe ends up as the winning pitcher in all 3 postseason series-clinchers for the Sox, the 1st pitcher of any team to do so. (Andy Pettitte became the 2nd in 2009.) Johnny Damon hits a home run for Boston. Manny Ramirez is voted Series MVP‚ as he leads Boston to the 4-game sweep with a .412 batting average and 4 RBI. The last out was Cardinal shortstop Edgar Renteria grounding back to pitcher Keith Foulke, who threw to 1st baseman Doug Mientkiewicz.

With the New England Patriots having won Super Bowl XXXVIII 9 months earlier, this win also gave Boston its 1st MLB-NFL double. They would achieve it again in 2018-19. Sports Illustrated had previously named entire national teams as a collective Sportspeople of the Year -- U.S. men's hockey in 1980, U.S. women's soccer in 1999 -- but, in 2004, for the 1st time, they gave the award to an entire major league sports team, the Red Sox.

Some people had joked that the Red Sox winning the World Series would be a sign of the Apocalypse. Well, according to the Bible, one such sign is the Moon turning blood red -- and, in fact, there was a full lunar eclipse during the game. (Although this was hardly a surprise, as newspapers and news networks had mentioned it before nightfall.)

A sign held aloft at the victory parade in Boston sums it all up: "Our (late) parents and g'parents thank you." So many people said, "We wanted them to win it in our lifetime, just once." Well, as Dan Shaughnessy of The Boston Globe, who has written more and better about the franchise than anyone, said in the following weeks, "There was no spike in the obits. We checked. All those people who said they couldn't die until the Red Sox won a World Series decided to live a little longer."

Of course, they didn't win it just once in those people’s lifetimes – except for those who died between October '04 and October '07.

And now that we know that the Red Sox are a bunch of lying, cheating, dirty, low-down, no-good bastards, we can tell the truth: They still haven't really won a World Series since 1918*. The Curse lives.

So all those Sox fans who weren't old enough to suffer through Harry Frazee, Johnny Pesky, Harry Agganis, Tony Conigliaro, Larry Barnett, Bobby Sprowl, Bucky Dent, John McNamara and Bill Buckner – though most of them did get through what Nomar, Pedro and Grady put them through – and showed more bastardry in victory than their forebears ever showed in defeat can kiss my 27 rings (well, 7 in my lifetime – for the moment), and then they can kiss my Pinstriped ass.

UPDATE: The Red Sox have a team Hall of Fame. From the 2004 World Champions, they have inducted designated hitter David Ortiz, left fielder Manny Ramirez, center fielder Johnny Damon, right fielder Trot Nixon, catcher Jason Varitek, 1st baseman Kevin Youkilis; pitchers Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, Derek Lowe and Mike Timlin; team president Larry Lucchino, scout George Digby, executives Dick Bresciani and Elaine Weddington Steward, farm system director Ben Mondor, guest relations director Al Green, broadcasters Jerry Remy and Joe Castiglione, and longtime vendor Arthur D'Angelo. Team owner John W. Henry, manager Terry Francona and general manager Theo Epstein have not yet been inducted.

From their 2007 World Champions, add 2nd baseman Dustin Pedroia, 3rd baseman Mike Lowell, and pitchers Jon Lester and Jonathan Papelbon.

*

October 27, 2004 was a Wednesday. It was the last baseball game of the season. Football was in midweek. The NHL team owners had locked the players out, so there were no games. And the NBA season wasn't scheduled to begin until the following Tuesday. So there were no other scores on this historic day.

October 20, 2004: The Boston Red Sox Slay the Pinstriped Dragon

October 20, 2004: The Red Sox ruin the anniversary of Mickey Mantle's birth. Unlike the 2003-18 Red Sox, Mickey didn't need no steroids to win baseball games. The chemicals he ingested were, most definitely, not performance-enhancing.

Having dropped 3 straight to the Sox to force a Game 7 at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees had nothing left, at least not emotionally. The Red Sox led 6-0 after 2 innings. It was 8-1 after 4. The final was 10-3.

Having let Andy Pettitte and David Wells get away, the Yankees had no lefthanded starting pitchers to counter the Boston lefthanders: David Ortiz (who hit a home run in the 1st inning), Johnny Damon (who hit one in the 2nd and another in the 4th), Trot Nixon (limited to a single in 5 at-bats), and the switch-hitting Mark Bellhorn (who homered lefthanded in the 8th) and Bill Mueller (who hit 2 singles).

