Cursing an old legend
A visit to the famed Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago reveals what Cubs fans think of the hex on their team.
CHICAGO — I order an Old Style, because if you come to Billy Sianis’ old saloon underneath Michigan Avenue looking for a pumpkin-spice beer, or in search of a quadruple IPA with just a hint of citrus and honey ... well, you’re not going to leave a happy customer.
Don’t order fries with your cheeseburger, either. They don’t take kindly to out-of-towners who think all burger joints marry fries with their burgers — or, as they are famously pronounced here (and on that classic “Saturday Night Live” skit) their CHEEZBORGERS. You want fries? There’s a McDonald’s up and around the corner. Here, you’ll have chips and like it.
“It’s pretty simple here,” says Rick Sampson, who is planted at the bar, across from a wall papered by old Chicago Tribune newspaper bylines. “There’s no airs. There’s no BS. Come on in, have a burger and a beer. Then go on your way, with your day.”
Sampson is one of about 30 customers inside the Billy Goat Tavern as afternoon bleeds to evening on the off-day of the National League Championship Series. Half of them wear some form of Cubs gear — hat, jacket, sweatshirt, jersey. Sampson’s got the classic Cubs lid — all blue, red “C.” And he is optimistic.
“All the Mets have done is hold serve,” he says. “Now we get a few home games. And we play pretty well at Wrigley. Let’s see what happens at the Friendly Confines.” Sampson winces when he says the last two words and his friend, Allan Walsh, does too. Cubs fans don’t refer to Wrigley as the “Friendly Con fines” when they’re by themselves, same as most of them don’t spend their lives burdened by the notion of a Curse that has hovered around this franchise for decades.
“If we did,” Walsh said, “do you really think we’d be here?”
It’s a splendid point, really, for this is the mystical equator of all that ails Cubs fans, at least according to urban myth. Back in 1945, the joint was owned by Billy Sianis, a Greek immigrant who not only enjoyed the nickname “Billy Goat” (and grew a goatee to strengthen the connection), he actually owned a pet goat. By now, you almost certainly know that goat’s name was Murphy.
And by now, you almost certainly know that on Oct. 6, 1945, with the Cubs leading the Tigers 2-1 after three games of the World Series, Bill Sianis bought two tickets for Game 4. The War was over, but travel restrictions were still in effect so after three games in Detroit the Series shifted to Chicago; the Cubs needed to only split t those games to winn their first champion- ship since 1908.
There are various versions of what happened when Sianis showed up at Wrigley that day with his “guest” — Murphy the goat. The most popular one goes something like this: The ushers stopped Si an is, told him no animals were allowed in the park. Sianis appealed to P. K. Wrigley himself, who confirmed the decision: “Let Billy in,” the Cubs owner said. “But not the goat.”
Sianis, incensed, demanded an explanation. And Wrigley gave him one.
“Because the goat stinks,” he said.
No matter the version of the st tory, this part is not in dispute: Si ianis told Wrigley, “The Cubs ai in’t gonna win no more. The ubs will never win a World eriese so long as the goat is not al llowed in Wrigley Field.”
When the Tigers took three ou ut of four to win the ’45 Series, a telegram arrived in the offices off P. K. Wrigley :“WHO ST INKS NOW?”N And thus was the Billy Goat urse born. For years, the Cubs ndn the Sianis family have tried too make amends. In 1969, a year be efore he died and with the Cubs ru unning away with the NL East, Bi ill Sianis — whom the great Mike Royko would eulogize
s “Chicago’s greatest tavern ke eeper” — declared the curse officially over; apparently those in charge of such things weren’t in the office that day. In ’84 the Cubs invited a goat to Opening Day, and after 39 years the team finally finished in first place, but there was some horrible heartache lurking in the postseason that year.
“Look,” Sampson says. “I know this makes a cute story, but seriously: Do you believe a goat is responsible for this?”
No. I don’t. I tell him I talked to enough Red Sox fans back in the day, back when the rest of the world insisted they were the dogged victims of inexorable fate, targets of jinxes and hexes and poxes and such. And you could always separate the true Sox fan from the johnny-damon-comelately fan thusly: the newbie would recite chapter and verse from the “Curse of the Bambino.”
The genuine fan would say, “We haven’t been good enough to win the World Series since 1918. We’ve had bad breaks. Every team has bad breaks. One day the breaks will go our way.” Walsh nods his head. “EXACTLY!” he says. “Look, have we had ridiculous heartbreak through the years? Jeez, how much time you got?” Sampson says. “I was too young for ’69. But I was 16 in ’84, and I wanted to kick in my TV when Steve Garvey hit the home run, and the next day I was catatonic when the ball went through Bull’s [Leon Durham’s] legs.”
“And you were at Game 6 in ’03,” Walsh tells Sampson. The Bartman Game. “I don’t call it that,” Sampson says. “I call it the [sorry, can’t transcribe that description for a family newspaper] Game.”
“Here’s the other thing,” Walsh says. “I always laughed at Sox fans who were like professional grievers before they won. I wanted to yell: I guarantee you’re Celtics fans too! Like me: It kills me to root for the Cubs. But I had the ’85 Bears, too. I had the Jordan Bulls. I don’t consider myself tortured. Sorry. I don’t.” It’s time for them to go. “This is going to end someday,” Walsh says. “And when it does, it’s not going to be because of witches or warlocks. It’ll be because we were good enough to win.” He polishes off his Old Style. “We just have to hold serve,” he said. “Maybe it can be this year.”
“Maybe,” Sampson says.
At famed Billy Goat Tavern, mentioning a certain curse rankles truest of Cubs’ fans