Curse of the Bambino amassing five World Series titles. After the sale, they went without a title for nearly a century as the previously lackluster Yankees became one of the most successful franchises in North American professional sports. The curse became a focal point of the Yankees–Red Sox rivalry over the years. Talk of the curse as an ongoing phenomenon ended in 2004, when the Red Sox came back from a 0–3 best-of-seven deficit to beat the Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series (ALCS) and then went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals to win the 2004 World Series. The curse
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