When Cubs right-hander Mark Prior was sidelined with a left oblique strain on July 9 in Milwaukee, he had a ready-made explanation that satisfied all the skeptics.
“The goat is starting to look real,” he said.
Two days later, Carlos Zambrano was hit near the right elbow by Joey Cora’s fungo bat during batting practice at the All-Star Game in Pittsburgh. Asked if the Cubs simply have more bad luck than other teams, Zambrano said: “Right now. Sometimes it seems like something’s been wrong with our luck. In the first half, we didn’t have that good luck we had before.”
Throughout the years, the Cubs frequently have been able to attribute any problem or injury to a curse, bad luck, bad karma or something else completely out of their control.
In 1969 it was the black cat that walked past the Cubs’ dugout at Shea Stadium that allegedly precipitated their famous collapse, not the collective meltdown of their pitchers and hitters.
In 1984 it was a bucket of Gatorade that accidentally spilled onto Leon Durham’s glove before his crucial error in the Game 5 loss to San Diego in the National League Championship Series. Popular starter Rick Sutcliffe never got an ounce of blame for blowing a 3-0 sixth-inning lead.
In 2003 it was Steve Bartman’s attempt to catch a foul ball before Florida put an eight-spot on the board against Prior and the bullpen in Game 6 of the NLCS. Prior getting rattled and shortstop Alex Gonzalez booting a double-play grounder were conveniently overlooked in the hubbub over Bartman.
In 2005, after injuries to Prior and Kerry Wood, among others, manager Dusty Baker said he was dousing his players with holy water blessed by Pope John Paul II.
Even Derrek Lee’s broken right wrist in April somehow was attributed to “Cub luck” instead of an ill-advised shovel toss with his glove by reliever Scott Eyre that put Lee directly in harm’s way.
When it comes to the Cubs, it’s always something bigger than the Cubs.
The team was mired in a two-month slump in August 1999 when closer Rod Beck suggested they stop the tradition of flying the “L” flag above the center-field scoreboard after Cubs losses.
“I think it’s bad karma,” Beck said. “I’m not blaming anything for it. But I’m a believer in positive energy and karma. When you lose a ballgame and fly an `L’ over the park, you leave a bad aura around the ballpark and it can go all the way into the next day.”
Beck suggested the Cubs continue to fly the “W” flags after victories but ditch the “L” flag altogether.
“When they don’t see any flag, they can assume it’s an `L,'” Beck said. “Or maybe they can fly a `W’ for `Wanted to win.'”
Former Cubs pitcher Steve Trachsel still bristles about the day in ’94 the Cubs trotted a billy goat through the bullpen while he was warming up before a game. It was former Cubs manager Tom Trebelhorn who suggested the Cubs bring the goat to the ballpark, after the Cubs had lost a club-record 12 consecutive home games. The Cubs beat Cincinnati 5-2 that day, and the goat was given more publicity than Trachsel, the winning pitcher.
“I think Trachsel had more to do with us winning than anything,” Mark Grace said that day. “But I tell you what: I wanted to ride that goat. I wanted to pet it. I wanted to keep him around.”
Trachsel, now with the New York Mets, said Sunday the goat was “definitely big” in ’94, though the legend is obviously much bigger since the Game 6 collapse in the 2003 NLCS.
“In six years, I think we broke the curse about 37 times,” Trachsel said. “We did it twice on Jay Leno. We brought the grandfather’s uncle’s cousin’s third nephew of the guy who originally brought the goat, or something stupid. And we also brought the goat on the show. We were all part of a skit to start the show, and [Grace] was one of the guests.
“And then we also did it about nine times here [at Wrigley].”
Twelve years later, Trachsel still is amazed at the way reporters always find something new to pin the Cubs’ problems on.
“The goat is a big deal now–it’s talked about every year,” he said. “What was the last one? Burn the baseball? Blow up the Bartman ball?”
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Trachsel was referring to a publicity stunt by Harry Caray’s restaurant in February 2004, when they blew up the foul ball from Game 6 to supposedly end the curse once and for all.
“Yeah,” Trachsel said with a smirk. “It was the ball’s fault.”
Since the ball was blown up, the Cubs’ fate hasn’t changed. They blew the NL wild-card lead in the final week of the ’04 season, finished four games under .500 in ’05 and are 21 games under .500 now.
Blaming the goat is easier than speculating that Prior’s oblique injury may have been caused by improper stretching or conditioning, or that Zambrano’s bad luck with the fungo bat actually occurred because the pitcher ignored Cora’s warning not to stand too close to him while he was hitting grounders to infielders.
Nevertheless, whenever something bad happens to the Cubs, talk about a curse or hex or bad omen usually pops up.
“The [Cubs] players are probably doing that just to satisfy the papers,” Trachsel said. “They want to hear something.”
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