2004 World Series in each of these four leagues. The Red Sox's win in the World Series ended the "Curse of the Bambino", which supposedly had afflicted the team ever since the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1919. Pitcher Derek Lowe and other players said that the team would no longer hear "1918!" at Yankee Stadium ever again. Kevin Millar said to all Red Sox fans: "We wanted to do it so bad for the city of Boston. To win a World Series with this on our chests, it hasn't been done since 1918. So rip up
Babe Ruth of the significant social changes that marked the early 1920s. In his history of the Yankees, Glenn Stout noted that "Ruth was New York incarnate—uncouth and raw, flamboyant and flashy, oversized, out of scale, and absolutely unstoppable". During his lifetime, Ruth had become a symbol of the United States. During World War II, Japanese soldiers could think of no greater insult than to yell in English, "To hell with Babe Ruth", to anger American soldiers. Ruth replied that he hoped that "every Jap that mention[ed] my name gets shot". Creamer recorded that "Babe Ruth transcended sport and moved far beyond