October 6, 1945: The Curse of the Billy Goat

Billy Sianis and his 1945 mascot

October 6, 1945: Game 4 of the World Series is held at Wrigley Field. The Chicago Cubs are preparing to host the Detroit Tigers, with the Cubs leading 2 games to 1.

William "Billy Goat" Sianis is the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, across from Chicago Stadium, home of the NHL's Blackhawks and the Midwest’s premier boxing venue. He has a goat as his bar's mascot, and he buys 2 tickets to this game, one for himself and one for the goat. He had to wait until Game 4, because the travel restrictions for World War II hadn't yet been lifted, and the 1st 3 games of the Series were held at the Tigers' Briggs Stadium. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.)

At the time, there was no rule against bringing an animal into the ballpark. But fans around him complain to the ushers that the goat smells bad, and Sianis and his goat are kicked out of the ballpark.

Wrigley Field during the 1945 World Series.

Note that the now-famous marquee includes the words

"NATIONAL LEAGUE CHAMPIONS."

It would be a long time before it could say that again.

A Greek immigrant and a superstitious man, Sianis puts a curse on the Cubs. The Tigers win the game, 4-1, all their runs coming in the 4th inning, after Sianis and the goat are kicked out. The Tigers win the Series in 7, and afterward, Sianis sends a telegram to Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley, asking, "Who stinks now?"

He opened his Tavern in 1934, just after the end of Prohibition, at 1855 West Madison Street, across from the Chicago Stadium. In 1944, with the Republican Convention across the street at the Stadium, Sianis, an immigrant and a Catholic, which, at the time, almost always meant becoming a Democrat, he posted a notice saying, "No Republicans Allowed." This caused the place to be packed with Republican conventioneers demanding to be served, and led to increased publicity for the Tavern.

In 1963, Sianis would move his bar, a precursor to today's sports bars, to its current location, at 430 North Michigan Avenue, just north of the Loop, near the Tribune Tower and the Sun-Times Building, making it a popular watering hole for journalists. He died in 1970, about a year after the Cubs’ 1969 September Swoon. He died in the middle of the night. The great Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko wrote, "He couldn't die during working hours."

The 1963-current Billy Goat Tavern

His nephew Sam Sianis has run the place ever since, and when William Wrigley Jr. sold the Cubs to the Tribune Company in 1981, Sam offered to lift the Curse of the Billy Goat. A number of times, Cub management has allowed Sam to take his bar's current mascot onto the field in an attempt to lift the Curse. It didn't worked: Apparently, Billy's curse was stronger even than his own flesh and blood.\

On October 22, 2016, the Cubs finally won another Pennant; on November 2, another World Series. Those droughts were 71 and 108 years, respectively; in each case, by far, MLB's record. The next-longest Pennant drought: The crosstown Chicago White Sox going 46 years without one, 1959 to 2005. The next-longest Series drought: The Cleveland Indians, the team the Cubs beat in the 2016 Series: As they go into the 2022 postseason, they are attempting to end a drought of 74 years, which includes 4 Pennants with the World Series lost each time.

Was the goat the reason for the Cubs' drought? Well, let's put it this way: In 1945, the Cubs had already not been World Champions for 37 years, and had already had a number of weird things happen to them in Series play, including a 10-run inning by the A's in 1929, Babe Ruth's alleged "called shot" in 1932, and Stan Hack leading off the 9th with a triple with what would be the tying run and then getting stranded there to lose Game 6 and the Series to the Tigers in 1935. The goat curse doesn't explain any of that.

So what's the real reason the Cubs didn't win the World Series in 108 years? If you're not willing to say, "Bad management," then your guess is as good as mine.

Shortstop Lennie Merullo on May 30, 2015, at 98 years old. He was the last living man to have played for the Chicago Cubs in a World Series, until October 25, 2016.

The Billy Goat Tavern is now franchised, including installments at Chicago's O'Hare and Midway International Airports, the Navy Pier, and the Merchandise Mart. For a few years, there was one in Washington, D.C., near Union Station and Capitol Hill, for Chicagoans working in the capital, but it closed due to COVID. I visited the original in 1999, and Sam Sianis himself served me one of the best burgers I'd ever had.

Supposedly, the original was the inspiration for an early Saturday Night Live sketch: "No hamburger: Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger! No fries, chips! No Coke, Pepsi!" (The real thing has it the other way around: No, Pepsi, Coke.) John Belushi starred in the sketch, but he claimed he'd never set foot in the place, and that the sketch was based on the restaurant his Albanian immigrant father ran in his hometown of Wheaton, Illinois, whose name became the name of the sketch: "The Olympia Tavern."

UPDATE: Sam Sianis died in 2026, at 91. His sons and their children had already been running the place for a few years.

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October 6, 1945 was a Saturday. Game 4 of the World Series was, obviously, the only baseball game that day. It was too soon for the basketball and hockey seasons to start. All the NFL games that week were played the next day. But there were college football games, including the following:

* Army, for obvious reasons the defending National Champions, beat Wake Forest, 54-0 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York.

* Notre Dame beat Georgia Tech, 40-7 at Grant Field in Atlanta. When Army played Notre Dame, the last team to beat them, at Yankee Stadium, they were ranked Numbers 1 and 2, respectively, and Army won, 48-0.

* Navy beat Duke, 21-0 at Duke Stadium (later Wallace Wade Stadium) in Durham, North Carolina. When Army played Navy in Philadelphia, they were ranked Numbers 1 and 2, respectively, and Army won, 32-13, clinching another National Championship.

* Alabama beat Louisiana State (LSU), 26-7 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 'Bama went on to win the Southeastern Conference title.

* Indiana beat Illinois, 6-0 at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois. The Hoosiers went 9-0-1, and won the Big Ten Conference football title outright. This remains the only time they've ever done that. Their only other title has been a share in 1967.

* Missouri beat Southern Methodist (SMU), 10-7 at Ownby Stadium in Dallas. Mizzou lost its 1st 2 games, but went undefeated in the Big Six Conference (a forerunner of the Big 12).

* Texas beat Texas Tech, 33-0 at Memorial Stadium in Austin. The Longhorns won the Southwest Conference title, and beat Missouri in the Cotton Bowl.

* Southern California beat St. Mary's, 26-14 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. USC went on to win the Pacific Coast Conference title, but lost the Rose Bowl to Alabama.

* Oklahoma A&M beat the University of Denver, 31-7 at UD Stadium in Denver. A&M, renamed Oklahoma State in 1958, went on to beat St. Mary's in the Sugar Bowl.

* Holy Cross beat Yale, 21-0 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut.

* The day before, October 5, Georgia beat the University of Miami, 27-21 at Burdine Stadium in Miami, the stadium that would later be renamed the Orange Bowl. Despite this, Miami would reach the Orange Bowl game, where they beat Holy Cross.

* In New York City, Columbia beat Syracuse, 32-0 at Baker Field. The day before, New York University (NYU) lost to Temple, 59-0 at Temple Stadium in Philadelphia. Fordham University had suspended its football program for the duration of the war.

* In New Jersey, Princeton played Lafayette to a tie, 7-7 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton. And Rutgers lost to Swarthmore College, 13-6 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway. This loss was not as embarrassing then as it would be now: Then, Swarthmore was in roughly the same category as Rutgers, "small schools" in the Northeast; now, Swarthmore is in NCAA Division III.