• 10/5/2004
  • By – Neil Hayes
  • ContraCostaTimes.com

I was in Gig Harbor, WA., to interview Harry Frazee III, the grandson of the former Boston Red Sox owner who sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, when I found out I had oral cancer.

Two days later, I watched the De La Salle High School football team’s 151-game winning streak come to a surreal end on the floor of Seahawks Stadium. That’s when it became obvious that a series of seemingly unrelated events were in fact connected. In attempting to disprove baseball’s most celebrated myth I had unwittingly awoken an angry ghost. We had both been cursed by the Bambino.

It seems as if every Bay Area sports team has been cursed in the wake of one of the darkest weekends in Bay Area sports history. The Anaheim Angels celebrated a come-from-behind victory in Oakland that ended the A’s four-year playoff run. The Los Angeles Dodgers rallied for seven runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to stun the Giants, whose postseason hopes died the following day. No shame in that for either team. In fact, both the A’s and Giants got what they richly deserved. Neither team was good enough, plain and simple. Both teams overachieved to finish where they did.

The Raiders swaggered into Houston and got pole-axed by the Texans. Instead of being 3-1 heading into Sunday’s showdown with the Indianapolis Colts they’re staring 2-3 right in the grill. The 0-and-49ers are the worst team in football, hands down. We knew the offense would be horrid. What’s the defense’s excuse? Worry not, 49ers fans. General manager Terry Donahue, the architect of this unfolding calamity, recently signed a long-term contract. We can only interpret that as a sign that ownership is pleased with his stewardship.

And I thought I had problems. I’ve written this column for seven years with the understanding that I’m the least most interesting person I can write about. We’ll make an exception today to explain my absence during one of the busiest months of the sports year.

A sore on my tongue turned out to be cancerous. Surgeons sliced a chunk off the side and removed my lymph nodes as a precaution. All in all, there are better ways to spend a few weeks away from the laptop.

Fortunately, the pathology reports were negative. I am, for the moment, at least, cancer free.

I’m not looking for sympathy. People have overcome far worse. Former Raiders and current Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden likes to say, “you get what you deserve,” although he may disagree now that his is team 0-4.

Those words have been echoing through my head. I can’t help but think I brought this on myself, that I’m paying my penance for years of tobacco use. The location of the tumor made it impossible for the doctor to say with certainty that it was a result of my 15-odd years as a smokeless tobacco user but I know better. When I quit chewing snuff I smoked. I was never a heavy smoker, three or four per day, maybe five if I was writing (“Nicotine is a drug of clarity” former columnist and ex-smoker Pete Hamill wrote), but still … Don’t worry. I’m not going to preach. My friends who still chew shrink when they see me. They know what I knew: It will catch up to you eventually. Seeing the six-inch scar on my neck reminds them of that grim reality.

I will say this to all those dippers out there, all the people who have bummed a chew from me or whom I have bummed a chew from over the years, everybody from coaches, managers, general managers and players — you know who you are. I’m not going to say, “It could happen to you.” It’s too much of a cliché. But if it does happen to you — when it does happen to you — you’re going to feel like a total idiot because you knew all along. You’ll feel worse than you ever felt in your life. You’re going to feel like you cheated your family, your wife, your kids, and for what? A pinch of snuff? A smoke when nobody is looking? Maybe coming clean will help lift the curse. It can’t last forever (wait a minute. Isn’t that what Boston Red Sox fans have been saying since 1918?) The 49ers went to Seattle a few weeks after De La Salle’s 151-game winning streak was snapped and had their 420-game scoring streak end on the same field. Mark Mulder was a leading candidate for the American League Cy Young Award before his collapse began around the same time. De La Salle lost again and tied another. Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon suffered a broken vertebra in his neck. The Giants give up seven runs in the bottom of the ninth? Mere coincidences? I think not.

Considering the breadth and scope of the curse that now seems to be plaguing Bay Area teams, the curse I take full responsibility for bringing down upon us all, I almost feel like I got off easy. Respect the curse, that’s the lesson here. That and to make the playoffs you need a shut-down closer. It’s good to be back.