Cubs players address the goat

Yesterday before the game Cubs veterans handed out shirts to their teammates that said "F*** the Goat." It's their way of confronting the ridiculous "curse."

In one way I applaud them for this. But I would be remiss if I didn't point out that it's kind of pointless to address it this season. The curse hasn't even come up because the Cubs haven't even won three games in a row all year.

In Defense of the Cubs Fan

Dave Wischnowsky writes a nice defense of the Cubs fan at the CBS-2 website.

Dave and I share a pet peeve--people who blame Cubs fans for the losing. It's a preposterous and easily disprovable theory that should be put out to pasture for good.

Do some research into the years 1946-1966. The Cubs had twenty consecutive losing seasons despite the fans staying away. It didn't help, and do you know why? Because it's not the fault of the fans. That's why.

I hear this ridiculous "it's the fans fault" argument all the time from White Sox fans and sports talk radio. They point to the White Sox fans as some sort of model for creating a championship. They stayed away, and behold! The White Sox won it all in 2005. Yes they did. After 87 years.

By that logic, let's look at the Red Sox fans. They kept going to the ballpark despite never winning it, and behold! The Red Sox won it after 86 years! That proves that the fans have to keep coming, doesn't it?

Of course not. It's a stupid argument.

It's the fault of the people that put the teams together. Period.

Blaming the fans is like blaming the caregiver for the illness of their patient. The patient was ill before the caregiver even met them. The caregivers are doing the best they can with the situation. The caregivers feel their pain, wish it would go away, and wish they could do something about it.

But they can't.

And you simply can't blame them for that.

The JOBC Contest

Time for this week's JOBC Contest.

The first person that e-mails me the correct answer at rick@justonebadcentury.com will win a commemorative Greg Maddux 3000th strikeout scorecard and a t-shirt from the Just One Bad Century catalog.

Here's the question: On this day in 1984 the Cubs acquired Rick Sutcliffe from the Cleveland Indians (along with Ron Hassey & George Frazier). Name two of the three players the Cubs gave up to get him.

UPDATE: We have a winner! Joe Cleaver was the first one to e-mail me the correct answer. He knew that the Cubs traded Joe Carter, Mel Hall & Don Schulze to get Sutcliffe.

Lots of people entered this week. Thanks for trying. We'll have another contest next Monday.

This week in 1908, 1945

Every weekend JOBC goes back in time to the last year the Cubs won the World Series.

This week in 1908, the Republican convention comes to Chicago and nominates William Howard Taft, while the Cubs play a weekend series at the Polo Grounds in front of record crowds.

This week in 1945, a commission led by Manhattan Project scientists warn President Truman not to use a nuclear bomb against Japan, and the Cubs win 5 out of 6 against the Reds and Cardinals.

The Bartman movie

I can't wait to see this movie called "Scapegoats," and not just because my buddy Dane Placko is part of it (the filmmaker saw him tell the story on JOBC). I'm also excited because the filmmaker on this project, Alex Gibney, is an Academy Award winner--and his other projects have been tremendous.

He was interviewed about the film by ABC. It's here if you'd like to read it.

The 1918 World Series

OK, I'm starting to get a little ticked at the coverage of this 1918 World Series story. If you've missed it, a new document has been revealed, an interview of disgraced White Sox pitcher Eddie Cicotte. In the interview he says he "heard that the Cubs threw the 1918 series."

That one comment, from a guy trying to save his own skin, with absolutely no evidence or proof to back it up--and zero corroborating evidence--has led to articles in just about every publication in America saying that the Cubs may have thrown the 1918 World Series.

It was on the front page of the Daily Herald yesterday. It's in the Boston Globe today.

I've looked at this story pretty extensively. In fact, I researched it for weeks. There's an entire book written on the subject, and that author spent more than a year researching it. After that whole time he came up with a few potentially fishy plays in the series, and a notebook written by a White Sox executive, who called somebody on the Cubs "a fixer." Two of the pitchers on the Cubs were later accused of fixing games too--but there's no evidence at all that they did in this series.

I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm just saying that there's no proof at all that it did.