Curse of the Bambino Nanette" had originated as a non-musical stage play called "My Lady Friends", which opened on Broadway in December 1919. That play had, indeed, been financed as a direct result of the Ruth deal. Various researchers, including Montville and Shaughnessy, have pointed out that Frazee had close ties to the Yankees owners, and that many of the player deals, as well as the mortgage deal for Fenway Park itself, had to do with financing his plays. Yankee fans taunted the Red Sox with chants of "1918!" one weekend in September 1990. The demeaning chant echoed at Yankee Stadium each time the
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