Goat meat

For the record, my wife Martha likes to eat barbecued goat. I do not.

And just so there is no misunderstanding, as far as this column goes, majestic mountain goats are not goats.

Goats are bug-eyed ugly and stinky. I am proud to say I have never drank goat milk and I don’t think I’ve ever eaten goat cheese except this one time there was something pretty rank and I mistakenly chomped on it and my mouth smelled like the dump, so it could have come from a goat I guess.

No one should be surprised that in sports jargon, a goat is a person who makes a booboo that costs his team the game, a bonehead, whipping boy, scapegoat, for example Steve Bartman.

Speaking of the Cubs, it is in this anti-goat spirit that I was hopin’ n’ wishin’ that Chicago would bury the Curse of the Billy Goat once and for all. Kill it like what the Boston Red Sox did to the Curse of the Bambino in 2004, the team that I just so happened to cheer for all season for that reason—to remove the dang hex.

While acknowledging that I may have not contributed much to Boston’s success on the field, I prefer to believe that I was part of an energy field that helped the team play at their pinnacle, that we were all Red Sox Nation with a spirit that carried the players to their greatest achievement. So yeah, I helped them in a cosmological way.

With the best record in all of baseball in 2008, the Cubbies sure looked good to get their first championship since 1908. Plus, I was rooting for them. And with the oh-so perfectly symmetrical 100th anniversary, it looked like Miss Providence might dance with the Cubs. But when the games started, the lucky lady danced with the Dodgers three times.

Now I realize the Curse is as real as melamine in milk products from China.

A man bought two tickets for Game 4 of the Cubs-Detroit 1945 World Series: one for himself and one for his pet goat (do not ask me the goat’s name or breed). The goat was initially allowed into Wrigley Field. Eventually the two were asked to leave. The man was so upset that he placed a curse on Wrigley Field and the Cubs. Well, the Cubs lost that Series and haven’t returned since.

Personally, I believe the curse was the goat’s idea, knowing the kind of shifty animals they are.

Ever have a goat stare at you with his evil eye? You’re lucky if that hasn’t happened to you.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays got rid of their curse by simply dropping the Devil and going with Rays. The Cubs can’t do that. What—called them Ubs?

Now they are stuck with this Curse of the Billy Goat. At least the Curse of the Bambino sounded cool. The Billy Goat Curse sounds, well, silly, a silly Billy to tell you the truth. I think it stinks like a goat. And it’s coming back next season.

I am afraid to write, “Wait ‘til next year!!!”. I must resist the temptation of believing the 101st anniversary is oh-so perfectly appropriate for Uncle Luck to finally visit the Cubs dugout.

No, I am afraid there is only a goat waiting for the Cubs in 2009. Has nothing to do with Soriano, Zambrano, Soto, or Sweet Lou. It’s really all about a ticket-holding goat that was insulted, and whose ghost carries a mean grudge.

To prevent that curse, the goat should have been barbecued at Wrigley Field. My wife would have eaten it. With rice, of course.