This’ll Get Billy’s Goat: 2008 Might Be The Cubs’ Year

Check the calendar for a month of Sundays. See if Hell is forming ice crystals. Look into those rumors that the Pope isn’t Catholic. The million-to-one shot is looking like a winner.

The Chicago Cubs are disturbing our world order.

The Chicago Cubs, non-participants in the World Series since 1945. Non-winners of the whole enchilada since 1908 – one hundred years of losing, and in all different shapes and sizes. They’ve been laughable, lovable, and tragic. Pretenders, contenders, and stuck in the starting gate. Cursed, jinxed, and mocked. Close, but never cigar puffers. They’ve been eliminated from the race in some years after Labor Day, and others before Easter.

This is one of the years where they have teased the faithful on the city’s North side. It’s well into August now, and the Cubbies are either setting their fans up for another heartbreak, or about to obliterate the city’s other century-long dry spell, following by three years the cross-town White Sox World Series title of 2005, which ended nearly a hundred years of thirst on the South side.

Have you looked at the standings?

Take a break from gnashing your teeth over the Tigers’ travails, and take a peek at the National League Central race. Only it’s not so much of a race right now, for the Cubbies are starting to scamper away with things. They are a full five games ahead of the second-place Milwaukee Brewers (another franchise that’s been awash with failure) – and that margin was secured a couple weeks ago, when the Cubbies went into Milwaukee for a four-game series. They landed in Milwaukee with a one-game lead, and left with the five-gamer, thanks to a cold and calculating four-game sweep – the kind that the Cubs have been on the receiving end of when the chips have been down.

But it’s still only the first week or so of August, and there are still about 50 games to be played, and these are still the Cubs. Which means there is still the Curse of the Billy Goat.

It’s a story, apparently not apocryphal, and it’s been told and re-told, but there may be some of you who don’t know.

1945 World Series. Local tavern owner Billy Sianis, who used to bring his pet goat – hey, this was the ‘40s, pets were different, OK? – to Wrigley Field during the regular season, is told that, since it’s the World Series, the goat wouldn’t be allowed in. Sianis is furious, and places a hex on the Cubs, saying they’ll never return to the World Series. It’s been 62 years and counting. The Billy Goat Curse lives, for now.

Sianis and his goat

It’s 1969 and the Cubs, after another couple of decades of wretched baseball, are actually leading the newly-formed East Division of the National League. Their closest challengers are the Miracle Mets from New York, themselves poster children for baseball comedy. But as the summer progresses, the Cubbies are losing their toehold on things. It comes to a head one evening, when, from out of nowhere, a black cat scurries in front of the Cubs dugout during a game in New York. It’s joked that the black cat is a harbinger of bad things to come. The joking is prophetic, for the Cubs go into the tank, the Mets catch fire, and hearts are again broken on the North side.

It’s 1984 and the Cubs are in the playoffs. It’s best-of-five back then, and they take the first two games over the San Diego Padres in Chicago. The Tigers are romping over the Royals in the American League, and so folks get dreamy over a potential Tigers-Cubs World Series, just like in the Billy Goat Year of 1945. But Leon “Bull” Durham, the Cubs first baseman, lets a routine grounder go thru his legs in Game 5 in San Diego, the Padres go on to win, and they take three straight from the Cubbies. No I-94 World Series, after all.

It’s 2003 and the Cubs are as close as they’ve been to the Fall Classic as anytime since 1984. They lead the Florida Marlins, three games to two, and are leading the Marlins, 3-0, heading into the 8^th inning at Wrigley Field. A foul fly is hit toward the left field line, right next to the stands. Cubs left fielder Moises Alou drifts under it, only he’s unable to try his hand at a catch because fan Steve Bartman tries for it instead. Bartman deflects the ball as Alou reacts animatedly. The Wrigley fans, once they realize what has happened, boo Bartman, one of their own, mercilessly. He is escorted from the ballpark, his safety threatened. Bartman’s try for the baseball extends the Marlins inning, and they go on to score eight times, capturing Game 6. They then win Game 7 and advance to the World Series.

The above incidents from ’69, ’84, and ’03 are all chalked up to the Billy Goat Curse, along with just about any other malfeasance the Cubs franchise has suffered over the past 63 years.

But you look at the calendar, and you look at the Cubs’ five-game lead, and you look at their manager, Lou Piniella – who played on the Yankees team of 1978 that overcame a 14-game deficit to overtake the Red Sox – and you start to wonder, once again. Is THIS the year they call Billy Goat’s bluff?

I have been waiting, as I’m sure millions of others have along with me, for the Cubs to collapse, or fade, or at least give their fans collective heart attacks, even if they should hold on to win the division. Because wining the division is hardly a meal ticket into the World Series. There are still a couple rounds of playoffs through which to navigate – in other words, plenty of time for something to go wrong, and for the Billy Goat to triumph.

Yet the Red Sox (2004) and the White Sox have erased decades-long demons in recent years. Even our own Tigers broke a 19-year mini-drought of playoff-less seasons, back in 2006. So there’s still hope for the Cubbies. There’s always been that, even when there hasn’t been much else.