By Dave Studeman

I’ve never been one to put much stock in the Billy Goat Curse of the Chicago Cubs. I’ve lived in Chicago over twenty years, and I never heard of it until the Cubs made the playoffs in 2003. It was just an odd, historical footnote to the Cubs’ past. I personally think the story was pounced on by the media, as a way to compare and contrast the Cubs with the Red Sox, but it has never really held much currency for true Cubs’ fans. It’s not truly primal in nature. It doesn’t cause a shudder, nor speak to our dark nature. It’s a second-rate curse.

Print by W.O. Mull, ca. 1872 I have a better curse in mind—one that the media totally missed. The Curse of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.

The National Association of Base Ball Players was the very first professional baseball league, formed after the Cincinnati Red Stockings made it clear that professional baseball would be a big hit with the fans. The first ten teams were the Philadelphia Athletics, the Washington Olympics, the Washington Nationals (TWO teams in DC!), the New York Mutuals, the Cleveland Forest Citys (an odd oxymoron), the Fort Wayne Kekiongas (no clue), the Troy Haymakers, the Rockford Forest Citys (two teams with the same nickname? And what did it mean?), the Boston Red Stockings and the Chicago White Stockings.

Suffice to say that the Chicago team, called the White Stockings, was actually the original manifestation of today’s Cubs. The granddaddy of our lovable, Sosa-less losers. They would later be known as the Colts and the Orphans (after Cap Anson was fired)—the name Cubs would not be given to them until 1902. But the curse that would cause so much future rue was inflicted that very first year.

The NA teams played many other teams, not just those in the NA, but it was only the NA games that counted in the standings. The goal was for each team to play every other team in the league five times, but that didn’t work out. Still, they played the season as much as possible, and each team was supposed to finish its schedule by November 1st (remember that the next time you think the current postseason goes on for too long), at which time the first professional league baseball champion would be crowned.

A close race developed between Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago. In fact, the Chicago team was in the lead on October 17, 1871, the day the city caught fire. I won’t go into all the details of the Chicago fire, but it almost literally wiped the city out. The fire spread so fast that people couldn’t outrun it. Some intrepid folks jumped into open graves in Lincoln Park in order to let the fire pass over them. And the White Stockings’ ballpark, uniforms and equipment did not survive. They may have been buried with the other ashes that formed the landfill now known as Streeterville, by the Magnificent Mile.

The team had to play their final games on the road. Without a home, certainly demoralized by the devastation at home, they lost every game and the pennant to the Athletics.

It was two years before the White Stockings were able to play in the National Association again. Their final years in the NA were lackluster, though they did go on to be perhaps the key founding club of the National League in 1876, and they had some great teams over the next two or three decades.

But the die was cast. The scourge had been revealed. Temporary successes couldn’t suppress the formidable power of the Chicago Fire. It’s time to acknowledge the origin of the Cubs’ true curse.

Dave Studeman and Pete Simpson are the creators of the Baseball Graphs website, which features historic and historical baseball graphs and Win Shares research. Dave is also a regular contributor to Heater, a PDF fantasy magazine for the digital age. Dave lives in the greater Chicagoland area.