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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels October 15, 2004 Downtown Behold, the answer to the curse Andrew Scot Bolsinger It's budding funky, wanna-be eclectic and definitely edgy. And it's exactly what Ashland needs. Our own Haight-Ashbury, akin to Portland's Hawthorne district. It's the A Street Marketplace, within the Railroad District, home of the Oregon Stage Works. There is so much to like, but mostly, one has to like the potential, of both the theater and the district itself. We interrupt this column for an emergency broadcast message: Red Sox Nation. Listen to me! Before its too late. The Curse of the Bambino is so very, very real. We have fought it for far too long, and the time has come to deal with it. Our beloved Sox trail the Evil Empire by two games. Tonight, they return home to the glorious confines of Fenway Park, in desperate need of a miracle. I have the answer. A digression: I realize that this doesn't seem urgent to most people in a largely non-sports town, a continent away from Boston. But I also know that last year, I sat in Louie's during the fateful, tragic day, of Game 7 against the Yanks. A faithful member of the Red Sox Nation, I was not alone as one would expect. Every seat in the house was packed, and not a Yankee fan could be heard. Such is the nature of the Nation, a vast cadre of hurting pessimists who soar in April with hope, only to suffer the worst of indignities each October. Last year was among the worst, second only to a dribbling, seeing-eye-groundball, that weaseled through the creaky legs of Bill Buckner in 1986. One of the greatest pitchers of the last decade was on the mound for the Sox, sporting a 5-2 lead in Game 7 in the Bronx, with a wicked good bullpen ready to close the door. Then somehow, the curse reared. It sapped the energy of our Pedro's right arm, and sucked the brain matter from Grady Little, the Sox's manager's, brain. He paused, he fidgeted, he even visited Martinez on the mound. But he didn't act, until the game was tied 5-5, forcing the game into extra innings and creating the backdrop for yet another heroic Yankee home run to crush the Sox hope. So bad was it, that a movie ran this spring all over New England, documenting the 2003 season that could have been. It was a blockbuster hit, because that's how the Sox nation is. We are masochists. It wasn't bad enough to live it once, we had to relive it on the screen. During my brief visit to Boston this spring, of course, I went and watched it. Despite trailing the Yanks this year in the rematch 2-0 and despite learning that our ace pitcher's injury will likely keep him from pitching again, we still have hope. This year is mission critical. And it's not over, bleak as it may seem. Because I have the answer. Somehow, for nearly a century, all of the Red Sox Nation has thought the only way to defeat the Curse that came from trading baseball's greatest player was to deny it. To curse it. To taunt it. Like Jacob waving an angry fist at God and spending the night in a holy tussle, the Nation picks a fight each year, only to awake in the morning with a broken hip and another off-season of what-if hell. But it doesn't have to be that way. Because I have the answer. Red Sox Nation, here me: It's time to embrace the Babe. Bring him home. This dreaded curse that has kept us from winning a World Series since 1918 is not the curse of the Yankees. It the Curse of the Bambino. We can hate and scorn the Yanks, but we must embrace the Babe. We forget that before Ruth became the Sultan of Swat, he was a crafty, lefty pitcher, with a wickedly good ERA who won two games in the 1918 World Series. He was a Beantown favorite. A true founding member of the Red Sox Nation. It wasn't the Babe that left us. It was dimwit owner Harold Frazee that sold him to the Yankees to fund his Broadway hit, "No No Nanette." That's where the curse started, by casting out the Babe. Rather than bring his spirit home and resurrect him as a true icon of Boston sports, we have turned him into the enemy Yankee. Before games, Yankee players go out to their Monument Park and pat the Babe's fat-faced plaque. We ignore him. Sometimes even scorn him. Pedro Martinez himself once said to dig up the Babe and he would drill his fat ass. Ouch. A very poor choice of words. The curse roared and Pedro hasn't won a Cy Young since. He has so struggled with the Yankees since that time of youthful boasting, he was recently quoted saying he can't beat the Yankees. "What can I say, they're my Daddy." Further proof we don't get it. The Babe's wife's house in Boston was ransacked just before Wednesday's first game of the series. This curse is serious business. And the only way to break it, is to make the Babe our own. Declare right now that statue of Ruth in a pitcher's pose will be erected in front of Cask 'n Flagons. Tell the players to touch the Babe's cap on the way to the mound. Bring back the babe and break the curse. It's not too late. We will return to our regularly scheduled column broadcast on the Railroad District and Oregon Stage Works, next week. But in the meantime, get some tickets to the "Beauty Queen of Leenane." Brandy Carson is simply incredible, in this disturbing, yet entertaining play. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams