Letters

The

Boston Red Sox did a magnificent job of winning baseball's World Series championship [Nov. 8]. Even though I'm a New York Yankees fan, I admit that sluggers David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were superb in leading their team to victory. The Curse of the Bambino has finally been broken!
AISHA JAMIL
Centreville, Va.

There aren't many old-timers, by cracky, who saw the Red Sox lose their first World Series, way back in 1946. I was 16 and hitchhiked from Iowa City, Iowa, to St. Louis, Mo., for Game 1. I slept in the railroad station and bought a $3 standing-room ticket for behind home plate. The Sox tied the game in the ninth, and Rudy York won it in the 10th with a blast to the last row of the bleachers — and I was the only one in the park yelling. I'm happy for today's Boston kids, but most of them have never known the character-building advantages of defeat. I've developed enough character to last the rest of my life, with some left over to give to any New York fans out there. A Massachusetts girl said it best: "Success is counted sweetest/ By those who ne'er succeed." Emily Dickinson would have been a Red Sox fan.
JOHN B. HOLWAY
Springfield, Va.

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I'm glad the Red Sox won the World Series, if for no other reason than we no longer have to hear about the Curse of the Bambino. The reason the Red Sox hadn't won a World Series since 1918 was simple: the team was never good enough to win. Now that the Red Sox have won, they can go back to playing their usual role as second best to the Yankees. But it will be without any excuses.
ROY WESTON
Victoria, B.C.

My great-grandfather Harry Frazee, who owned the Red Sox from 1916 to '23, did not sell Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees to finance a Broadway play, as the legendary Curse of the Bambino would have it. He kept his baseball, theatrical and real estate businesses entirely separate. The so-called curse of the past 86 years has been nothing but a pathetic excuse for more than eight decades of mediocre baseball, which is thankfully now put to rest.
JIM FRAZEE
Oslo

I read with amusement (and a little disdain) your cover article on the poor Red Sox fans, who for 86 years have been waiting patiently for a World Series championship. In 45 professional seasons (37 in football and eight in NBA basketball), New Orleans hasn't even had one of its home teams appear in a title game or series. So while I can certainly relate to the Boston sports fans' pain, let's have a little sports sympathy for a town that has really earned it.
GUY DUPLANTIER
New Orleans

Explosives at Large

Re the 377 tons of munitions missing from Iraq's al-Qaqaa military complex since March 2003 [Nov. 8]: If you were planning a war and you knew where the enemy's munitions dumps were, wouldn't you send a missile or two right off the bat to destroy the enemy's fighting capabilities? The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) alerted U.S. officials about the dangerous weapons at al-Qaqaa in January 2003. The proper question isn't, When did the arms disappear? The question is, Why weren't they marked for destruction before our troops started moving up the road toward them? I always thought disrupting the enemy's supply chain — especially its dangerous weaponry — was a basic strategy of offensive warfare.
TIM CONEY
Medford, Ore.

Bin Laden's Tape

The videotaped message from Osama bin Laden, showing him alert and very alive, capped a week of bad news for President George W. Bush [Nov. 8]. What is this terrorist, this atrocious, fanatical criminal, still doing at large in the world? A week after the terrible destruction of 9/11, Bush stated in his typical cowboy fashion that he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive." Three years later, billions of dollars have been spent, more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed, the nation is divided, and we are nowhere close to knowing even where that man is. The President has failed us, and we are not safe.
DAN GAMBETTA
Portland, Ore.