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Posted By: David Atkatz

Actually, McGraw didn't refuse to play Boston. He refused to play the winner of the A.L. pennant, whoever that may have been.
At the time Little Napolean refused, it was just as likely that the people he hated most--the Greater New York Base Ball Club of the American League--would win, and there was no way McGraw was going to risk losing to them.
As it happened, The New York Americans gave up the pennant to the Boston Americans on the last day of the season--Jack Chesbro's infamous wild pitch--and so it was Boston that was shut out of the second World Series.

How do you turn any of that into a "curse"?