Gary Carter's Gift to Yankee Fans

All Yankee fans who enjoyed the "1918" chants through 2004 owe some thanks to Gary Carter.

In game 6 of the 1986 World Series, when Carter came to the plate with 2 outs in the bottom of the 10th of game 6, the Red Sox had a 99% chance of ending The Curse. They were up by 2 runs, with 2 outs and no one on base. Carter pulled a pitch into left, decreasing the End Curse Probability to a mere 96%. Two singles, a wild pitch, and an error followed, all of which kept intact the path from Babe Ruth to Aaron Boone.

Click this link to the game's Win Probability Chart and look in the last box on the right, which represents the bottom of the 10th inning. The sharp downward slope almost straight down, just like the cliff off of which the Red Sox fell.

Perhaps the only more drastic reversal of fortunes in a World Series game was game 4 of the 1929 World Series, when the Cubs blew an 8-0 lead to the Philadelphia A's in the bottom of the 7th. Look at the slope on this chart. A Yankee connection is that the Cubs pitcher who started the inning by giving up 6 hits to the first 7 A's batters was Charlie Root, who a few years later served up Babe Ruth's famous called shot.