Cross-country journey tests Boston's curse.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

Thursday, 3:45 a.m. An alarm awakens me in a cheap Boston hotel built in 1897 and featuring salmon pink walls.

Today is the day I will fly back to Eugene and forever defeat The Curse. In two previous trips here, my flights home have been jinxed by the same bad luck that has plagued the Red Sox since they traded Babe "The Bambino" Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1920. (Before the trade, five World Series titles. After? Zip.)

I cram the last of my stuff, including Dan Shaughnessy's "The Curse of the Bambino,' into a suitcase. With the cab called, I rush out the door.

"Temporarily out of order' says a sign on the elevator. Don't panic. This is no grounder through the legs of Bill Buckner (cost Sox the Series in '86), just an early-game setback.

I lug my bags down six flights, hop in the cab, hand the man a pre-paid voucher and listen to the first English-speaking driver I've gotten in years yammer on about how "every friggin' pro sports owner oughta be fired on the spot.'

We go past a Red Sox billboard that says "Keep the faith,' then enter the Ted Williams Tunnel beneath Boston Harbor. Bad sign. (Williams' sudden hitting slump helped Boston lose the '46 Series.)

Keep the faith, I remind myself. We arrive at Logan International. I hand Mr.-Three-Day's-Growth a $5 tip, grab my bag and start to get out. "Hold it, pal!' He points to the $16.50 on the meter and holds up the $5 bill. Great, I think: The day begins with my cab driver charging the mound to exact revenge for what he sees as a knock-down pitch.

"The voucher,' I say. His cranial light bulb flickers, then turns on, though dimly. "Oh, yeah. Sorry.'

En route to Minneapolis-St. Paul, I relax as I read "The Curse." "Once a (Sox) fan accepts this fate and understands the cycle," the book says, "he can make peace with himself and accept any disappointment because he knows it is coming.'

I'm wearing a new Red Sox T-shirt, bought after downing a hot dog across from Fenway Park. But the past is past. I'm confident I'll make my connection to PDX, even if Johnny Pesky, whose late throw home cost Boston that final game in '46, was born in Portland.

The newspaper forecast is for clear skies. No snow is going to stop me as it did in '02. Nope, what's going to stop me, I soon discover, is, well, Oregon's state fish: the salmon.

On a loudspeaker in Minneapolis, a Northwest Airlines gate agent tells us we have a "slight problem." Our plane has arrived from Alaska but a cooler of salmon spilled en route. The fish-water-ice combo seeped into the ventilation system. The plane stinks so badly that we need a different "aircraft."

The curse! I never should have taken the salmon-pink hotel room. How could I have been so stupid?

To quell a potential uprising, Paul Hahn, a baggage handler/wandering minstrel, suddenly appears with a mandolin and begins playing a traditional Jewish song, "Hava Nagila." (No, I am not kidding.) Meanwhile, one of the pilots tells me the plane was suitable to fly.

"Ya know," huffs a local passenger on the flight, "some of us Minnesotans have spent a little time in boats with fish on the bottom. Fish smell won't kill anybody."

I know I will miss my Portland-to-Eugene flight. But it does not matter. As the "Curse of the Bambino' says, "It's not the winning of (the Series), it's the anticipation of winning it. Once the Red Sox win it, nobody will be that much interested in them anymore.'

Indeed, what story - or glory? - is there in incident-free travel? I chat with my teammates, travelers from all over who are suddenly bonded by finding our backs to the wall, specifically the Green Monster. I listen to the pilot explain the decision to yank - pun intended - the fishy plane and go to the bullpen. I listen to the finest mandolin-playing baggage handler I've ever heard.

Long live the Curse of the Bobino.

Bob Welch can be reached at 338-2354 or at [e-mail].