Every Cubs fan knows about the “Billy Goat Curse.”
Every Cubs fan also knows, or should, that the “Billy Goat Curse” is nonsense, invented by a newspaper reporter more than 20 years after William “Billy Goat”
Sianis’ goat was refused entry to Wrigley Field during the 1945 World Series.
It’s made for some fun stories over the years, but the reason the Cubs didn’t win? Bad players, bad management or both. Not a goat.
Nevertheless, over time the Cubs did attempt to “lift” this imaginary curse by inviting Sianis’ nephew, Sam, who succeeded his uncle as owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, to bring a descendant of the goat to Wrigley Field.
The scene pictured at the top of this post was one of those occasions. But when?
Here is a larger version of the photo at the top. If you can’t see that or if it’s cropped too much, click here for the larger version.
You can see about half the matchups on the scoreboard. Also, there are two fixed Budweiser ads at the bottom. Those were in that location only from 1983-85, so we’ve already narrowed it down.
The only date that matches the game matchups we see here are from Opening Day 1985, April 9.
The Cubs won the game 2-1 behind 7.2 innings from Rick Sutcliffe, a Keith Moreland home run and a save from Lee Smith. It was a promising beginning to a season Cubs fans hoped would erase the disappointment of 1984.
Interestingly, none of the newspaper reports on this game mentioned the goat appearance at all. Nor was it mentioned on the game broadcast. It was a different time. This Tribune article doesn’t mention the goat, but does confirm that the Stanley Paul Orchestra (noted on the message board beneath the scoreboard) did play on the field at Wrigley before the Opening Day game in 1985.
After defeating the Expos 5-3 on June 11, 1985, the Cubs were 35-19 and led the NL East by four games. Things looked good — until every single member of the Cubs rotation was injured, and that showed right away in a 13-game losing streak that followed that June 11 victory. From 35-19 the Cubs finished at 77-84, a 42-64 run that was third-worst in the National League. The 13-game losing streak matched the worst in Cubs history at the time (also 1944 and 1982). It was eclipsed by the 14-game losing streak that began the 1997 season.
None of this was because of the goat, though.
Lastly — I am running out of photos to sleuth. The photos that Getty Images used to have without dates… they now mostly have those dates. So if you have any Cubs photos lying around you’d like me to sleuth, please send them!
