Curse of the Black Sox Curse of the Black Sox The Curse of the Black Sox/Curse of Shoeless Joe (1919–2005) was a superstition or "scapegoat" cited as one reason for the failure of the Chicago White Sox to win the World Series from until . As with other supposed baseball curses, such as the crosstown Chicago Cubs' Curse of the Billy Goat, or the Boston Red Sox' Curse of the Bambino, these "curses" have been publicized by the popular media over the course of time. The White Sox were dealt a severe blow in 1919 by the Black Sox scandal, with several star players being
Curse of the Black Sox in 1918 and 1917, respectively. There is a large faction of White Sox fans who dismiss the idea of a curse against the White Sox as a ridiculous (yet successful) ploy by the national media to sensationalize the team in efforts for increased ratings, instead attributing their drought to the more obvious reason: team mismanagement. The Comiskeys were very conservative spenders (which many hypothesize to be the reason that the Black Sox scandal even occurred in the first place) and it was not until 1958 that the family gave up majority ownership to Bill Veeck, who was an innovative marketer