Joe Girardi.Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
- The Yankees have gone nearly 60 years without winning a World Series under a Republican president.
- The ‘curse’ coincides with former Yankees owner George Steinbrenner getting in trouble for making illegal campaign contributions to President Richard Nixon.
- The Yankees have won nine World Series under Democratic presidents during that same GOP losing streak.
The New York Yankees’ Saturday loss to the Houston Astros in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series guaranteed that a nearly 60-year-long losing streak would continue.
The Yankees, the team that holds the most championships among the major US professional sports franchises, hasn’t won a title under a Republican president since President Dwight Eisenhower was in office in 1958.
During that time, the Yankees won nine championships under Democratic administrations, going 9-2 in World Series they have participated in. The Bronx Bombers have made five World Series appearances during Republican administrations since their last title win in such circumstances, losing each time.
Eric Columbus, a former official in President Barack Obama’s administration, brought the point up on Twitter on Monday. Columbus pointed to former Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner’s 1974 guilty plea for providing illegal campaign contributions to former President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign in 1972 as the true starting point of this “curse.”
“He avoided jail time, but was suspended from baseball for fifteen months,” Columbus tweeted. “And a curse was born.”
Since 1974, the Yankees have been 9-0 in the World Series while Democrats are in the White House, and 0-4 when Republicans control the executive branch.
Steinbrenner, whom President Donald Trump considered a “best friend,” would later be pardoned by former President Ronald Reagan at the end of his second term, something that Columbus said exacerbated “the partisan ire of the baseball gods.”
The Astros, who defeated the Yankees on Saturday, face off against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 of the World Series on Tuesday.
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