History of the Chicago Cubs competitively again, and won the NL pennant in the war-shortened season of 1918, where they played a part in another team's curse, Curse of the Bambino. In the 1918 World Series, the North Siders, led by pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander, posted the majors' best record at 84–45 that year, and faced the Boston Red Sox. Babe Ruth won two games in the series, including a 1–0 complete-game shutout in the opener to start off what would be a six-game Boston triumph. At the time considered a star pitcher who ""just happened"" to hit 29 home runs, Ruth was sold to
Santo Bambino of Aracoeli the bedside of a sick person. Today, the chapel is filled with letters from all over the world, some of them addressed only to "Il Bambino, Rome". To make room for new letters, several weeks' worth of old ones are removed and burned with some incense. These are left unopened because, as a Franciscan custodian of the image puts it, "What is in the letters, is a matter between the Bambino and the letter writer and does not concern us." At Christmas, the Bambino is customarily placed in the crèche at the Basilica. Another custom is, in the period between