A Brief History
On October 14, 2003, Chicago’s Wrigley Field was the scene of a baseball play that fit right in with the “Curse of the Billy Goat.” The hapless Cubs were playing in the National League Championship Series for a chance to win their first pennant since 1945, when a Cubs fan derailed the team’s efforts.
Digging Deeper
Leading the series 3 to 2 and the game, 3-0, the Cubs seemed on the brink of beating the curse. When a foul ball was hit, a fan, Steve Bartman, tried to catch the ball and got in the way of Cubs fielder Moises Alou, causing Alou to not make the out. The Cubs blundered away the game and the series and had to wait until 2016 to finally go to the World Series.
The ball was sold at auction for $113,824.16 and publicly destroyed by explosives, the remains of the ball put into a restaurant’s pasta sauce!
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Phillips, Stanley. Murphy: Billy Goat Curse: Or, how the Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series. Kindle, 2022.
Walker, Ray. The Ultimate Chicago Cubs Trivia Book: A Collection of Amazing Trivia Quizzes and Fun Facts for Die-Hard Cubs Fans! HRP House, 2020.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by User Wjmummert on en.wikipedia of Wrigleyville under the lights during game 6 of the 2003 NLCS, has been released into the public domain worldwide by its author, Wjmummert at English Wikipedia.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
