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(No animals were harmed in producing this strip.)

The Red Sox are in Chicago to face the Cubs at Wrigley starting this afternoon …

When I first saw this photo at the Globe I was all, "Why are they showing that Subway guy, Jared, in a Cubs cap? Who cares?"


Poor Bartman. He not only is universally despised by Cubs fans everywhere, he also has to bear the indignity of being mistaken for Jared from Subway.


You evah wondah what would have become of Bartman had fate been cruel enough to make him a Red Sox fan sitting at Fenway when he made his now infamous interference move 5 outs from a World Series?


Heh. Something tells me it wouldn't have been as pleasant.


Yeah, even with this nascent perception of a "kinder and gentler" Red Sox Nation, there's quite a difference between Red Sox fans and Cubs fans.


Totally. I've nevah bought into this Cubs' fans are our "baseball cousins" horseshit of shared pain and all that.


Seriously. I mean we've got some fan nut jobs for certain but not in the "let me bring my special billy goat friend to the game with me" nuts.


What a jacked up curse anyway. At least the Curse of the Bambino, for all its ridiculousness, was a good story.


Yeah, as fah as curses go, you want something rooted in an event most folks would consider a cosmic and grave injustice, like selling the greatest playah evah.


Absolutely. Where exactly is the villainy grave enough to inspire a curse in telling a dude with a goat fetish to hit the bricks?


Goats have their uses but attending baseball games isn't one of them.


Yeah, if the Cubbies were serious about this curse shit they'd take a goat and perform a bloody ritualistic sacrifice at home plate.


You're telling me. I've always been of the belief that there are very few problems in life that can't be solved by way of ritualistic animal sacrifice.


Of course now we've earned the scorn of PETA activists worldwide.


And my response — Put down that tofu and get ovah heah so I can kick your vitamin deficient vegan ass.


Yeah but a lot of those PETA vegan chicks are hot, especially when they get all kinky with cellophane and summon up the latent cannibal in me.


True. Might be worth joining up just to hang with the vegan protest chicks.



Great strip. I'm surprised PETA hasn't sent its goons to baseball parks for the leather in the gloves and the snouts in the concessions.

I was excited for this series when it was announced, but now that I don't have any relatives in Chicago to mooch off of, it seems more like a lame stunt.

Typo patrol: Our and Are are reversed in the sixth panel from the top.

//Typo patrol: Our and Are are reversed in the sixth panel from the top.//

Thanks. What a weird typo that was, too.

Totally agree that the Billy Goat Curse is lame. A real curse has to involve cosmic baseball injustice.

Selling the best player in baseball history and dismantling a great team all for a Broadway play. That is cosmic baseball injustice.

Throwing the World Series. That is cosmic baseball injustice. Curse-inclined people have a great explanation for the White Sox drought.

Billy Goat? That is silly. I always thought the Cubs drought was much better explained (in the curse paradigm) by stealing the 1908 pennant from the Giants (after which the Cubs went on to their last World Series vicotry) as a result of Merkle's boner. That seems to me much more of a cosmic baseball injustice -- depending on the telling of the story -- than the Billy Goat.

A billy goat goes along just fine with this notion of the "Cubbies" and their lovable loser reputation. Neither are very manly in any sort of way (and I'm a girl.) Sorry, but baseball's for hardasses. If a team's going to talk curses, then get serious - animals and random freak fans do not a curse make.

Is it just me or is today's strip about seven boxes longer than usual? More commentary since it's been 87 years since they've played right?

I've already started getting the "If the playoffs started today, the Cubbies would be in and the Sox wouldn't." from my mid-western work associates. Some people just can't grasp why they play 162...

Brian: Peta hasn't shown up at ballparks because they knew something like this would happen:

Kyoto protest beaten back by inflamed petrol traders

Even though I have no desire to see them win, I still want the Cubs to sacrifice a goat at home plate, just so I can see it. PETA, you can contact me via e-mail to discuss this.

// Is it just me or is today's strip about seven boxes longer than usual?//

Heh. Took me forever to find a way to work in that picture of the naked chicks wrapped in the human sized supermarket meat tray. Sometimes these strips start with the oddest inspirations worlds away from baseball.

So my stream of consciousness thought process went like this: "naked chicks in meat tray, PETA, animals, animal sacrifice, goats, ah the Billy Goat Curse, perfect as playing the Cubs, stupid curse, rip it, and add another gratuitious link to hottie protest chicks"

Did anybody else see that cool PDF the (gasp) NY Times had yesterday? It was the original Times' headline and story from the Red Sox 1918 World Series win over the Cubs. There are some classic lines; my favorite was:

"Boston is the luckiest baseball spot on earth, for it has never lost a world's series."

But for pure, old-school sportswriting, it doesn't get much better than this:

"Jackie Thomas of the US Navy made a play in the seventh which was plain downright grand larceny against one Fred Merkle. Fred popped an angry bouncer down the third base line, which moved over the foul line after it passed the bag. Thomas stuck out one fin, knocked it down, picked it up, turned around a couple of times, spoke affectionately to the ball, and then whipped it over to McInnis in a manner which looked as if the ball was going into the stand. It did not. Stuffy McInnis called on every ounce of India rubber in his makeup, stuck one toe on the pillow, and began to stretch. First he stretched only a few inches, then his body and arm stretched and stretched, half a foot at a time, until his hands seemed to reach half way down to the home plate. It was while he was in this marvelous condition of elasticity that he nipped the ball, and Merkle was out; no one could have beat that without cheating."


Wow indeed! Thanks for posting that excerpt.

That quote is unbelievable.

Almost as unbelievable as the one Dan S. gave us a few weeks ago when he insinuated that anyone who believed in the Curse was an idiot:

"Red Sox-Yankees has evolved into the very best drama in all of sports and with that comes no shortage of themes, which are often silly or contrived (remember 'The Curse of the Bambino'?)."


I always liked the Cubs until
I read that chicago writer's quote
after the Nomar trade. "the only
way this trade would be more lopsided
would be if we ended up with their booze
and women, there may be som rum to be
named later"

How's that rum workin for ya??

Crap....looks like Cornrowyo is getting lit up....

i think that "somebody" should spend less time on his shitty music career...

I'll tell you h.b., there are no hot vegan chix like those here in New Hampshire. Here, they go for the au natural, unshaven gig. Looks like they have Don King in a headlock........

This is fucking bullshit:

arroyo- 4 ip, 10 h, 7r
halama- 2 ip, 5 h, 4 r
embree- 1 ip, 5h 3 r

I understand that you don't want to go out and plunk eighteen batters per game, but unless you establish your ownership of the inside, guys are just going to be sitting on your shitty sub-90 mph "fastballs" or whatever else crap you're throwing over the heart of the plate and end up with 20 hits in seven innings.

Where did the old Arroyo and Embree go?

I saw this morning thousands were demanding the ouster of Arroyo... oh, sorry, that was the Phillipine president. My bad.

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