Taylor Swift and Cleveland baseball superstition: Remember 2007 ‘anthem curse’?
Somewhere deep in the hearts of passionate Cleveland baseball fans lives a memory from 2007 when they (jokingly) blamed a budding teenage singer named Taylor Swift for jinxing the team on its World Series quest.
That memory resurfaced with the news Wednesday that Swift’s fiance, Chiefs tight end and a Cleveland favorite son Travis Kelce, has joined the Guardians’ ownership group as a minority investor.
Here’s what happened, according to MLB.com.
In 2007, the Red Sox and Cleveland — then the Indians — slugged it out for the American League pennant. Cleveland got the jump in the series 3-1.
For all-important Game 5 in Cleveland, the team lined up Swift to sing the national anthem.
Swift’s rocket ride to fame had just launched. The year before she had released her hit single, “Tim McGraw,” and followed it with her self-titled debut album.
And earlier in 2007 on Opening Day she sang the national anthem at Dodger Stadium.
But then something unexpected happened. A “monkey wrench,” MLB called it, that no one saw coming.
“Swift was unable to play, and the Indians had to scramble for a singer,” the league wrote on its website 10 years after the fact. “Their choice? Country singer Danielle Peck, who just so happened to be Beckett’s ex-girlfriend.”
Beckett, in this case, was Red Sox ace pitcher Josh Beckett.
At the time, Swift and Peck were both signed to Nashville-based label Big Machine Records.
“A minor controversy ensued. Were the Indians trying to mess with Beckett, who had beaten them in Game 1? Was this all just a bizarre coincidence? And where the heck was Taylor Swift?” MLB wrote.
“The Indians insisted that there was nothing nefarious afoot, but regardless, Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell thought it only made Beckett more determined to win.”
Legend holds that before the game Beckett told his pitching coach, for the record, that he broke up with Peck.
Then he went out and demolished Cleveland.
Boston overcame the 3-1 deficit, won two games at Fenway Park to take the pennant, then won the World Series.
Lowell told MLB.com writer Anthony Castrovince that “putting his ex-girlfriend out there kind of helped Josh. He didn’t need extra motivation, but they provided it.”
So what did happen to Swift? Explanations vary to this day. A possible scheduling conflict? She was too young, at 17, to sign a booking contract?
In 2008, she did sing the anthem before Game 3 of the 2008 World Series — at age 18 — between Tampa Bay and her “hometown” Philadelphia Phillies.
In 2017, the Indians demonstrated they held no ill will when, after beating the Royals in extra innings to reach an impressive 22-game winning streak, the team invited Swift to help them celebrate, referencing her 2013 single, “22.”
Rumblings about whether Swift brings good or bad mojo for Cleveland — she’s been through this with Chiefs fans — percolated again when she sat courtside with Kelce at the Knicks-Cavaliers game in Cleveland on Saturday.
Cleveland lost.
But maybe, just maybe, Kelce has already jinxed himself?
Recall his infamous spiking of the first pitch at the Guardians’ 2023 home opener?
His bestie Patrick Mahomes, a minority owner of the Kansas City Royals, does.
“I have so much love for this city,” Kelce told ESPN about his latest acquisition. “I say it all the time: I’m just a kid from the Heights living the dream. I credit every good thing in my life to Cleveland and being raised here with the values and the people and the work ethic.”
And now some Guardian fans wonder: Will Swift get another shot at singing the anthem in Cleveland?
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