Psst! Wanna know the real reason why the Boston Red Sox won the 2004 World Series — their first after 86 years of futility? Certainly, pitchers Curt Schilling and Pedro Martínez and sluggers Manny Ramírez and David Ortiz contributed, but it was a total lunar eclipse coinciding with the Series clincher October 27 that sealed the deal.
How else can you explain the end of a jinx that began with the infamous sale of Red Sox star pitcher/outfielder Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees late in 1919 and continued through season after season of inexplicable near misses and what ifs? Even a spell cast by a self-proclaimed Salem witch prior to the 1975 World Series failed to help the Sox. It took nothing less than a cosmic intervention to finally “reverse the curse” in 2004.
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