The Boston Red Sox are a Major League Baseball team who won the World Series on October 27, 2004, after being well-known in the United States for failing to win a championship for 86 years, which was attributed to "The Curse of the Bambino". Their win was dramatic, both for its reversal of generations of legendary failure, but also for coming back from adversity to win after having been down three games to none to rival Yankees in the American League Championship Series, one of the biggest comebacks in sports history.
In four attempts after transferring Babe Ruth in 1918 to New York, the Sox failed to win a Game Seven in the World Series. In 1948 and 1978 Boston missed the post-season in a playoff game, and on three added occasions they succumbed on the final day of the regular season, each time to the Yankees. In 1986, the Red Sox were one out away from victory, only to lose in a highly dramatic and somewhat bizarre manner. Several other "near misses" also seemed like the result of unusual events.
References in Lost
The game on the Hydra's TV.
|
"We always realized that the culmination of that moment would be that Jack would actually get to see it, and that the Others would show it to him. It took a year and a half to get there." - Damon Lindelof, Boston Globe |
In "Outlaws", Christian Shephard tells Sawyer in Sydney, "That's why the Red Sox will never win the World Series," to indicate his belief in fate. Jack repeats the saying to Sawyer on the island on October 22nd, not realizing that the Red Sox would begin playing in the World Series the next day and win it five days later. It is this use of the phrase by Jack that first causes Sawyer to realize the man he met was in fact Jack's father. Jack tells him at the end, "Just something my father used to say--went through life knowing that people hated him. Instead of taking responsibility for it, he just put it on fate. Said he was made that way." This episode originally aired on February 16, 2005, so the writers would have known at the time they wrote that episode that the Red Sox had won the World Series, providing some irony to the comments by Christian and by Jack. The Red Sox win in 2004 proved that they were not "destined" to lose, and the team's ability to win over enormous odds resonates with the difficulties facing the castaways on the Island.
In "The Glass Ballerina", Ben shows Jack television footage of the final out of the World Series win, which took place after the crash on October 27, 2004, as evidence that the Others have direct contact with the outside world. It was certainly one of the most prominent events that occurred in the United States between the time of the crash and the capture of Jack, Kate and Sawyer by the Others, and provides more metaphorical and emotional value than the other events to which Ben refers, the re-election of President Bush and the death of Christopher Reeve.
In "The Economist", Jack is talking with Frank Lapidus. Jack says, "Did the Sox really win the Series?", to which Frank replies, "Don't even get me started on that, I grew up in the Bronx". Jack then comments how he has not seen a Red Sox game in over 100 days.
In "The Other Woman", Ben reveals that he has recorded over his VHS tape of the game, labeled "Red Sox", with his covertly-recorded video of Charles Widmore beating a member of the Others off-Island.
Trivia
- Carlton Cuse is a Red Sox fan [1]
- Damon Lindelof is a Yankees fan, having worked as a vendor at Yankee stadium as a youth. [2]. Lindelof has described the use of the Red Sox win in Lost as therapeutic.
- Before the 2004 World Series, the last time the Red Sox had won it all was September 11th, 1918.
- Interestingly, the Yankees retired numbers include all of The Numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. The Boston Red Sox retired numbers are 1, 4, 8, 9, 27, and 42.
See also
- Official Lost Podcast transcript/October 17, 2006 (the writers discuss these scenes in detail)
- The Blue Danube - also played on the Hydra television
- Juliet's tape - also played on the Hydra television