On May 15, 1500 Northwestern students will shuttle down to Wrigley Field, where the Cubs will play the San Diego Padres on NU Day at Wrigley. Perhaps the Cubs will win and Northwestern students will celebrate. But perhaps the Cubs will lose, and you will be tempted to blame one of the many curses that create the Cubs’ mythology. Don’t. With every season comes a new obsession with the Curse of the Billy Goat or any number of minor omens that, some feel, contribute to the Cubs’ perpetual losing streak. However, such “curses” only serve to distract; in order to understand the team’s failures, fans have to look past superficial jinxes.
Help us fans out by not ruminating on the mystical causes of the Cubs’ collapse while you’re enjoying the game at NU Day. After a few odd coincidences and only a month after the season’s start, discussion of the Cub’s “curses” has begun anew.
At a Chicago Cubs home game Apr. 21 against the Cincinnati Reds, a calico cat ran across center field and into foul territory before a Wrigley Field grounds crew worker picked it up by its tail. Later in the game, a pop foul hit by Jay Bruce of the Reds drifted towards foul territory in left field. It inched closer and closer to the stands until a fan reached out and snatched it away from left fielder Alfonso Soriano in an eerie replay of “Bartman-gate” from 2003. Luckily, this was an early regular season game, not an important playoff game in late October, and the Cubs won the game 7-2.
These two eyebrow-raising events occurred shortly after a severed goat’s head was found hanging on the statue of beloved Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray outside of Wrigley Field on Apr. 13. Pretty classy move, if you ask me.
For those unversed in Cubs lore, the cat incident refers back to a similar situation in 1969, when the Cubs, enjoying a comfortable lead in August, were “hexed” by a black cat that circled the on-deck circle at Shea Stadium. The Cubs choked, losing the lead they had to the Miracle Mets of 1969 who later won the World Series.
In case you were holed up with al-Qaeda in Tora Bora in 2003 and missed the round-the-clock coverage of the Steve Bartman incident: Bartman was a Cubs fan who prevented outfielder Moises Alou from catching a foul ball that would have been the second out in the eighth inning of game sixth of the 2003 National League Championship against the Florida Marlins. The Cubs led the game 3-0 (and the series, 3-2) at that point. After Bartman’s interference, the Marlins scored eight runs in the eighth and proceeded to beat the Cubs in game seven, creating one of the most pathetic collapses in sports history.
Bartman became the biggest scapegoat since the goat that tavern owner Billy Sianis tried to bring into Wrigley Field during the 1945 World Series. He and his goat were removed from the premises in the seventh inning, and an angered Sianis cursed the team. The Cubs lost the World Series and haven’t been back since. I’m guessing the goat head was an attempt to break that curse.
The curses make cute stories, especially for students just being exposed to “Cubs culture” by events like NU Day at Wrigley. But that is all they are: cute stories used as a crutch for 101 years of poor play, epic collapses and predictable disasters. There is no magical hex or curse on the Cubs. No one is sticking needles in the hamstring of an Alfonso Soriano voodoo doll. The Cubs have sucked for a century, regardless of any curse, so “fans” should stop bringing them up to seem knowledgeable about Cubs history — or, even worse, using them to excuse the Cubs’ failures.
The very idea of a curse hanging over their heads is enough to spook the players. It gets into their heads, adding pressure to a team that needs pressure as much as anyone needs a Snuggie. Especially when team management denies the curse before bringing a Greek Orthodox priest to exorcise the dugout before… And then the team gets swept in the first round of the playoffs.
For many of you, NU Day will be your first trip to Wrigley Field. Maybe it will even be your first pro baseball game. You should enjoy yourself; Wrigley Field is a fun ballpark and a historic landmark in both sports and American culture. But do the Cubs fans a favor and don’t bring up any curses in an attempt to identify with Cubs fans. If you want to identify, take a gun and shoot yourself in the groin twice. One for 2003 and the other for last year’s collapse versus the Los Angeles Dodgers. It is a roughly equivalent sensation.
If fans want the “curses” to stop happening, then we need to stop acknowledging them and stop believing them — and part of that starts with you, the non-fan or casual fan. Don’t remind us. It’s just superstition, and it only has the power to distract fans from considering the true problems that plague the Cubs.