April 1912 TITANIC postcard with baseball message

postcard

A postcard of the TITANIC printed soon after the April 15 disaster and postmarked in New York on April 23, 1912. The front of the card has a drawing of the ship with a caption detailing its size and the number of dead. The back of the card has a message about baseball: "Saw the Red Sox play Yanks and you can bet your shoes on the Red Sox this year for the pennant." The Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees (then called the Highlanders but already referred to as the Yanks) played a game on April 20, 1912, the first official game at the brand new Fenway Park, and it is likely that this is the game the writer saw. As Red Sox fans know, the stadium opened just days after the TITANIC disaster, and was overshadowed by it, and that connection to the TITANIC disaster has been seen as part of the lore of the Red Sox curse. However, in 1912, the Red Sox won that game against the "Yanks," as well as the pennant and the World Series.