Instead, manager Joe Torre had a choice of Kevin Brown, a great pitcher not that long ago but now unreliable; and Javier Vázquez, who, as his later career would confirm, seemed to pitch well for everybody but the Yankees. Torre removed Brown after loading the bases in the 2nd, already down 2-0 because of the steroid-aided homer of Ortiz. He brought in Vázquez, who gave up the 1st of Damon's homers, a grand slam.

This was not the kind of loss that crushes you because you apparently had it won at the end, and blew it. We got beat early. From the 1st inning onward, we knew the Red Sox were going to win the game. We knew it, and their fans knew it. There was nothing that could be done. And we had to stick it out, all 9 innings, and hear those Red Sox fans give us the business in our house for, as it turned out, 3 hours and 31 minutes. Never mind what the clock said: This was the longest game in Yankee history.

To paraphrase the movie Goodfellas: It was revenge for Bucky Dent, and a lot of other things. And there was nothing that we could do about it. The Red Sox were beloved in the national media, and the Yankees weren't. And we had to sit still and take it. It was among the New Englanders. It was real chowderhead shit.

It was 12:01 AM, October 21, when Ruben Sierra grounded to 2nd for the final out. So not only had the Sox ended the Curse of the Bambino, they had ruined the birthdays of both Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford.

Finally, after losing the Pennant to the Yankees on the final day in 1949, blowing the Division title to the Yankees in 1977 and 1978, losing the ALCS to the Yankees in 1999, and the shock of 2003, the Red Sox and their fans had their revenge over the Yankees. They had slain the big Pinstriped Dragon. 

But, as Dan Shaughnessy of The Boston Globe, who knows more about the Red Sox than anyone, pointed out, it wasn't over: "The Curse of the Bambino is not that the Red Sox can't beat the Yankees. The Curse of the Bambino is that the Red Sox can't win the World Series." They lost the 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986 World Series; the 1948 AL Playoff game; fell a little short of the AL Eastern Division title in 1972, 1974, 1979 and 1991; and lost the ALCS in 1988 and 1990. And some of those losses were crushing. But none of those defeats had anything to do with the Yankees, although the 1986 World Series loss, the most crushing of them all, was to a New York team.

Shaughnessy's Globe teammate, columnist Bob Ryan, was asked if only the Pennant, even with a win over the Yankees, would have been enough. He was emphatic: "Let's get this out of the way, right now: Would it have been enough for the Red Sox to beat the Yankees, without winning the World Series? The answer is, 'No!'"

It would take 7 more days for the Sox to truly break the Curse, beating the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. The Cards had beaten them in the Series in 1946 and '67. The Sox have since beaten them again, in 2013.

On July 30, 2009, it was revealed that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, the 2 biggest reasons the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 and again in 2007, had failed steroid tests. They hadn't earned a fucking thing. They'd cheated. Ortiz was still there when they won it all again in 2013. Those 3 titles are fake, and they goddamned well know it. 1918 * Forever.

The baseball media, of course, will never give the Yankees the same benefit of the doubt that they give the Red Sox. Well, to hell with them. The world knows the truth, whether they accept it or not. They would say the Yankees "cheated" to win their titles. Really? The evidence against the 1996-2003 Yankees is incredibly flimsy. The evidence against the 2003-2013 Red Sox is overwhelming. The evidence against the 2018 Red Sox, while separate, is also pretty strong.

*

October 20, 2004 was a Wednesday. It was midweek, so no football games. The NBA season hadn't started yet. And the NHL team owners had locked the players out. But there was one other score in North American sports that day:

Lost in the excitement of the Red Sox' revenge over the Yankees, Jim Edmonds hit a home run in the bottom of the 12th inning, to give the Cardinals a 6-4 win over the Houston Astros at Busch Memorial Stadium, and send the NLCS to a decisive Game 7. The Cards won the next day. But the Red Sox swept them in the World Series, and finished the job.

Also, there was UEFA Champions League Group Stage action:

* Arsenal FC of North London played Panathinaikos to a 2-2 draw at Stadio Apostolos Nikolaidis in Athens, Greece.

