It’s a good thing Steve Trachsel finally won a game at Wrigley Field. Now he won’t find a stuffed goat in his locker.
Trachsel had just one win in 21 career starts at Wrigley Field before he beat the Padres in the second game of a double-header on Thursday. That earlier win came on May 4, 1994, the day the Cubs ended their longest home losing streak of the 20th Century at 12 games.
Unfortunately for Trachsel, that was the same day Ernie Banks led a billy goat around Wrigley Field to help lift a 50-year-old curse. And, of course, the goat got all the headlines and TV time. Trachsel’s seven innings of solid pitching got overlooked.
That unintentional slight became more and more of a thorn in Trachsel’s side the longer he went without winning at Wrigley. So fellow pitcher Jim Bullinger decided he was going to get Trachsel’s goat by getting Trachsel a goat.
“I’m going to FAO Schwarz and buy a big stuffed goat and hang it up in his locker,” Bullinger said last week. “Don’t tell him about it.”
Bullinger never got a chance to get to the toy store before Trachsel finally won. “Just the thought of the goat was enough to do it,” said Bullinger.
Lucky gang: The umpiring crew for Friday night’s game was the same one that worked the Dodgers’ forfeit loss in Los Angeles on Thursday.
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Late scratch: For the third time in the last two years when the Cubs came to town, Deion Sanders was a last-minute scratch from the starting lineup. The other two times it happened, he was traded–first from the Atlanta Braves to Cincinnati, then from the Reds to San Francisco. This time the reason Sanders was dropped wasn’t so dramatic. He had a migraine headache.