My husband, Barry, has been a Chicago Cubs fan since he heard his first baseball game on the car radio during a car trip with his parents in 1945. The Cubs were playing and he decided to become a Cubs fan because the bear cubs were so adorable. . He was ten years old and this was the beginning of a lifelong love of baseball.
He grew up in Danville, Illinois, 120 miles south of Chicago and slightly out of range of the radio station that broadcasts Cubs games. He discovered that he could solve this problem by holding his finger on the antenna button on the back of the radio. However, he is always thankful that there have been no local thunderstorms during the games since he did.yeself has lightning rod.
The Cubs made it to the 1945 World Series because their players were older and the best players from other teams had been drafted during World War II. Despite this advantage, the Cubs lost the series four games to three to the Detroit Tigers and Barry was devastated. The only saving grace was that baseball great Hank Greenberg played third base for Detroit. Even though he was too old to be recruited, he was still a superhero, especially to Jewish kids because Greenberg was also Jewish. This was a rarity in major league baseball, since athletic ability was not associated with Jewish culture. However, he remembers that Greenberg was subjected to the same type of abuse that Jackie Robinson, the first African-American player, experienced.
Barry was in high school before he saw his first baseball game at Wrigley Field and he still remembers the excitement of being there. “Before the game, I had thought that the hiss I heard on the radio after a foul ball fell behind home plate was coming from the ball hitting the net. I even argued this point with a classmate,” he said. “In the game, I learned that the hissing sound was made by the fans and it was a tradition.”
He went to college in Chicago and could easily get to Wrigley Field on the El, Chicago’s partly elevated and partly underground subway system. At the time, Wrigley Field had no lights, so all games were in the afternoon. During one spring term, he enrolled in a political science course that was well known for having irrelevant lectures and tests based solely on the book. He spent those afternoons in the left field bleachers. “The Cubs were especially bad that year, but it didn’t matter,” he said. “Cub fans were used to bad teams. I only went to one lecture, and for the first time ever, the political science final was based entirely on lectures. Wow!”
Wherever we lived, Barry remained a Cubs fan, which is true of most fans who continue to root for the Cubs at every other team’s ballpark. What’s unusual is why so many men remain loyal to a team that hasn’t made it to the World Series in 71 years and has had their hearts broken so many times. In 1984, they led the San Diego Padres two games to zero in a five-game NLCS but lost three in a row. In 2003, they again came within one win of advancing to the World Series. When they were leading in the eighth inning of game three, a fan interfered with a catchable foul ball. The Miami Marlins rebounded, winning that game and the next two to eliminate the Cubs. The unfortunate fan became the human incarnation of “The Curse”. He had to leave Chicago and has remained in hiding.
Barry is convinced that there is a curse. In the 1945 World Series, Billy Goat Tavern owner Billy Sianis was asked to leave Game 4 of the World Series at the Cubs’ home ballpark, Wrigley Field. He had bought two tickets as he had many times before, one for himself and one for his pet goat, Murphy. This time he was asked to leave because fans were complaining about the strong odor emanating from his pet goat. He was outraged and declared, “Those Cubs, they’re not going to win anymore.” This curse meant the Cubs would never be in another World Series game at Wrigley Field and the Cubs, who haven’t won a World Series since 1908, haven’t been there since.
There have been many strange attempts to remove the “Curse of the Billy Goat”. For example, a Greek Orthodox priest tried to end the curse during the 2008 playoffs by sprinkling holy water in and around the Cubs’ dugout. In 2013, a severed goat’s head was given to the owner of the Cubs in a possible effort to lift the curse. In 2014, four men consumed a 40-pound goat in thirteen minutes and twenty-two seconds at a “Taco in a Bag” restaurant in Chicago. None of the attempts have worked. At away games, fans of the opposing home team often wear a goat mask.
It’s not just the “Curse of the Billy Goat,” Barry explained. In 1969, the Cubs were leading their division as the end of the season neared. A black cat visited the dugout and the Cubs lost that game, followed by a long losing streak.
Puppy fans even have their own folk tale. Barry related the following story: “Two pup fans were so frustrated after watching the last game of another losing season that they drank too much, crashed into a tree and ended up in hell. The devil came to see them and found them roasting puppies.” hot and telling jokes, the devil asked them “how can you be happy in this miserable place? we are Cubs fans.” The Devil turned off the heating to make them suffer more. He came to see them and found them surrounded by ice and high fives, laughing and dancing. He said: “How can you be even happier in this freezing cold?” They said, “We’ve never been happier. Let’s go to the World Series! Hell has frozen over.”
This year, the Cubs have the best record in the majors and were the first team to qualify for the playoffs that would lead them to the World Series. They won the first two games of five playoff games with San Francisco, and lost the third game. Several nights ago they played their fourth game and trailed 5-2 at the bottom of the eighth inning of game four. Barry turned off the television and went to bed, sure it was happening again. He said that he dreamed of Billy Goats.
In the morning, he learned that the Cubs had scored four runs in the ninth inning and won the series. They still have to win the divisional playoffs to play in the World Series. But he is convinced that, once again, the curse will end him.
“Just as Moses led the Jews through the desert to the edge of the Promised Land but died before entering it, we will be brought to the edge of baseball glory only to be told again ‘wait until next year,'” he told me. . “But that’s okay. I’m sure a lot of us Cubs fans couldn’t handle the shock of getting to the World Series, let alone winning it. We thrive rooting for perennial losers. We get satisfaction from loving losers.” . We are baseball masochists. I’m going to see a psychiatrist and try to understand what’s wrong with Cubs fans.”
