“Pop culture has always treated a Cubs championship like a far-out fantasy,” wrote Gwen Ihnat in her article with the same name. She is right; baseball fans all over the country, regardless of what team they prefer, know, at the very least, the gist of the “Curse of the Billy Goat.” In this story, a tavern owner named William Sianis was at Game 4 of the 1945 World Series with his pet goat. As it turned out, goats can smell quite pungent, and the odor was bothering the other fans, so Sianis was asked to leave the ballpark. As he left, he uttered, "Them Cubs, they ain't gonna win no more," allegedly meaning that the Cubs would not win that World Series nor any other ever again. As (bad) luck would have it, the Chicago Cubs lost the World Series to the Detroit Tigers, and they never made it that far again until 2016 when they overcame all odds and won the Series against the Cleveland Indians. One odd detail about this year’s season is that on the 46th anniversary of Billy Sianis’ death, the Cubs beat the Dodgers to win the National League pennant and went on to the World Series, winning yet again.
The Curse of the Billy Goat is clearly the most notable curse, but even without it, the Cubs’ performance in the seventy-one years since has been nothing short of laughable. The only exception to this was last season, in 2015, when the Cubs when they had a .599 success rate. Even then, the fans of every other baseball team were making jokes. The renowned “Go Cubs Go” song has an almost-equally-as-famous version in which the Cubs are told to “Choke Cubs Choke,” a common expression of mockery towards their team.
So, what does it all mean, and why should we care? For starters, if you do not believe in curses, it might make you wonder if the social stigma of the Cubs losing for so long was simply reinforcing them to “choke,” much like the song says. If hundreds of thousands of people were telling you to “choke” because you “suck,” do you think you would be able to overcome that?
Even if reinforcement is not the case in this situation, there are other cultural implications to consider, such as our society’s obsession with rooting for the underdog. As stated previously, it was a baseball tradition to make fun of the Cubs for losing, especially because they always said “Wait for next season!” However, when it became clear that they were going to the World Series this year, baseball fans all over the country began rooting them on rather than cheering for the Cleveland Indians. Why? Because while it was always fun to make fun, when the country saw that they finally had a chance to win it all, everyone lost their minds and it seemed like everyone was suddenly a “fan since birth.”
Just like we discussed in class about superhero movies constantly using the underdog to portray the hero, the Cubs also have been the unlikely heroes for one hundred and eight years; the last time they won the World Series. In a year like 2016, with all of its crazy media stories about the election, perhaps the United States simply needed a hero. Perhaps the biggest part of the Cubs’ victory this year is that if they can change their awful baseball records and become World Champions, perhaps we can enforce change in other areas, as well
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