In my longest so far (1901 - 1940 or so, Lahman), after stepping in and trading Babe to the Yankees, the Curse was correctly imposed
. The Yankees made the WS approx 16/17 times in the next 20 years, but had actually lost about 2/3 of them. The only other AL team to reach the series, I think, was the Philadelphia Athletics. The Phillies, Giants and Pirates took most of those WS from NYA.
Ruth took free agency a couple of times, signing with the Cards and then the Giants, where he sat on the bench towards the end, putting up about 787 HRs in total.