8/8/2019 Review of the Rock, The Curse and the Hub

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Edited by Roberts, RandyTHE ROCK, THE CURSE AND THE HUB: A RANDOM HISTORY OF BOSTONSPORTSHarvard University Press (432 pp.)$24.95

April 2005ISBN: 0-674-01504-5

By Steve Powers

A look back at sports and sporting events in Boston.

As most of the free world knows by now, the Boston Red Sox broke their ill-fated“curse,” finally winning the World Series title after 86 long years, Unfortunately, thisachievement occurred too late to be included in this book, a series of essays on Bostonsports over the ages, but there are plenty of other sports personalities and events profiled

in this book. The essays run the gamut from the Boston marathon to rowing on theCharles River. Well-known sports figures written about include Ted Williams, FrancesOuimet, John Sullivan, Bobby Orr and Bill Russell, representing baseball, golf, boxing,hockey, and basketball, respectively. Boston is well represented in major sports, as theessays conclusively prove, and has seen its share of both heartache and triumph. Thereare a few interesting stories related here, for instance, Babe Ruth’s brief tenure with theRed Sox, before he was traded to the New York Yankees, supposedly bringing the Curseof the Bambino on the Sox baseball team, a deadly curse of winlessness in the WorldSeries that endured from 1918 until this sweet autumn that broke the long drought.Another enthralling essay is the tale of the 1968 Harvard crew teams (rowing) thatrepresented the USA in the Olympics held that year in Mexico City, related by David

Zang. No less fascinating is the astounding account of Frances Ouimet, a little-knownAmerican who captured the 1913 United States Open at The Country Club in Brookline,opening the gates for golf in America – James Campbell’s essay perfectly captures thetime and the importance of little Frances Ouimet’s victory. Sadly, that sense of excitement is lacking in most of the essays contained within this book – they make for dry and uninteresting reading, plodding along more slowly than a turtle on his slowestdays.

A few sparkles, but mostly lacking in luster.