Another Curse Is Broken

It took the Chicago Cubs 71 years to break the infamous Curse of the Billy Goat, a curse supposedly placed on the Cubs franchise in 1945 by Billy Goat Tavern owner William Sianis.

Legend has it that because the odor of his pet goat, Murphy, was bothering other fans, Sianis was asked to leave Wrigley Field during game 4 of the 1945 World Series.

Outraged, Sianis allegedly declared, “Them Cubs, they ain’t gonna win no more,” which has been interpreted to mean that either the Cubs would never win another National League pennant, or that they would never again win a World Series.

Well they sure did it in style with an exciting 8-7 10th inning World Series win over the Indians in the 7th and deciding game.

However, did you know that Chicago had another sports-related curse?  This one only lasted 40  years.

This curse was known as the Curse of Muldoon and was first reported by sportswriter Jim Coleman in his Globe and Mail column in 1943.  As he described it, in 1927, Chicago Black Hawks (today referred to as Blackhawks) then owner, Frederic McLaughlin fired his head coach, Pete Muldoon at the end of season after a heated argument. Apparently, Muldoon supposedly responded, “Fire me, Major, and you’ll never finish first. I’ll put a curse on this team that will hoodoo it until the end of time.”

The so-called curse ended in 1967 when Chicago indeed finished first (but failed to win the Stanley Cup).  Afterwards, sportswriter Jim Coleman admitted that he made the story up to break a writer’s block he had as a column deadline approached.

Hmm … Given the number of conflicting reports, I wonder if another writer was suffering from writer’s block on that fall day of  game 4 of the 1945 World Series and took it out on a defenseless goat.