The Chicago Cubs, you might have heard, have been on a bit of a dry spell. The North Side’s lovable losers haven’t won a World Series since 1908, when the Dodgers were not only still in Brooklyn but were calling themselves the Superbas, and the Cleveland baseball team went by the less-offensive name of Naps.
Here’s where it gets complicated. In 1945—with the Cubs already thirty-seven years into their stretch of futility—a man named Billy Sianis tried to bring a goat into Wrigley Field. Sianis owned the Billy Goat Tavern, the greasy spoon lunch-counter made famous many years later by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd’s “Cheezborger” sketch on SNL. When Sianis and his promotional goat were denied entry to Wrigley, the story goes, he placed a curse on the team, declaring that the Cubs would never win a World Series as long as the goat was denied entry.
It’s not clear whether Sianis was advocating for all goats or whether the curse specifically applied to his goat—though considering the lifespan of a goat, if it’s the latter, they might as well raze Wrigley. (It should also be pointed out that the Sianis family seems to feel no particular remorse; the Billy Goat Tavern’s website proudly keeps track of the curse’s efficacy, all the way down to the day.) While you might argue that an angry burger salesman probably doesn’t have anything to do with Steve Bartman preventing Moises Alou from catching a foul ball, that hasn’t stopped angry Chicagoans from, let’s say, making their displeasure known.
Now, with the Cubs trying to rally their way to the wild card slot and fans feeling positive about this team’s chances, things have changed. Maybe. But just in case, a pair of local restaurateurs have taken matters into their own hands. In search of an ancient sin-eater to devour the transgressions of their people, Pat “Deep Dish” Bertoletti and Tim “Gravy” Brown hired competitive-eating legend/gustatorial cipher Kobayashi to speed-eat his way through a forty-pound goat. Along with fellow competitive eaters B.O.B. and L.A. Beast, the highlighter-haired Japanese champion knocked it out in under twelve minutes. Impressive!
A lot of questions here. Aren’t these guys only making things worse by doing a horrible thing to a goat? Assuming curses can be lifted by eating the creature that caused the curse to be cast, what if this goat isn’t large enough? Does that mean the Cubs make the Series and lose in six? Why is someone from LA helping a Chicago sports team? Shouldn’t Stephanie Izard, whose Girl and the Goat restaurant and Little Goat diner remain two of Chicago’s most popular spots, have been consulted about this? Did the dude really eat both the eyeball and the heart?
With only a couple of weeks remaining in the season, the Cubs currently trail Pittsburgh by three games but can make up that ground by sweeping the Pirates in their upcoming weekend series. Stay tuned.
