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Most people blame the goat (or Steve Bartman) for the Chicago Cubs’ inability to reach the World Series, but the curse extends far deeper than most sports fans can imagine.
Whenever the Chicago Cubs reach the World Series, tragedy strikes.
Their last appearance was 1945, which Time Magazine called, “the year that changed everything”, as the destruction of Hiroshima ushered in the Atomic Age, radiation, and the threat of nuclear annihilation.
During the 1930s, the Cubs won three pennants; all of them occurring during Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. Hitler received his German citizenship in ’32 (a pennant year for the Cubs), Germany repudiated the Treaty of Versailles in ’35 (another pennant year), and the Nazis moved into Austria in ’38, making war inevitable (still another pennant year).
When the Cubs took the National League in 1929, the stock market crashed which led to the Great Depression. 1918? Another war year, another Chicago pennant. In 1910, the Cubs passed everyone in the league and Congress passed the Mann Act, prohibiting the transportation of women across state lines for immoral purposes – as a result, opposing players were unable to compete at peak levels because they had trouble concentrating.
A fire at the Rhoads Opera House killed 170 people in 1908, and that same year the Cubs beat Ty Cobb and the Tigers to win the World Series. Then there was the Financial Panic of 1907, and finally, in 1906, everyone should have seen the writing on the wall. The Cubs won it all and the world suffered through the San Francisco earthquake – and Typhoid Mary.
Growing up in Central Illinois, my brother Steve and I had to choose between the Cubs and the Cardinals. He picked Chicago. I selected the St Louis and dedicated my life to keeping the curse alive.
In 1969, when the Cards floundered, I prayed for any other team besides the Cubs to win the pennant. Who knew it would be the lowly New York Mets? In 2003, while visiting Vegas, my brother slapped a receipt for his sports bet on the table and boasted, “It’s a lock. The Cubs are up by three, their ace is on the mound, and they only need to win one game”.
I cursed that ticket with disdain. Then my brother walked into the bar area to watch the game. The instant he crossed the threshold, Bartman made that fatal grab, sending the Cubs into their historic downward spiral.
My brother passed away earlier this year, so, to me, his death has been the world’s greatest tragedy. I realise I may be alone in that belief, but, since the Cubs have surpassed my Cardinals in the playoffs this year, I shall lift the curse in honour of my brother (and Bartman) and grant the Cubs the ability to win it all.
David Andrew Lloyd is a screenwriter living in Studio City, and a die-hard Cardinals fan living in denial after his team allowed the Red Sox to end their curse in 2004. He has written for USA Today, Advertising Age, and All-Time Baseball Greats, plus Brain Like Twain, a humorous book on the art of writing.
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