11/9/2023 0 Comments Obscure words for cursed![]() ![]() Yet Fritz Brickell, who was the Angels’ starting shortstop on Opening Day in 1961 and died of cancer at 30 in 1965, is never mentioned in an Angels curse article (until now).Īngels’ family members are also mentioned. Even Ed Kirkpatrick, who was paralyzed in a car accident in 1981, is frequently mentioned, despite playing his last game with the Angels in 1968 and spending the bulk of his career with the Royals and Pirates before leaving the majors in 1977. Despite playing four years with the Reds after leaving the Angels, Jim McGlothlin, who died of cancer at 32 in 1975, is almost always mentioned. The curse has even been extended to players who previously played for the Angels. The Angels have also suffered numerous late-season collapses, the most devastating coming in 1995, when the Angels had to win their last five games to force a one-game playoff (which they lost) after holding an 11-game lead for the division as late as August 9 and a 10-game lead for the wild card on August 3. The Sox went on to win that game and the next two to take the series before succumbing to their own curse and losing the World Series. In game five of the 1986 ALCS against the Boston Red Sox, the Angels were one pitch away from their first World Series appearance, up three games to one, with a 5–4 lead with two outs in the ninth, when Dave Henderson hit a 2–2 pitch to put the Sox on top with a two-run shot. Naturally the curse was extended to include the postseason, when the Angels became the first team to blow a 2–0 lead in a best-of-five series in 1982, losing the last three games to the Milwaukee Brewers. The Angels have lost three players in midseason and another late in spring training. The only other team to have lost even three players in that time frame is the Cleveland Indians with three, and two of those died in the same boating accident in Florida in 1993. The Angels are typically linked with seven of those deaths (five of those by 1978), more than 20 percent of the total. Since 1960, 32 major-league players have died while on a major-league roster or within a year of their last game. The deaths have always been the cornerstone of the Angels curse. The curse had not been mentioned at all when Bruce Heinbechner became the third Angels player to die in March 1974, but when Mike Miley died in January 1977, Harry Dalton, then the Angels’ general manager, said it was “the first thing I thought of,” placing the first mention of the curse in this time frame.Dick Miller, “Death Robs Miley of Great Dream,” The Sporting News, 29 January 1977. ![]() The first reference to the Angels jinx in The Sporting News was an article by Dick Miller in March 1976, spurred by Nolan Ryan’s arm troubles, which had limited him to 28 starts in 1975.Dick Miller, “Angels’ Pitchers Seem Hexed Long History of Staff Jinxes,” The Sporting News, 27 March 1976, 36. Tim Mead, the Angels’ media relations director, researched the claim in the 1990s and found no evidence indicating a burial ground.Bradley, Mickey and Gordon, Dan, Haunted Baseball, Lyons Press, 2007, 253. ![]() Typically blamed on a rumor that Anaheim Stadium was built on a Native American burial ground, the curse persists to the present day despite the fact that several of the victims of the curse pre-dated the move to Anaheim in 1966. Typically blamed on a rumor that Anaheim Stadium was built on a Native American burial ground, the curse persists to the present day despite the fact that several of the victims of the curse pre-dated the move to Anaheim in 1966.įrom the mid-1970s until the Angels won the World Series in 2002, frequent stories of an Angels “curse” or “jinx” appeared in the local and national media. From the mid-1970s until the Angels won the World Series in 2002, frequent stories of an Angels “curse” or “jinx” appeared in the local and national media.
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