Poor Execution

Did you see that the "cursed" David Ortiz jersey sold on eBay for $175,000? If you haven't heard about this story, here's the short version: The Yankees are building a new stadium, and one of the construction workers, who happened to be a Red Sox fan, buried an Ortiz jersey in one of the service corridors of the new park, hoping to curse the arch rivals.

Seems a little silly to me.The proceeds from the week long auction go to the Jimmy Fund organization to help fight cancer. It's a worthy cause if there ever was one, but I really can't believe it sold for that much money. First of all, it didn't really do anything. The Curse of the Bambino lasted for 86 years. Now that was a curse. This was just a poorly executed attempt. The Yankees didn't even play a single game in that new stadium. What's more, Ortiz started off the season ice cold, and has only now begun to produce. Maybe the curse backfired.

I have a theory about baseball curses: The most successful curses (or devastating, depending on your vantage point) are self-imposed. Take, for example, the two most famous baseball curses, the previously mentioned Curse of the Bambino, and the Curse of the Billy Goat, which has "prevented" the Chicago Cubs from winning the World Series since 1908. The Bambino Curse began when the Red Sox owner sold George Herman Ruth, Jr., The Babe, to the New York Yankees and allegedly used the proceeds from the sale to finance his production of a Broadway musical, commonly believed to be No, No, Nanette.

The Curse of the Billy Goat goes back to Game 4 of the 1945 World Series when the Detroit Tigers came to Wrigley Field to take on the Cubbies. A local tavern owner had two box seat tickets for the event. According to Wikipedia, he took his pet goat, draped in a blanket that read, "We Got Detroit's Goat." They let both ticket holders into the game, and allowed them to take their seats. But, when it started to rain, the man and his goat were thrown out due to the foul wet goat smell. The man was so mad, he cursed the Cubs, and the rest is baseball history.

Had the Yankees gone years without going to the World Series after moving to their new stadium, followed by rumors of a David Ortiz jersey buried on the premises, a frantic search to locate the textile, and a dramatic unearthing of the cursed object, then maybe you could justify a six-figure sale of a tattered, torn, dirty jersey.

God bless capitalism and the free market.