Don't deny the Curse now that it's history.(The World Series)

Strange that, in the days after the death of the Curse of the Bambino, there has been an impulse to deride that very curse as a silly indulgence.

I saw Peter Gammons on television offhandedly say there never was any curse, that the Red Sox simply lacked pitching all these years. I read commentary by writer Charles Pierce, who claimed the curse was nothing more than "mystical self-love and karmic exceptionalism."

Now, wait a clam-shucking minute. Gentlemen, as a lifelong Red Sox fan, I beg ... don't you take away my curse.

This curse did exist. True, some facts about it have been grossly distorted, but over the past 86 years, the Red Sox have given fans volumes of reasons to suspect higher forces were working against them.

There are obvious tormentors--Aaron Boone, Bill Buckner, Bucky Dent, Enos Slaughter--and history is packed with near-misses and Game 7 failures.

The curse explains why a team that won five championships in its first 15 years, then sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees before the 1920 season, finished last nine times in 13 years while the Yankees won seven pennants during that time. You have to be cursed to finish second 18 times since 1920--and behind the Yankees 14 of those times.

Pitching? Ask Boo Ferris, Tex Hughson and Mel Parnell about the notion of fate playing an anti-Red Sox hand. They could have formed a dominant threesome in the late '40s and early '50s, but arm injuries shortened their careers. And can anyone explain why Roger Clemens won one crummy playoff game for the Red Sox but won four for the Yankees?