Kansas City Royals: Mike Matheny should be next Royals manager

Never heard of the Curse of Scotty Bowman? It’s cool. Not a lot of people have.

It stems from when the St. Louis Blues of the NHL fired their head coach, Scotty Bowman, way back in the 1970-1971 season. Bowman had just taken St. Louis to the Stanley Cup finals three straight years, losing every time. (In fact, his teams were swept each time, so he went 0-12.)

After getting fired, Bowman cursed* St. Louis sports teams so that when they fired a head coach or manager, said fired head coach or manager would go on to great glories with a different franchise. (Never mind the fact that this had already been going on since 1918, which we’ll get to in a minute, but I’m guessing more people know Bowman than they do Miller Huggins.)

*Scotty Bowman never really cursed St. Louis sports teams, but it kind of seems like it’s a real thing.

True to his word*, Bowman would go on to incredible success after leaving St. Louis, as would numerous other coaches and managers. Meanwhile, the Blues have never won a Stanley Cup. Hell, they haven’t even been back to the finals.

*Again, never really happened.

Essentially, the Curse of Scotty Bowman is this: whenever a St. Louis professional sports team fires its leading man, there’s a good chance he’ll go on to have great success in a next stop.

Overall, 11 head coaches or managers fired by a St. Louis NBA, NHL, MLB, or NFL franchise have gone on to win 28 total professional league championships as well as one collegiate national championship. Another coach started a league-wide revolution at his next stop.

Here’s a look at those 12.