Mike Walker is currently the director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Brooksville. He pitched professionally for 14 years playing for both the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians who met in this year’s World Series. Even though he pitched for both teams, he is a Chicago Cubs fan at heart. Mike was born in Chicago and is a lifelong Cubs fan, so he set about to reverse the curse of the Billy Goat.
Superstitions are a part of baseball. A player may not wash his clothes when he is playing well. Fans may have the same game day routine to try to keep their team winning.
The curse of the Billy Goat as it is called, dates back to 1945. It is said that the curse was placed on the team by local pub owner William Sianis. The story is a little fuzzy, there are a
lot of variations. Some say that the odor of his pet goat Murphy was bothering other fans so Sianis and Murphy were kicked out of Wrigley Field during game 4 of the 1945 World Series. Sianis is said to have then cursed the Cubs by saying something similar to “Them Cubs, they ain’t gonna win no more.” The Cubs went on to lose that World Series in seven games and for the next 71 years the Cubs would not return to the World Series.
Sianis was quite a marketer, he named his pub the Billy Goat Tavern and even grew a goatee. The curse may even have been a marketing ploy by him. He was known to use creative marketing. It is said that during the Republican Convention in 1944, he hung a sign on his door that said “No Republicans allowed.” This caused Republicans to come in to complain and soon the tavern was packed.
Mike noticed that the Cubs were stymied by players named Murphy. Daniel Murphy was MVP of last year’s National League Championship Series (NLCS), which was won by the New York Mets. Murphy hit home runs in all the games of the series as the Mets swept the Cubs. Mike watched the Cubs lose 3 games of a best of five series in Jack Murphy Stadium to the Padres in 1984 NLCS.
After last year’s season, Mike needed to clear some land. He asked a neighbor if he could borrow her goats, to clear the land. She was looking to get rid of one of the goats, so Mike now had a goat. Other Cubs fans had sacrificed goats to try to lift the curse, Mike decided to try a different track. He would win the goat over with kindness.
Mike originally wanted to name his goat Yhprum which is Murphy backwards. The problem with that was the name was pretty much unpronounceable, so the goat was named Murphy.
Mike also decided to have a Cubs jersey made for Murphy. He contacted Patricia’s Boutique and requested a special favor. He wanted them to modify a dog’s Cubs jersey to fit Murphy, this is not something that Patricia’s Boutique normally does, but the seamstress was a Cubs fan too. There was measuring and alterations and now Murphy had a Cubs jersey.
Mike watched the World series from the same seat since that was working. In a thrilling seven game series the Cubs managed to lift the curse of the Billy Goat and win the World Series. Now Mike and Murphy can celebrate.
