ladies & gents:

i've shared the following with my fellow 55+ gms. the mets fans among them seemed to like it. not so much the lone cubs fan (hang in there
john reel.)

the notion is that the cubs may have do more than beat the mets to win the nl pennant.

they may also have to vanquish the "curse of murphy."

i first heard about part of the curse from espn radio announcer john sciambi. i found the rest online, after the mets' daniel murphy had homered
off jon lester and jake arrieta and had made a game-ending stop to close cubs' chances in the second game.

so, "murphy's" role in chicago's hard skid:

1. the owner of the cubs when they started their long postseason losing streak in 1910 was charles murphy. that skid consisted of seven world series
defeats between 1910 and 1945, the most famous of which was in 1932, when the yankees swept and babe ruth supposedly called his homer off
charlie root in chicago.

2. in fairness, charles murphy, a former sports writer who bought the club from james a. hart (no relation here that i know of) in 1905, also assembled
the cub teams that won the world series in 1906, 1907, 1908, and that featured the famous infield threesome of tinker to evers to chance,
(johnny evers was born in troy and died in albany in 1948; his last job was as superintendent at bleecker stadium), and the great pitcher
three-finger mordacai brown. all four are in the hall of fame and brown had a 13-12 record against christy mathewson.

but murphy had fallings out with all four and shipped them away, sending brown to the minors and earning enmity of cubs fans, and sending chicago on its southward spiral.

3. in 1910, when the cubs lost the series to the A's, 4 games to 1, the A's hitting star was the A's danny murphy, who hit .400 and had the series only homer.

4. in 1945, greek immigrant and billy goat tavern owner william sianis was told to leave wrigley field in the fourth inning of the cubs opening world
series game against the detroit tigers. sianis had bought two box seats for him and his goat, at $7.50 a seat, and had in fact paraded the goat
around the field before the game, with the goat wearing a banner saying, "Chicago has got Detroit's goat." but by the fourth inning, fans
had had enough of the goat's smell and sianis was asked to take his goat out the door. as he left, sianis reportedly cursed wrigley field, saying that
the team would never win a world series again until cubs owner philip wrigley came to his tavern and apologized to him and his goat. the goat's name? "murphy." the cubs lost to the tigers, 4 games to 3. sianis died in 1970 but his tavern's popularity hasn't waned: there are now seven
billy goat taverns in chicago and one in washington d.c.

5. in 1969, when the mets raced past the fading cubs to take the pennant, the mets' announcer was bob murphy. the mets' gm was john murphy.

6. in 1984, when the cubs lost in the postseason to the padres, they lost in jack murphy stadium in san diego.

7. in 2015, in their first pennant game in what seems like ages, against the mets, new york's second baseman, daniel murphy ... well, you know that one.

so, if some enterprising cubs' fans can get the ghost of philip wrigley to go to the main billy goat tavern on michigan ave., and apologize to
the ghosts of sianis and murphy, then the cubs' work might be a bit easier.

until daniel murphy steps to the plate.


-mike


-- Edited by mhart on Tuesday 20th of October 2015 01:17:39 AM