* Chelsea FC beat CSKA Moscow, 2-0 at Stamford Bridge in West London.

* Paris Saint-Germain beat FC Porto of Porto, Portugal, 2-0 at the Parc des Princes in Paris.

* AC Milan beat FC Barcelona, 1-0 at the San Siro in Milan.

* Internazionale Milano beat Valencia, 5-1 at Estadio de Mestalla in Valencia, Spain.

* Shakhtar Donetesk beat Celtic of Glasgow, Scotland, 3-0 at RSC Olimpiyskiy in Donetsk, Ukraine.

* Werder Bremen of Germany beat Anderlecht, 2-1 at Constant Vanden Stock Stadium in Brussels, Belgium.

* And PSV Eindhoven of the Netherlands beat Rosenborg, 2-1 at Lerkendal Stadion in Trondheim, Norway.

September 11, 1918: The Early World Series

September 11, 1918: The Boston Red Sox win the World Series. They beat the Chicago Cubs 2-1 in Game 6 at Fenway Park. A 3rd inning error by Max Flack gave the Sox their runs, and Carl Mays pitched very well to gain the win. The Sox won the Series despite the lowest batting average ever for a Series-winning team: .186.

World War I was ongoing. The U.S. Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, had issued the "work or fight order," meaning that anyone in "non-essential" jobs (like sports) had to either enlist in the armed forces, take a job with some connection to the war effort, by July 1, or be subject to being drafted into the U.S. Army.

As a result, baseball had to be shut down a month early, although the World Series was still allowed to be played. Unlike in the later World War II, there was no Commissioner of Baseball at the time, and thus no letter from the Commissioner to the President of the United States, asking what baseball should do; and thus no "green light letter" from the President, saying that baseball should continue.

September 11 was a date fraught with difficult history in America long before al-Qaeda's destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001:

* The Battle of Brandywine that the Continental Army lost outside Philadelphia in 1777.

* The Sugarloaf Massacre in Pennsylvania in 1780.

* The threat to Fort McHenry in Baltimore, with the battle coming 2 days later.

* The Mountain Meadows Massacre in Utah in 1857.

* The leadup to the Battle of Antietam in Maryland in 1862.

* The Ninth Avenue Elevated derailment in New York in 1905.

* Charles Lindbergh's anti-Semitic speech in Des Moines in 1941.

* Hurricane Edna in New England in 1954.

* Hurricane Carla in Texas in 1961.

* A plane crash in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1974.

* A bomb killing a policeman at Grand Central Terminal in New York in 1976.

* Hurricane Iniki in Hawaii in 1992.

All that before 2001 -- and the Benghazi attack in 2012.

On September 11, 1918, no one knew if there would be a 1919 baseball season, or when baseball would ever start up again. It was not widely known that the war would be over in 2 more months. So many other sports competitions had been canceled for the duration in 1914. England's Football League and FA Cup had been canceled for the duration in 1915. There was no 1916 Olympics.

But the war did end on November 11, 1918. On April 19, 1919, the next season started on time. By the end of that year, most major sports competitions had been resumed, even in war-torn Europe. The 1920 Olympics were granted to hard-hit Belgium, and the 1924 Olympics to France: Summer to Paris, and the 1st Winter Olympics to Chamonix in the Alps.

As for the 1918 World Series: George Herman "Babe" Ruth (pictured above, in 1918), who had already helped pitch the Red Sox to win the 1915 and 1916 World Series, and had led the American League in home runs this season with 11, pitched and won Games 1 and 4 for the Sox, although, in Game 4, his streak of consecutive scoreless innings in World Series play ended at 29 2/3rds. That would remain a record until 1961. (It would not be the only record to be set by Ruth and broken that year.)

With this one exception, the earliest that a World Series has ever ended is on October 2. It's happened twice: In 1932, when the New York Yankees (with a Babe Ruth with a very different image) beat the Chicago Cubs; and in 1954, when the New York Giants (with Willie Mays making the most famous defensive play in the history of sports 4 days earlier) beating the Cleveland Indians. Both of those World Series were won in 4-game sweeps.

Let me address the elephant in the room: How did the Babe respond to the work or fight order? Until the World Series was over, he didn't respond to it at all. He kept on playing, exposing himself to the draft -- which he had every legal right to do.

