What Will It Take to Lift the Curse in Land of Fanalot?

Jayson Stark writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer that “For the last 79 years, the Curse of the Bambino [the Red Sox trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees] has been more powerful than El Nino, more powerful than a special prosecutor and more powerful even than Mark McGwire. Which isn’t easy.”

He is referring to the Red Sox’s not having won a World Series since 1918.

Despite their promising 21-11 start, Bill “Spaceman” Lee, the former Boston pitcher, doubts that the curse has been lifted.

However, he did concede that it could be lifted some day: “They pulled Excalibur out of the rock, didn’t they?”

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Trivia time: How many times have the Red Sox lost in the World Series since 1918?

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Focusing on Martinez: As a service to Spanish-speaking readers, the Boston Globe now runs Red Sox game stories in Spanish when Pedro Martinez pitches at home.

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No respect: Bernie Lincicome of the Chicago Tribune trashed the Charlotte Hornets in his column after the Bulls won Game 1 of their NBA playoff series.

He did it again, even though the Hornets upset the Bulls in Game 2:

“Anyone really think the Bulls dynasty is going to end against this bunch of nits?

“This was a case of the Bulls playing down to the competition, something they should know better than. This was a lapse but not a collapse.”

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Busy man: From Toronto Sun columnist Steve Simmons: “One thing we know about Shawn Kemp: He wasn’t sleepless in Seattle.”

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Mike’s other life: Steve Rosenbloom in the Chicago Tribune: “Sight seen: Maitre d’ Jordan answering the phones, taking reservations and hosting Tiger Woods at one sixtyblue, the new megaship restaurant on Randolph Street that Jordan owns a piece of.”

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Gloomy Joe: On the final day of spring football practice at Penn State, Coach Joe Paterno was asked to assess his team. “If we had to play tomorrow, we probably couldn’t beat anybody,” Paterno told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing for a coach to say, “We have a hell of a team and we should beat everybody we play”? Of course, that will never happen.

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Digitally enhanced: When Florida Marlin reliever Antonio Alfonseca was struck by a line drive last week, media director Ron Colangelo released this statement:

“He got hit [by a line drive] on the fourth, fifth and sixth fingers of his right hand. But he’s fine.”

A reader of the San Francisco Chronicle said that the publicist was only half kidding, considering that Alfonseca has a small nub of a sixth finger next to his pinkie.

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Bad old days: Referees are calling more penalties now in the NHL playoffs than in previous years, much to the frustration of some of the players:

Said Al Iafrate of the San Jose Sharks: “I can remember when I broke into the league in 1984. If you were a defenseman killing a penalty, you could cross-check a guy in the back of his head 15 times, and you weren’t going to get a penalty.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1954, Parry O’Brien, the 1952 Olympic champion, became the first man to exceed 60 feet in the shotput with a mark of 60 feet 5 1/4 inches in a meet at the Coliseum.

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Trivia answer: Four--1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986.

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And finally: Oakland Athletic catcher A.J. Hinch lofted a ball down the third-base line at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. The ball hit a hanging light standard, raining glass on the field, much like Robert Redford’s climactic home run in “The Natural.”

But Redford “got to circle the bases after he hit the lights,” Hinch said. “I got to stand there for 10 minutes and then strike out.”