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The Buffalo Sports Curse

The Buffalo Sports Curse
120 Years of Pain, Disappointment, Heartbreak and Eternal Optimism

No Buffalo sports team has ever won a universally recognized championship in a major league. Fans may be familiar with three events that went against Buffalo: “Wide Right,” “No Goal,” and “Home Run Throwback.” But they serve only as highlights for a century-long, deeply engrained “Sports Curse” affecting every professional team in Buffalo sports history. The significance and expansiveness of The Buffalo Sports Curse is showcased by thirty-two historical Buffalo sports events: the close calls, blown calls, injuries, deaths, nefarious back-office dealings, maladies and weird happenings at just the wrong times that all kept the “Curse” alive.​


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Overview

No Buffalo sports team has ever won a universally recognized championship in a major league. Fans may be familiar with three events that went against Buffalo: “Wide Right,” “No Goal,” and “Home Run Throwback.” But they serve only as highlights for a century-long, deeply engrained “Sports Curse” affecting every professional team in Buffalo sports history. The significance and expansiveness of The Buffalo Sports Curse is showcased by thirty-two historical Buffalo sports events: the close calls, blown calls, injuries, deaths, nefarious back-office dealings, maladies and weird happenings at just the wrong times that all kept the “Curse” alive.​

About the Author

Greg Tranter is a prominent Buffalo sports historian, curator and collector with expertise in Buffalo Bills history. He has written two books, “Makers, Moments & Memorabilia: A Chronicle of Buffalo Professional Sports” (2019) and “RELICS: The History of the Buffalo Bills in Objects and Memorabilia” (2021). He is also the author of numerous articles on both the Bills and Buffalo sports history that have appeared in The Buffalo News, Gridiron Greats magazine, The Coffin Corner, Sports Collectors Digest, Shout! and Western New York Heritage magazine. He is the Assistant Executive Director of the Pro Football Researchers Association and in 2018 received its Bob Carroll Memorial Writing Award and in 2022 its Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”

Details

Publisher: RIT Press (10/2022)
ISBN-13: 9781939125873
Binding: Softcover
Pages: 280
Illustrations: 33, some color
Size: 6 x 9 in.
Shipping Weight: 1lb

Reviews

“Do you believe in curses? You might after reading Greg Tranter’s treatise called The Buffalo Sports Curse: 120 Years of Pain, Disappointment, Heartbreak and Eternal Optimism. He covers the ground you know—from Wide Right to No Goal to Forward Lateral—and a lot you forgot or never knew. You will find out why Ban Johnson and George Halas were Buffalo antagonists long before Bill Belichick. Best to read this book now, before the coming NFL season, when the Bills will reverse the curse. Or relive it.”
—Erik Brady, formerly of the Courier-Express and USA Today

“As Greg Tranter details in this wonderfully researched book, the Buffalo Sports Curse is real and long-standing—dating all the way back to 1901 when the Queen City was double-crossed at the last minute in its bid to field a Major League Baseball franchise. Tranter masterfully chronicles all of Buffalo’s heartbreaks since that big-league snubbing, while also capturing the indomitable spirit of a tortured fan base that hasn’t given up hope of one day experiencing a major championship.”
—Scott Pitoniak, bestselling author and nationally honored journalist

Buffalo Tales: Curses! Are Buffalo sports franchises cursed? If so, is this the year it ends?

Pigskin Dispatch podcast: A Curse on Buffalo Sports? Author Greg Tranter presents the Buffalo Sports Curse

Scott Pitoniak in Rochester Business JournalBook about Buffalo sports curses reflects on close calls, fans’ resiliency

Beyond the Game (video): Greg D. Tranter - The Buffalo Sports Curse 

On Target with Penny Wolfgang (audio): Greg D. Tranter - Author

Tim Graham And Friends (audio): Buffalo is dooooooooomed

Big Picture with Penny Wolfgang (video): Big Picture - Greg Tranter, Author of The Buffalo Sports Curse

 

Table of Contents

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
INTRODUCTION 1

1 THE CURSE IS BORN 7
2 BUFFALO BLUES 21
3 THE ALL-AMERICANS ARE BORN 33
4 PRO FOOTBALL COMES BACK TO TOWN 41
5 BUFFALO LOSES A CHAMPIONSHIP — AND THE NFL 49
6 THE BILLS MISS OUT ON HISTORY 63
7 THE MIAMI POUND MACHINE 77
8 THE SABRES LOSE THE CUP 93
9 THE SHORT BUT SWEET TALE OF THE BRAVES 107
10 FERGUSON’S PLAYOFF RUNS SLIP AWAY 123
11 THE BILLS’ SNAKEBIT SUPER BOWL RUN 137
12 MLB BID STRIKES OUT 159
13 O.J. SIMPSON’S FALL FROM GRACE 173
14 BILLS GIVE UP A HOME RUN THROWBACK 185
15 NO GOAL! 203
16 THE LEGEND OF “BABY JOE” MESI 217
17 SABRES ON THE BRINK 223
18 A GLIMMER OF HOPE 239

CONCLUSION 264
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 267
BIBLIOGRAPHY 269
INDEX 275