Once it ended, he gained exemption from the war draft by accepting a nominal position with a Pennsylvania steel mill. The end of the war in November set Ruth free to play baseball without such contrivances.

I will leave it to the individual reader to decide whether Ruth's method of avoiding military service, while completely legal, was moral. However, unlike with what Jack Dempsey, who became Heavyweight Champion of the World in 1919, did in 1917 and 1918, and unlike Mickey Mantle, who was exempt from service in the Korean War of the early 1950s because of his osteomyelitis, nobody ever called Ruth a "slacker" or a "coward."

Over the next few years, Sox owner Harry Frazee began to break up his team. He really couldn't keep Ruth, leading to the myth of "The Curse of the Bambino." But the real problem was that he broke up a really good pitching staff.

As a result, the Red Sox did not get into another American League Pennant race until 1938. They didn't win another Pennant until 1946. They lost the ensuing World Series with Game 7 tied in the 8th. They lost a single-game Playoff for the Pennant in 1948. They blew the last 2 games of the 1949 season, only needing to win 1 to win the Pennant.

They lost the 1967 World Series in 7 games. They blew the 1972 AL Eastern Division title in the last week. They blew another Division title in 1974. They lost the 1975 World Series despite leading Game 7 3-0 after 5 innings. They blew another Division title in 1977. They blew a 9-game Division lead in July 1978 (remember, the Yankees were 14 games back, but they weren't the 2nd place team), and lost a 1-game Playoff for the title.

They lost the 1986 World Series despite leading Game 6 5-3 and needing 1 more strike in the 10th inning, and leading Game 7 3-0 going to the bottom of the 6th. They got swept in the AL Championship Series in 1988, and again in 1990. They got swept in the AL Division Series in 1995, and again in 1998. They got to the ALCS in 1999, and clowned their way through another loss. They nearly pulled off a "reverse choke" for the 2000 Division title, but didn't quite make it. They lost the 2003 ALCS despite leading Game 7 5-2 going to the bottom of the 8th.

"The Curse of the Bambino is not, 'The Red Sox can't beat the Yankees.' The Curse of the Bambino is, 'The Red Sox can't win the World Series.'" -- Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe. You'll notice that, of those 17 defeats starting in 1946, the Yankees were involved in "only" 6 of them. The problem wasn't the Yankees. If the Sox wanted to know what was wrong, they needed to look in the mirror.

It took one more year to do it. The Boston Red Sox stunned the Yankees in the ALCS, and, on October 27, 2004 -- 86 years, 1 month and 16 days after they last did so -- won the World Series. To do so, they beat the St. Louis Cardinals, who had beaten them in the 1946 and 1967 World Series.

This win, of course, was bogus, as were the World Series they won in 2004 and 2007. And we know why: Performance-enhancing drugs. David "Big Papi" Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, by far their 2 most significant hitters in 2004 and 2007, used PEDs. Ortiz was still there when they won again in 2013.

He used PEDs. He was tested for them. He failed the test. He said he never used them. He lied. He was exposed. Exposed as a cheater and a liar. He still lies about it. For all we know, he still cheated until he retired at the end of the 2016 season.

And yet, he was not only still permitted to play professional baseball, he was allowed to be crowned the Most Valuable Player of the 2013 World Series.

And when the Red Sox won again in 2018, 100 years after their last honest title, that was the year they were caught using something not available for their entire 86-year drought: Apple Watches. So even with these 4 tainted titles, the Red Sox have still not won the World Series without cheating since September 11, 1918.

Which was a Wednesday. And no other major sporting events were played. So Game 6 of the 1918 World Series was the only score on this historic day.

UPDATE: The Red Sox have a team Hall of Fame. From their 1912, 1915, 1916 and 1918 World Champions, they have inducted manager Bill Carrigan, shortstop Everett Scott, 3rd baseman Larry Gardner, left fielder Duffy Lewis, center fielder Tris Speaker, right fielder Harry Hooper, and pitchers Smoky Joe Wood, Dutch Leonard, Herb Pennock and Babe Ruth.

The Cubs also have a team Hall of Fame. Inducted from their 1918 Pennant winners have been pitchers Grover Cleveland Alexander and James "Hippo" Vaughn, team owner William Wrigley Jr., and public address announcer Pat Pieper.

