Boston Red Sox championship history and World Series appearances

The Boston Red Sox's 86-year World Series drought was one of the longest in MLB before it was broken 20 years ago.

The Red Sox have established a winning culture since the reversal of The Curse in 2004, but Sox fans will watch the World Series from the outside for the sixth straight time. But six years is just a blip in time compared to the playoff misses of years past.

Before the Sox went over eight decades without a World Series win, they won all five of the Series' in which they appeared. Boston won the first-ever World Series in 1903, then it won in 1912, 1915, 1916 and 1918.

There's a reason for Boston's decades of postseason absence. The World Series was the only round of the playoffs in 51 of the 86 years of The Curse of the Bambino and only the best team in the American League made it to the Fall Classic in those years. The first ALCS was held in 1969 and the ALDS didn't come around until 1995.

The introductions of the additional rounds afforded the Red Sox and every other team that wasn't the winningest in its division a chance to make the World Series. But even after that, Boston couldn't get the job done until 2004. It had four other opportunities to secure the big prize in 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986.

Ted Williams was the star of the '46 roster in his first year back in baseball after his tenure in the U.S. military during World War II. His MVP season with a .342/.497/.667 slash line and 1.164 OPS helped carry Boston to the World Series, but it lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games in a heartbreaking fashion, later referred to as the "Mad Dash."

The Red Sox have won nine of the 13 World Series they've reached in their 100-plus year history

Boston met St. Louis again in the 1967 World Series, which also went to seven games. The Sox were led by MVP Carl Yastrzemski, who won the Triple Crown that year, and Cy Young-winning ace Jim Lonborg. Lonborg couldn't keep the Cards off the bases in Game 7, though, and the Sox lost their second consecutive World Series appearance.

The 1975 Fall Classic was a battle between the Red Sox and the Big Red Machine. Both rosters were star-studded — Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Jim Rice and Luis Tiant appeared for Boston and put up a seven-game fight against Johnny Bench, Tony Pérez, Joe Morgan and MVP Pete Rose.

Boston's most recent World Series loss came in 1986 against the 108-win Mets. Keith Hernandez, Lenny Dykstra, Ron Darling, Bob Ojeda and New York bested Wade Boggs, Rice and the Sox in another seven-game series.

Since 1986, Boston has won all four World Series it's played in and got its revenge against the Cardinals. The Sox shocked the world and broke The Curse after a 3-0 comeback against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS to beat the Cardinals in the Fall Classic. The Red Sox swept the Rockies in 2007, beat the Cardinals in six games in 2013 and, most recently, beat the Dodgers in five games in 2018.

The recent Red Sox, bought by current owner John Henry in 2002, have established a winning frequency similar to the one they had in the early 1900s. Postseason success has escaped the Sox in five of the last six years, though, and Boston fans are antsy for another deep run.

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