Murphy’s got the answer to Chicago’s long curse

Don Murphy said a sentence I’d never expected to hear from him. Or anyone.

“I am cooking a goat.”

And here is your explanation:

The luck of the Irish worked to help the Red Sox a few years ago, so Murphy’s giving it a try for the Cubs.

The sports-minded owner of Murphy’s Bar & Grill is well-known as a huge supporter of University of Hawaii athletics, through good times and lean. Murph also doesn’t mind trying to reverse the curse for fans of long-suffering pro sports franchises.

The Red Sox had never won a World Series after 1918 because after the next season their owner made the brilliant move of letting a 24-year-old star pitcher named Babe Ruth get away to the Yankees for a few dollars.

The Curse of the Bambino lasted 85 years, with the Red Sox always bumbling away opportunities, often to the benefit of the Yankees.

Boston finally won another World Series in 2004 — after some redecorating of a downtown Honolulu establishment.

“When the Sox won, we had changed the main dining room wall to look like the Green Monster (Fenway Park’s left-field fence), complete with scoreboard,” Murphy said.

Now, it’s Chicago’s turn. The Cubs and Indians are tied in the World Series at one win each as the series moves from Cleveland to Wrigley Field for Game 3 today.

The Cubs haven’t won it all since 1908, and this is the first World Series game at Wrigley since 1945. Superstitious fans blame the Curse of the Billy Goat.

William Sianis was stopped from entering the park for Game 4 of that ‘45 series against the Tigers because of his smelly companion, which happened to be a goat. Didn’t matter that both had tickets.

Sianis, owner of The Billy Goat Tavern immortalized in early Saturday Night Live sketches (Cheezborger! Cheezborger!), is said to have then put a hex on the Cubs, vowing they’d lose the current series and never win another Fall Classic.

So now, 71 years later, during today’s game Murphy will try to uncurse the Cubs by serving up … goat.

Goat sliders, to be exact.

Call it a make-up call, on behalf of all tavern owners. And Don feels a little extra sense of responsibility since the name of Sianis’ goat was Murphy.

I met my favorite newspaper columnist, Mike Royko, one night when I was 19. A couple of evenings earlier a friend and fellow journalism student, David Beardsley, returned on the elevated train from Chicago very excited. He’d had a drink and a cheezborger with the legendary Pulitzer Prize winner at his favorite after-hours hangout. Royko told Beardsley to return to the Billy Goat Tavern with his pals from campus anytime, and he’d tell us tales of taking on Mayor Daley.

Apparently, our timing was not good. Royko was not in the mood this time to entertain punk college kids and basically told us to get the hell out of his bar and, while we’re at it, his city. Tip: When meeting a celebrity for the first time at a watering hole, don’t do it near last call.

We were too shocked to think of putting a curse on the Billy Goat Tavern softball team for which Royko pitched.

Royko died in 1997 and is especially missed at the Billy Goat — as Mark Johnson will be at Murphy’s, where the 21-year American League umpire was a regular.

Johnson, 65 and a part-time resident of Kailua (where his wife, Lilia, is from) died Tuesday of natural causes. He worked the 1993 World Series in which Toronto beat Philadelphia on Joe Carter’s walk-off homer. He also worked two All-Star Games, including the 1990 midsummer classic at Wrigley Field.

“Great guy who loved the islands, terrific storyteller,” Murphy said. “One of Mark’s claims to fame was he threw all three Ripkens out of one game.”

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529- 4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.