July 30, 2009: The Boston Red Sox Are Exposed As Cheaters

July 30, 2009: The New York Times and Sports Illustrated publish reports that reveal that David Ortiz tested positive for a banned substance during survey testing in 2003.

"Big Papi," the biggest reason why the Boston Red Sox won the 2004 and 2007 World Series, cheated.

It was also revealed that Manny Ramirez, another big bat behind those titles, had failed the same test. But this was not new: He had been exposed as using performance-enhancing drugs earlier in the year, after having been traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It was "nice" of the Times and SI to reveal it 6 years after the fact, 5 years after the Red Sox finally ended "the Curse of the Bambino," and 2 years after they won a 2nd World Series as well.

Still, those World Series wins are hereby invalidated.

Let's be blunt, shall we? Let's be brutally honest.

The linchpin to saying that the Yankees "cheated" their way to winning the 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000 World Series is Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte.

For Pettitte, we have an admission of PED use to come back from an injury in 2002, a season in which the Yankees did not win a Pennant, much less a World Series.

For Clemens, we have the word of Brian McNamee. Translation: Even if Clemens is a louse (and we have many reasons to say that he is), McNamee isn't exactly trustworthy, either. He submitted evidence that has not been revealed to the public. The 2000 WS, and the '01 and '03 Pennants, can be attributed in part to Clemens' use, if in fact McNamee is being completely honest. But 1999? Clemens wasn't all that hot that year. Either he wasn't using, or it wasn't working.

Alex Rodriguez? At this point, he had never played on a Pennant winner, and, besides, all we had on him is an admission of an accusation that he used before becoming a Yankee. He would become the most-tested player ever, and did not test positive in 2009, when he finally helped the Yankees win a World Series. Even afterward, when evidence as to his guilt came again, and he got a lengthy suspension, he still didn't test positive.

Gary Sheffield? He never helped the Yankees win a Pennant, either, and all we have on him is an admission of something that happened before becoming a Yankee.

Jason Giambi? He helped the Yankees win the '03 Pennant – against those same cheating Red Sox – but in '04, it was obvious that steroids weren't helping him.

Compare also the Yankees' postseason opponents:

The 1995, 2000 and '01 Seattle Mariners: Jay Buhner (probably), Edgar Martinez (possibly), and, for the latter two, Alex Rodriguez (using then? who knows). They almost certainly used steroids, but the Yankees still beat them 2 times out of 3.

The '96, '98 and '99 Texas Rangers: Rafael Palmeiro (caught), Juan Gonzalez and Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez (almost certain). Still, the Yankees beat them 3 times, going 9-1 in games in the process (though those 1st two, in '96, were awfully dicey).

The '96 and '97 Baltimore Orioles: Palmeiro (caught) and Brady Anderson (not official, but, come on). The Yankees beat them in the '96 ALCS, but lost the '97 Division Title to them. Still, in those two years combined, they won a grand total of 1 home game in ALCS play, so I don't want to hear about how the Yankees "cheated" -- either with steroids or a kid in right field.

The '96 and '99 Atlanta Braves: On the second occasion, John Rocker, even though he did nothing against us. Besides, the Yankees beat them.

The '97 and '98 Cleveland Indians: Manny Ramirez (caught), Matt Williams (mentioned in the Mitchell Report) and Jim Thome (suspected). Split 2 series.

The '98 San Diego Padres: Ken Caminiti (admitted). Swept in the World Series, so it didn't matter.

The '99 Red Sox: Hard to tell. Manny wasn't there yet, nor Papi, nor Curt Schilling, nor Mark Bellhorn, nor Kevin Millar. But Pedro Martinez? So skinny, but now you have to wonder. Jason Varitek was there. So was Trot Nixon. And Nomar Garciaparra: He's fallen apart since, so was Nomahhhh using? In this case, it didn't matter, because the Yankees beat them in the ALCS.

The 2000 and '01 Oakland Athletics: The aforementioned Jason, and also Jeremy, Giambi, and that's just the ones I know of. It didn't matter, because the Yankees beat them both times.

The '01 Arizona Diamondbacks: Matt Williams, and the heavily suspected Schilling and Luis Gonzalez.

The '02 Anaheim and '05 Los Angeles Angels: As far as I know, they were clean.

