Debunking (Or Not) The Myth of Sports Curses

Scribe Written on May 05, 2008

It’s playoff time in the NBA and NHL, and with the Major League Baseball season well underway (and NFL draft this past weekend), now seems as good a time as any to talk of curses. The cruel nature of sports means that only one team can win it all, which leaves all the others in the sport waiting until next year. But for some, next year never arrives, and even of an era of free agency and variables such as star power and team payrolls, something has to explain a team’s perennial ability to choke in the spotlight. Like a billy goat, for example. Curses can afflict a single team- leaving others in a city unscathed- or an entire city, state, or even country. How then do we separate supernaturally-controlled strings of bad luck with a convenient coincidence or the simple constant of bad play? Well, I’ll do my best.

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written on May 05, 2008 Sports

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