The Philadelphia Skyscraper Sports Curse

For twenty years, Philadelphia sports teams failed to win major titles because of a statue. Locals believed that breaking a gentleman's agreement to keep buildings shorter than William Penn angered the city's founder.

Since the 1900s, an unwritten rule prohibited any building from rising taller than the bronze statue atop City Hall. When a new skyscraper finally broke this height limit in 1987, fans blamed the resulting championship drought on a supernatural curse. The legend grew so strong that construction workers eventually placed a tiny Penn statue on the top beam of a new building. Coincidentally, the city’s major sports teams finally began winning titles shortly after this peace offering.