On Wednesday, October 27, 2004, the curse of the Bambino was finally lifted from the city of Boston and its long-suffering baseball fans (see Appendix A for more on the curse). For the first time in 86 years, the Boston Red Sox were baseball's world champions. There is no doubt that the 2004 Red Sox were a good team that played excellent baseball throughout the season. The team was led not by talent cultivated in the Red Sox farm system, but by high-priced free agent acquisitions such as Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, Keith Foulke, Curt Shilling and David Ortiz. The average age of a Red Sox team member was 31.1, the oldest team average in the league. Additionally, the 2004 Red Sox's cumulative payroll was the second highest in Major League Baseball at $125,208,542, or $4,173,618 per player. The previous two statistics describe some of the off-field demographic makeup of the 2004 Red Sox. In addition to being a veteran, well-paid ball club, the Red Sox also performed well on the field. The team batting average (number of hits divided by number of official at-bats) of the Red Sox was tied for the highest of all 30 major league teams at .282. In terms of pitching statistics, the Red Sox were in the upper third in earned run average (ERA; the number of earned runs allowed per nine innings of play). Fielding average (number of successful fielding attempts divided by total fielding attempts) is the only major statistic in which the Red Sox were significantly below average, ranking in the bottom quartile. I'm interested in analyzing data from the 2004 Major League Baseball season to determine which factors best predict success (measured by the number of team wins). I am particularly interested in analyzing the relationship between earnings and payroll. I am very curious about this relationship because this relationship can be controlled by the management of the ball club. On-field performance is less controllable by team management because it has a higher “human performance” element. Additionally, I will obtain the linear regression equations for the different variables and detailing the incremental amount of gains for the marginal amount of the independent variable. In addition to analyzing the relationship between payroll and earnings, I am also interested in analyzing the relationship between other major statistical categories...... middle of paper...... s the level of payroll was not a significant variable in predicting the number of victories. Although the Boston Red Sox had a high payroll, I conclude that their success had much more to do with their superior hitting and pitching in 2004 than their high payroll. Appendix A The Legend of the Curse In 1918, the Red Sox won their 5th World Series, the most by any club at that time. One of the stars of Boston's championship franchise was a young pitcher named George Herman Ruth, aka The Babe or The Bambino. In 1920, however, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee needed money to finance his girlfriend's gambling, so he sold Babe. Ruth's contract with Colonel Jacob Ruppert's New York Yankees for $100,000 (plus a loan guaranteed by Fenway Park). Since then, the Yankees, who had never won a world championship before acquiring Ruth, have won 26 and are arguably one of the greatest success stories in sports history. Meanwhile, the Boston Red Sox have only participated in four".."