min0 lee

HIGH'JINX' HITS YANKEES

The new Yankee Stadium may be cursed!
A devilish Boston fan working on a concrete crew at the $1.3 billion stadium covertly buried a Red Sox T-shirt under what will become the visiting team's locker room to jinx the Yanks, two construction workers told The Post yesterday.


"In August, a Red Sox T-shirt was poured in a slab in the visitor's clubhouse. It's the curse of the Yankees," one worker said. "Nobody knows about it. It's in the floors, it's buried."
The workers say they now fear that they unwittingly helped hex their beloved Bronx Bombers.
"I don't want to be responsible for sinking the franchise," said a second worker, who witnessed the sabotage. "I respect the stadium."
The Post has withheld their identities because they are not authorized to speak to media.
This latest hex is above and beyond any typical ritual - like wearing a lucky shirt or hat - that fans typically do to boost their luck.
"It sounds a little unprecedented to me," said Tim Wiles, director of research at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown.
"I guess if the Yankees go 86 years in the new ballpark without a win we'll know if we are on to something," he said, referring to Boston's previous infamous losing streak after they sold Babe Ruth.
"If I was a Yankees fan, that is my house. I don't want a Red Sox [T-shirt] under my house," he added.
Chris Wertz, co-owner of the Red Sox bar Professor Thom's in the East Village, laughed at the ingenuity of the worker.
"I won't be surprised in the least bit to see that visiting locker room torn up and relaid right away," he said. "This what makes the game special for baseball fans. It's not a mean thing, but something they will take seriously."
Red Sox fans, he said, will see the buried garment as a good-luck charm, especially after years of seeing the retired numbers of four legendary players displayed in Fenway Park.
It has long displayed "9" for Ted Williams, "4" for Joe Cronin, "1" for Bobby Doerr and "8" for Carl Yastrzemski - which comes out to 9-4-18, the day before the World Series that resulted in the last Red Sox championship until 2004.
Baseball historians said these kinds of superstitions are not something to be scoffed at.
"Curses start off very easily. It's all the power of suggestion and they take on a life of their own," said Dan Gordon, co-author of the 2007 book "Haunted Baseball."
"Even the 'Curse of the Bambino' didn't really take off until the 1980s. Before then it was just hard luck," he said.
Mickey Bradley, co-author of "Haunted Baseball," said a worker is said to have buried an unknown good-luck charm in a water main trench of the current Yankee Stadium back in 1920.
"Prior to that, they never they won a World Series," he said.
Players can also bring curses to their teams.
"Look at the curse of A-Rod. The Yankees haven't won since [Alex Rodriguez] came to their game. There's probably more to that than a T-shirt," said Peter Nash, author of "Boston's Royal Rooters," a history of Red Sox fans.
"This just takes the rivalry to whole new level. If you look at 2004, the Yankees were up three games. If Boston lost that, seriously, the whole franchise would have been decimated," said Nash, who performed with the rap duo Third Bass before writing about baseball.
"I think there is a curse in effect already. Maybe the Red Sox T-shirt is like the icing on the cake, a nice little F-you from Boston," he said.
The year 2004, of course, was the year the Red Sox broke their own curse and won the World Series after beating the Yankees in the playoffs.
Still, stadiums have long had their own curses.
One of them is the 1945 "Billy Goat" curse at Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago cubs.
Legend has it that William Sianis placed a curse on the team after stadium staff refused to let him enter with his pet goat. The team hasn't played in the World Series since 1945.
Superstition in stadiums can also cut the other way and help a team.
The Texas Rangers languished in their old stadium from 1972 to 1993, until they moved into a new ballpark the following year. Since then, the team won three division titles. More recently, the Tampa Rays may be cursed by their own new stadium, which was partially built over a cemetery.
Over the past decade, the team had the worst record in all of Major League Baseball four times and finished last place in their division nine times.
As for the buried emblem of hated Boston, the Yankees say they aren't the least bit worried.
"It sounds like a tall tale, and it would take more than a Red Sox T-shirt to put a curse on the Yankees," said team spokesman Howard Rubenstein.
john.doyle@nypost.com

I Are Baboon

The headline in today's Hartford Courant sports section reads "Yanks Wave Magic Wang."

shiznit2169

Not to take anything away from Wang but he did give up a lot of hard hit balls that were lucky enough to fall right in front of the defenders. He did pitch a good game nonetheless.

My Journal

I Are Baboon

He whipped our asses.

min0 lee

That's his game, he's not going to strike out many hitters.
Unfortunately some balls find a hole.

min0 lee

As a Asian I'd like to remind you that his name is pronounced 'WONG'...not that there is anything Wang with that.....I am actually getting a kick out of all these replies.

I Are Baboon

Well teh WANGER is on my fantasy team. He and A-Rod. Both homos too. Go figure.

min0 lee

Mussina-Beckett today......Beckett should win this one.

min0 lee

April 13, 2008 --
The curse has been broken - out of the ground, that is.
A pair of hardhats working at the new Yankee Stadium dropped a dime on the location of a buried Red Sox jersey.

Beantown-loving construction worker Gino Castignoli, who lives in The Bronx, confessed to The Post last week that he buried a Red Sox slugger David Ortiz jersey at the site last summer while working at the stadium.

After reading about the traitorous act in The Post, the two workers approached a construction manager and said they remembered Castignoli, who only worked at the Stadium one day, and thought they knew where he must have placed the shirt.

