Shakespeare References in The Curse Of The Bambino

Dan Shaughnessy's book The Curse Of The Bambino contains a few Shakespeare references. The first two are to Hamlet. Shaughnessy is talking about Don Zimmer working as a coach with the Yankees in 1983 and renting Bucky Fucking Dent's apartment. He writes: "Every night when coach Don Zimmer closed his bedroom door, the last thing he saw was a picture of Dent hitting the home run off Torrez. Good night, sweet prince" (p. 147). Obviously, that's a reference to Horatio's line, "Good night, sweet prince,/And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." A little later, Shaughnessy writes: "Sox fans expect something to go wrong. They go to the theater even though they have seen the play before. The cast changes and new liberties are taken with an ancient script, but Hamlet always dies in the end" (p. 158). Then in the book's epilogue, he quotes Lou Gorman: "Everything goes against the Red Sox. They're star-crossed lovers in a sense. The wrong thing always happens to the Red Sox" (p. 214). That's a little nod to Romeo And Juliet and the line "A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life."

The Curse Of The Bambino was published in 1990. The copy I read, with the additional epilogue, was published in 1991.