The Chicago Cubs are the modern day obsession for millions throughout the Chicagoland area, the country, and the world. Every summer Wrigleyville is swarmed by those rabid baseball fans looking for tickets to see their ultimate underdogs try and defy over a century’s worth of strife.
This major league baseball team began playing in the 1870 as one of a handful of professional teams trying to follow the Cincinnati Red Stockings example. Then they were known as the White Stockings. They would take names like the Colts and the Orphans before finally adopted the time-tested Cubs. The first few decades featured a promising team at the advent of the first professional baseball leagues. They would join the National League in 1876, a league they continue to play in to this day.
The Cubs were once a team that was far from lovable losers. For the first two decades of the 20th century Cubs tickets held realistic promises of a National League Pennant and a World Series title every summer. With a total of five pennants and two World Series titles, the Cubs were one of the signature teams in the league, along with the Red Sox and the White Sox.
After 1929, the Cubs would take crowds on a wild ride, winning the N.L. Pennant every three years, but failing to win a World Series every time. Then, in 1945, came the World Series with the Detroit Tigers, a series best known as the official beginning of The Curse. The Cubs were up two games to one with the series swinging back to Wrigley Field. Billy Sianis, a local Greek tavern owner, had purchased Cubs tickets for him and his goat. Everything was fine at first. The goat proudly wore its sign mocking the Tigers and the pair even took a lap to the cheers of the crowd, but everything fell apart once rain started falling form the sky. The goat’s stink was so powerful the Cubs owner had the goat removed. Sianis then cursed the team, saying that they would never win another World Series at Wrigley Field.
The curse was only a whisper for years, barely recognized until 1984, but after the failure of the 1969 team with loaded with Ron Santo, Ferguson Jenkins, and Billy Williams; a late June Swoon every season from 1977 to 1979; and a squandered NLCS against the San Diego Padres in 1984, the story was rehashed and given new life. Cubs tickets came with the knowledge that fans were buying entry to watch a doomed team from then on.
The Cubs turned in several inspiring performances, but failed to overcome the seemingly mounting pressure from the baseball god. In 2003 the Cubs were five outs from the World Series when the Florida Marlins mounted a compelling three run comeback after a fan interfered with a foul ball in left field. All the dreams for World Series tickets quickly dissipated as the Cubs dropped that Game Six and the next.
The recent years have given renewed hope to the end of the curse (something fans thought was possible after watching the Red Sox and White Sox conquer their own demons), but first round exits have frustrated the fans. Still, as a Cubs fan, there is always next year and that season would be as good as any to end the Greek tavern owner’s curse.