They led the manager to a service corridor near the site of the planned Legends Club restaurant, behind home plate and toward the third base side.

After the hardhats pointed to the spot, workers brought out jackhammers and dug furiously for five hours, creating a 2-foot- by-3-foot, gravel-filled pit in their search for the tainted threads.

They spotted the jersey at 3:25 p.m. and called Yankee brass. The cursed shirt was about two feet deep in cement.

"They absolutely pinpointed that if it was in the ground, that's where it was," team spokeswoman Alice McGillion said, as she let The Post inspect the now partly buried shirt.
But the team declined to identify its latest heroes.
Said McGillion: "The workers came forward this morning and said that they thought if there was a shirt buried, this is where it was" - on the stadium's lowest level, behind where the field-level seats will be.

Truth be told, the jersey felt like a filthy rag - but the lettering of the word "RED" was plainly visible.
The Post first revealed Castignoli's dirty deed Friday. Then yesterday, the Boston-loving boob said he hid it along the third-base line.

Yankee brass was initially in denial, a spokesman explained, because a quick review of the new Stadium's pouring records determined that it just couldn't be buried in that location.
After the discovery, the team ordered the work stopped - and left the shirt in the cement in preparation for an extraction ceremony today.

"We want to thank The Post for raising the issue," McGillion said. "The [two] workers were terrific in coming forward. They wanted the shirt out of there."
As it turns out, Castignoli, 46, has been in trouble before. The hulking mason once pleaded guilty to involvement in a $40 million illegal gambling operation with ties to the Gambino crime family.

He was busted in February 2002 during a roundup of mob-connected gambling dens, according to the Brooklyn DA's Office.
But it was the betrayal of his borough that elicited Bronx cheers from many Yankee fans - including the new Boss, Hank Steinbrenner.

"I hope his coworkers kick the s- - - out of him," said George's boy, who now runs the team with his brother Hal.
Hank put no stock in talk of curses or in Castignoli's cruel bid to hex the Yankees' new $1.3 billion home.
A buried jersey, he reassured worried fans, means nothing.

"It's a bunch of bull- - - -," Hank said.
But Castignoli scoffed at the top Yankee honcho's ready dismissal.
"So, then, why is he making such a big stink about it?" asked the would-be hexer. "If it's no big deal, why not let it lay? Apparently, it's bothering him.
"Tell Hank he can come meet me if he wants to try - and tell him to bring [catcher Jorge] Posada, because he's the one Yankee I can't stand."

Meanwhile, Yankee fans attending last night's game at Boston's Fenway Park cheered the find.
"Dig it up, and get it out of there," said Norberto Diaz, 35. "They should give the next guy $156 an hour to dig it up."
Additional reporting by Jennifer Fermino in Boston and Matthew Nestel in NY
brad.hamilton@nypost.com

min0 lee

Haha!



Hardhat 'cursed' after Yankee prank

BY MIKE JACCARINO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, April 14th 2008, 12:06 AM
Yankee brass said Sunday they would press for criminal charges against the prankster who buried a Red Sox jersey in the concrete of the team's new stadium.
Bombers honcho Lonn Trost said the team might also sue Gino Castignoli for the estimated $30,000 it spent excavating the jersey.
"There are criminal issues and maybe civil" said Trost, the team's chief operating officer. "Fortunately, we know who the perpetrator is."
The district attorney's office didn't return calls for comment on possible charges.
Castignoli, a construction worker from the Bronx, buried the David Ortiz jersey in hopes of permanently cursing the pinstripes in their new home.
A construction manager got wind of the prank and two hardhats were able to pinpoint the spot where the jersey was buried.
The unearthed jersey will be cleaned and donated to the Jimmy Fund, which plans to auction it off for charity.
"We'll take ... a very, very bad act and turn it into something beautiful," Yankees president Randy Levine said.

min0 lee

min0 lee

Frank Gramarossa, the project executive for the new Yankee Stadium, displays the David Ortiz that was removed from the ground at the new Yankee Stadium

min0 lee

I'd say we top that by kidnapping Ortiz instead......but the way he's hitting now it would be a waste of time.

min0 lee

Link to video

This guy is an idiot. Traitor!!

I Are Baboon

The Yankees are gay.

IainDaniel

How about those Jays?

Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

Michael Jordan

min0 lee

Deep down inside you love them.

min0 lee

The what?

IainDaniel

A team with less then half your payroll, and near the top of the AL in Hitting and Pitching

Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

Michael Jordan

I Are Baboon

Isn't it cute seeing an optimistic Blue Jays fan?

IainDaniel

Always optimistic at the beginning of the season

Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

Michael Jordan

min0 lee

shiznit2169

It's funny how people make such a big deal over a friggen jersey that was buried.

There is NO SUCH THING as curses, luck, miracles, ghosts and any other make-believe term that is the cause for a team's or individual's performance.

When the U.S. Men's Hockey beat U.S.S.R in the Olympics, it was simply because they out-played and out-coached them. People only used the word "miracle" to make it sound more unbelievable and shocking.

When the Redsox traded Babe Ruth, it was never a curse. It was simply because the Redsox just couldn't get it done when it mattered most. If Babe Ruth's ghost was still lingering around, then the Redsox never would have won the World Series in 2004 and 2007.

Getting all worked over because of a t-shirt that was planted under concrete at the Yankees new stadium is laughable. People need to grow up and snap out of their delusional state of mind.

My Journal

soxmuscle