The '03 and '04 Minnesota Twins. As far as I know, they were clean, and it didn't matter because the Yankees beat them both times anyway. In fact, after those two ALDS, the Yankees now have a better postseason record in the Metrodome than the Twins do.

The '03 Florida Marlins: Pudge Rodriguez again.

The '03 and '04 Red Sox: Papi and Manny, and rumors abound about Schilling, Millahhhh, Bellhorn, Trot and Tek.

The '06 Detroit Tigers: Pudge again.

The ’07 Indians: As far as I know, they were clean.

And, of course, the 2000 New York Mets: Mike Piazza. It didn't matter, because the Yankees beat them anyway.

Put it all together, and not only have the Yankees been helped less by steroid use than any of those teams (if they were helped by it at all), but the Yankees have been hurt by steroid use more than any other team!

*

But as big a story, and as underreported a story, as that is, the biggest story right now is that the Red Sox cheated. They couldn't win honestly, so they cheated.

The Yankees didn't cheat: They had no control over how to use the Curse, and then again, as one of the River Avenue T-shirts says, maybe there never was a Curse, the Sox just, uh, underachieved for 86 years! (As long as we're being honest, I checked once, and they were within range of the postseason in September in 43 of those 86 years, exactly half. They didn't "suck for 86 years.")

But the Red Sox cheated. Sox fans can throw away those "Got rings lately?" T-shirts -- if not in the trash, then I can suggest other places to stick them -- and Yankee fans could bring back the "1918" T-shirts, just add an asterisk. (Not sure if Roger Maris would approve, but I'll bet the Babe would laugh at it!)

All their smack talk these last five years, and it was all a big fat lie. Red Sox fans on July 30, 2009 are roughly in the same position as Richard Nixon fans were on July 30, 1974: They know now, their guy is a crook!

In 1967, during the Sox' "Impossible Dream" season, the young Bee Gees, not yet the hideous avatars of disco, sang a lovely song called "Massachusetts." They sang "The lights all went out in Massachusetts." I'm sure a few Yankee Fans have sung that one over the years.

On this historic day, the lies all came out in Massachusetts.

Of course, when the 2022 election for the Baseball Hall of Fame took place, David Ortiz, eligible for the 1st time, was elected. Alex Rodriguez, also eligible for the 1st time, was not.

It's been said that the greater offense of Pete Rose isn't that he bet on baseball, but that he lied about it for 15 years after getting caught, before coming clean.

For his steroid use, both times he was accused, A-Rod came clean quickly.

Big Papi has lied about it for 13 years -- almost as long as Rose has lied about what he did.

Ortiz is in the Hall of Fame. A-Rod and Rose are not.

I'm not saying that A-Rod and Rose should be in the Hall. I am saying that Ortiz should not be in it. 

*

July 30, 1999 was a Thursday. These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Chicago White Sox, 3-2 at U.S. Cellular Field (now Rate Field) in Chicago. Nick Swisher hit a home run, and Derek Jeter went 1-for-4. But Alex Rodriguez went 0-for-4, and Phil Hughes blew it in relief of Andy Pettitte.

* A doubleheader was split at Citi Field. The New York Mets won the opener, 7-0. Johan Santana pitched 7 innings of 4-hit shutout ball, and 2 relievers finished the shutout. The Colorado Rockies won the nightcap, 4-2.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Oakland Athletics, 8-5 at Fenway Park. David Ortiz went 2-for-3 with a 3-run homer. I guess he was still juicing.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Kansas City Royals, 7-3 at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Florida Marlins, 6-3 at Land Shark Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) in Miami Gardens, Florida. Brian McCann won it with a home run in the top of the 10th inning.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-4 at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Houston Astros, 12-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Yes, both Chicago teams were not only at home on the same day, but both won.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Washington Nationals, 7-3 at Miller Park (now American Family Field) in Milwaukee.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-3 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Matt Kemp singled Andre Ethier home with the winning run in the top of the 10th.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Seattle Mariners, 7-1 at Rangers Ballpark (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-2 at AT&T Park (now Oracle Park) in San Francisco.

* And the following teams were not scheduled to play that day: The Arizona Diamondbacks, the Cleveland Indians, the Detroit Tigers, the Los Angeles Angels, the Minnesota Twins, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Toronto Blue Jays.