WALLA WALLA, Wash. -- Holy cow! Whitman has a direct link to baseball's legendary Curse of the Bambino?
Those were the thoughts spinning through the head of die-hard baseball fan Eric Odegard ('99) as he sat in a Pacific Northwest History class in the spring of 1997. Then a Whitman sophomore, Odegard was somewhat stunned when professor Tom Edwards made a passing reference to "No! No! Nanette," the 1920s musical. As Edwards remarked, his wife of many years was named after the musical, which was written in part by Otto Harbach, a one-time Whitman professor who left campus in 1901 and eventually achieved considerable fame as one of the top lyricists and playwrights of his time.
For a baseball fan like Odegard, Whitman's connection to "No! No! Nanette" was stunning because it meant that Whitman was also connected to the Curse of the Bambino.
It was in 1920 that Boston Red Sox owner and Broadway producer Harry Frazee, in need of money to stage "No! No! Nanette," sold a young Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. The Babe, of course, soon emerged as the greatest ballplayer of all time, sparking the Yankees to their first four World Series titles. Larger than life and known as the Sultan of Swat and the Bambino, Ruth launched the Yankees down a historical road that now includes 39 American League pennants and 26 World Series titles.
While still with Boston, Ruth excelled as both a pitcher and hitter, leading the Red Sox to World Series titles in 1915, 1916 and 1918. That gave Boston a total of five titles, the most in baseball at the time. The Red Sox, who won baseball's first World Series in 1903, also took the big prize in 1912.
Since selling Ruth to the rival Yankees, however, the Boston baseball franchise has floundered badly. The Red Sox have appeared in the World Series just four times since then, losing each time in seven games. The most painful loss, perhaps, came in 1986 when Boston was within one strike of a World Series title. A slowly rolling groundball eluded first baseman Bill Buckner, however, allowing the Mets to rally past the Red Sox for that year's crown.
This fall, the Red Sox came within five outs of advancing to their first World Series since 1986, only to fall victim to a comeback by their primary rivals, the hated Yankees. More than eight decades of failure and frustration, according to the Curse of the Bambino, is the price a team pays for committing the sin of selling the greatest player of all time.
Before writing "No! No! Nanette," setting the stage for the musical and the curse, a young Otto Abels Harbach made quite an impression at Whitman. In 1901, when Whitman president Stephen Penrose reluctantly accepted Harbach's resignation, he praised the young professor for his "very rare power of teaching."
Harbach, who had graduated from Knox College in Illinois in 1895, taught oratory, elocution, rhetoric, literary criticism and English literature at Whitman. At noted by Tom Edwards in his book, "The Triumph of Tradition - The Emergence of Whitman College, 1859-1924," Harbach helped many students "overcome nervousness and prepare for required orations." At the same time, Edwards writes, Halbach "impressed Walla Wallans with his public readings."
Harbach, a native of Salt Lake City, left Whitman in 1901 to pursue a Ph.D. at New York's Columbia University. Those plans eventually fell by the wayside, and Harbach worked as a newspaper reporter and for advertising agencies until his playwriting career blossomed. From 1907 through 1936, he wrote some 40 musicals, including "No! No! Nanette," "Rose Marie" and "Desert Song." He also wrote seven plays without music, including the popular farce, "Up in Mabel's Room."
Among the 1,000 song lyrics Harbach wrote, his personal favorite was "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," which is remembered as perhaps his most timeless solo work. Other very popular Harbach songs included "Cuddle Up a Little Closer," "Who," and "Indian Love Call."
Harbach collaborated with the best songwriters of his time, including George Gershwin and Oscar Hammerstein II. In 1920, in fact, Harbach took a young Hammerstein under his wing (Hammerstein would later do the same for Stephen Sondheim), and together they wrote several operettas.
A charter member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, and a past president, Harbach was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. He died in January 1963 at age 89.
After graduating from Whitman in 1999, Eric Odegard worked for two years as director of business operations for the Spokane Shadow, a minor league soccer team that competes in the USL's Premier Development League. Former Major League Baseball stars George Brett and Ken Brett own the Shadow, as well as Spokane's baseball Indians and hockey Chiefs.
An English major at Whitman, Odegard then taught English in Japan for one year. More recently, he just completed another six-month stint in his previous position with the Shadow and is now living in Seattle.
Always a baseball fan, Odegard is enjoying the most recent World Series, in part because of an email he received from a friend in Japan. The email arrived after Japan's Hideki Matsui, capping his first season with the Yankees, hit a three-run home run to spark New York's victory in game two of the series. Matsui, a huge star in Japan where his nickname is Godzilla, prompted this email from Shige Yamazaki, Odegard's Japanese friend:
"Oh my Godzilla! Matsui got a great home run. The Marlins was killed by him at today's game. I won't be able to sleep tonight because I fall in love. Oh Matsui, my darlin. He might get a MVP at the World Series."