Claim: Babe Ruth played baseball.

The Curse of the Bambino was a superstition evolving from the failure of the Boston Red Sox baseball team to win the World Series in the 86-year period from 1918 to 2004 . While some fans took the curse seriously , most used the expression in a tongue-in-cheek manner .  This misfortune began after the Red Sox sold star player Babe Ruth , sometimes called The Bambino , to the New York Yankees in the off-season of 1919 -- 1920 . Before that point , the Red Sox had been one of the most successful professional baseball franchises , winning the first World Series and amassing five World Series titles . After the sale , they went without a title for decades , even while the Red Sox won four American League championships from 1946 to 1986 , as the previously lackluster Yankees became one of the most successful franchises in North American professional sports . The curse became a focal point of the Yankees -- Red Sox rivalry over the years .   Talk of the curse as an ongoing phenomenon ended in 2004 , when the Red Sox came back from a 0 -- 3 best-of-seven deficit to beat the Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series -LRB- ALCS -RRB- and then went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals to win the 2004 World Series . The curse had been such a part of Boston culture that when a `` reverse curve '' road sign on Longfellow Bridge over the city 's busy Storrow Drive was graffitied to read `` Reverse The Curse '' , officials left it in place until after the Red Sox won the 2004 Series . After the Red Sox won the last game of the World Series that year , the road sign was edited to read `` Curse Reversed '' in celebration .