Chicago Cubs joy as they end baseball’s billy goat curse
FOR decades, the Chicago Cubs baseball team laboured under the “curse of the Billy Goat”, for failing to make it to the World Series.
But that changed over the weekend when, for the first time since 1945, the team won a spot at the highly coveted US-only post-season championship.
The area around Chicago’s Wrigley Field stadium turned into a street party as the delirious 42,386 fans who had watched the game celebrated the Chicago Cubs victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“My grandpa’s been alive for so long, and he’s never experienced this,” said Adam Lewickas, a 31-yearold Chicagoan standing in a sea of cheering crowds.
Cars honked loudly all around. People walked up to each other with outstretched hands, giving high-fives.
Until yesterday, however, fans had feared their beloved Cubs were doomed to eternal defeat. Many of them would only be half-joking when they spoke of the Billy Goat curse.
The legend goes that in 1945, Billy Sianis, owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, was kicked out of a game because the foul odour of his pet goat was upsetting fans.
Outraged, he then cursed the club and declared it would never win another World Series.
The team’s voodoo-esque curse and subsequent decades in the sporting wilderness were the stuff of legend.
Their misfortune was even mentioned in the 1989 film Back to the Future Part II, when a 2015 World Series win for the Chicago team was dubbed a “long shot”.
The Cub’s clinching win for a spot at the World Series was made extra sweet for being against the Los Angeles Dodgers. For years columnists for the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune newspapers have fed a feud between the two cities.
“It’s Cubs vs LA, city of smog and failure,” said the headline of one Tribune column by Rex Huppke last week.
Mr Huppke went on to describe the Dodger’s home city as having “urine-soaked streets”.
Steve Lopez, a star columnist at the Los Angeles Times, did not waste time in hitting back. “My guess is that on the day the LA put-down was written, there were fewer than a half-dozen public officials indicted and no blizzards in Chicago,” he wrote, referring to a number of corruption scandals that have plagued the Windy City. “So it was a slow news day.”
The Cubs are now favoured to win the title for the first time since 1908. They will play the Cleveland Indians in the World Series, beginning tomorrow.
They will be battling a century of history during the season’s finale, but they will have plenty of highpowered support. Illinois natives Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama are both fans.
Even President Barack Obama, who supports the Chicago White Sox, the Cubs’ cross-town rivals, sent words of encouragement yesterday.
The Cubs’ misfortune was even mentioned in the 1989 film Back to the Future Part II