The Boston Red Sox went 86 years without a championship after selling Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.

In 1919, needing cash, Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold star player Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, a team that had never won a championship at the time. Ruth went on to become one of the greatest hitters in baseball history with New York, helping transform the Yankees into the sport’s most dominant franchise, while the Red Sox went from 1918 to 2004 without winning another World Series.

That 86-year drought became known as the “Curse of the Bambino,” a nickname for Ruth, and was often blamed, only half-jokingly, for a string of dramatic Red Sox collapses over the decades. The curse narrative finally ended in 2004, when Boston won the World Series after coming back from a 3-0 deficit against the Yankees themselves in the league championship series, a comeback that remains unmatched in Major League Baseball postseason history.