Flak Magazine: Kick Out the Sports! 10.20.03

The Billy Goat Tavern is much like the Chicago Cubs: It has built a business on the shameless self-promotion of dumpy surroundings that masquerade as charm in the service of a mediocre product. Located a staircase below the Michigan Avenue/Magnificent Mile strip, it's the place tourists go when they want to see the "real" Chicago.

Thanks to the Curse of the Goat — you might have heard that mentioned a few million times during the National League Championship Series between the Cubs and the Florida Marlins — the tavern and the baseball team are inextricably linked. So it seemed natural that on the day after another legendary Cubs' collapse — you might have heard the name Steve Bartman mentioned a million times even as the World Series was getting under way — the Billy Goat would be buzzing at lunchtime that Thursday.

And it was. I opened the door and ran into — literally — an ESPN camera crew.

The place was crowded, though not overwhelmingly so, with a few media types, office workers and, of course, tourists. There was a gasp when the local news showed Bartman's hand on top of Cubs' left fielder Moises Alou's glove as Alou jumped into the Wrigley Field stands to catch a foul ball. At this point, sympathy had not set in for Bartman — he was still the Walkman-wearing moron who started the Cubs' collapse in Game Six. One guy yelled out, I think for the benefit of the ESPN camera, "Get 'em!"

I made my way to the line snaking around the front counter. I took my place near a real, live goat, sitting on a flattened cardboard box, munching on lettuce. It had a heavy chain around its neck, the chain attached to a table by the door to a storage room. PETA would not approve. It's hard to see how Chicago's health department does.

Now, the goat isn't just a mascot; it's the successor to a previous mascot blamed for the Cubs' "curse." In 1945, the Billy Goat's owner, Bill Sianis, went to a World Series game at Wrigley Field with his goat, which was adorned with a wrap that said, "We Got Detroit's Goat." According to an Irv Kupcient dispatch framed on the wall behind the bar — there are scads of framed articles on the Billy Goat all over the restaurant — Sianis says he bought a $7.20 box seat ticket for the goat. Of course, ushers wouldn't let the goat in — name one public facility, other than the Billy Goat Tavern, that allows in any kind of goat — Sianis got ticked, the Cubs lost. Sianis tells owner P.K. Wrigley, "So who stinks now," and the curse, and its Billy Goat-fueled hype, is born. You might have heard this story, too, even before Bartman became an online Photoshop star.

Anyway, as the ESPN camera sets upon the goat, the present owner, Sam Sianis, comes over to supply the wacky Chicago White Ethnic stereotype that proved so popular in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The Billy Goat, like Wrigley Field, was probably once a charming place, but everything now feels so contrived and rehearsed, down to the continued chant of "Cheezeborger cheezeborger" — hey, that "Saturday Night Live" sketch was a long time ago! — and the guy yelling "Da line! Da line! Da line!" for the 376th time, even when there was no place for da line to go. But the tourists love it, like one guy on his cell phone talking excitedly to a friend about being in the formica-and-paneling shrine.

That excitement may explain why no one came over to strangle the goat. Or maybe it got a reprieve because the Cubs could still make it to the World Series if they won that night at Wrigley. I made a mental note to come back the next day for lunch.

The Cubs lost that game, as you might have heard. (Outside of Miami, how many headlines said "Marlins Win" instead of "Cubs Lose"?)

At the next day's lunch, there wasn't much gnashing of teeth going on inside the Billy Goat, aside from gnashing of teeth in the service of chewing cheeseburgers. Already a significant number of Cubs fans were invoking the hackneyed — perhaps sanity-maintaining, given the Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1906 — "Wait Til Next Year" device, without acknowledging this was next year. But those tourists weren't at the Billy Goat. Instead, the bulk of tourists were allied with USC football, taking in the Chicago sights before the Trojans played at Notre Dame on Saturday.

The goat was still there. It was not under Steve Bartman-like protection from angry Cubs fans. Instead, like many Cubs fans, it stood without protest while others rubbed their noses in their team's epic defeat. In the goat's case, it was being photographed by Chicago White Sox fans, including pictures in which the goat wore a Sox cap. Apparently the goat, and the curse, get to live on.

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.