Thanks to everyone who came out to the Cremate the Curse event at the funeral home in Schaumburg Sunday, and thanks to everyone who provided eulogies for the various Cubs curses, especially the MC of the event, Tom Dreesen. He was great, as always.Here's my contribution...The Curse of the Lutheran Seminary
In 1914, Charlie Weeghman found a great location on the North Side of Chicago to build his new ballpark...a chunk of land at Sheffield, Addison, Waveland and Clark. It was absolutely perfect.
There was only one problem. Something already stood on that ground. A Lutheran Seminary.
Charlie purchased the land, and built his ballpark on the exact same spot that Seminary once stood. A place that had been a center for thoughtful contemplation, a home for heavenly guidance, a divine dwelling, was replaced by a ballpark filled with alcohol swilling, profanity hurling miscreants, probably playing hooky from an honest day’s work. (People like me).
Now I’ve got no evidence that this brought on a curse, other than the 33,580 days without a championship since the Cubs started playing there, and a few other signs that maybe, just maybe, somebody (points up) didn’t like that too much.
Sign #1: The league this ballpark was supposed to feature, the Federal League, was broke in two years.
Sign #2: The man who built the ballpark, good ol’ Charlie, was bankrupt just five years later.
Sign #3: The team that took over that ballpark, the Cubs, have played the World Series in this ballpark 5 times, and each time they brought a dark cloud of bad karma along for the ride.
1929, moments before the first Wrigley Field World Series game was even played, two Wrigley employees were arrested for beating up a hot dog vendor outside the ballpark.
1932, Cubs players stiffed their own teammate Mark Koenig a full playoff share, angering his good friend Babe Ruth, who you may remember, made a point (point) of getting back at them.
1935, Cubs players screamed so many profanities from the dugout that the umpire actually threw the entire bench out of the game. In the ninth inning of the final game, with a runner on third base and the score tied, the Cubs had to let the pitcher bat.
1938, a ninth inning home run was hit in Wrigley Field by a Yankee the Cubs had turned down just a few years earlier because they didn’t think he would be good enough...Joe DiMaggio.
I’ll let the next speaker tell you what happened in 1945. Let’s just say that the groundwork may have been laid for a humble curse request from a man who wasn’t allowed to bring in a goat.
That’s why I’m contributing this photograph of the construction of Wrigley Field to this curse cremation.
This is our way of letting HIM know, we are formally asking for forgiveness (Maybe for the first time ever.)
Please, consider One Bad Century sufficient penance.
