The following is printed with permission of its author, Lin Brehmer, who originally read it for his Chicago radio show on WXRT-FM on February 26, 2004, the morning before the infamous baseball that was touched by the hands of Steve Bartman in Game 6 of the 2003 NL Championship Series was blown up at Harry Caray's Restaurant. Brehmer will read it again at the next Lovable Losers Literary Revue on Monday, September 8, at El Jardin Restaurant.

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What new madness has seized the Chicago baseball fan? We have learned to blame failure on array of powerful talismans: soda pop on a first baseman’s glove, a bearded goat, Steve Garvey. Can we never blame a shortstop, a relief pitcher, a manager?

Illustration by Tim SouersAnd from what bubbling baseball cauldron poised on what hot stove do we conjure the enduring curses of our Chicago Cubs.

Today, Katie Couric and the warlocks of NBC arrive in Chicago for the destruction of the Bartman ball. This special date has some significance. This is the day before single game tickets go on sale for the Chicago Cubs.

The Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times have devoted team coverage to the approaching ceremony at Harry Caray’s restaurant. Steve Nidetz of the Tribune has even interviewed, “the ball.” He must know people. Most of us will never have the Fidrych-like exhilaration of talking to the ball. Getting the ball’s take on the ball. Last night the ball received a massage and a surf and turf dinner. The ball seemed to have lost its appetite. And you begin to wonder, did we forget this is a ball?

Now we cannot overlook the coins accumulating in the coffers of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, which is the benefactor of this charity-publicity extravaganza. And it is neither charity nor publicity with which we take issue. My fear is this. Do we really have any idea what we’re doing?

I am familiar with the brainstorm that brought a special effects expert to examine possibilities for the obliteration of the ball, but has anyone examined the basic principals of voodoo or researched the removal of a curse. Our town’s history of removing curses would make Marie Laveau cough up a mojo hand. Every few years, someone parades some mangy goat into Wrigley Field or flies a goat to a postseason game to remove a curse. It’s bad enough that most of you can’t even get a ticket to a Cubs game, you have to watch a stupid goat get the VIP treatment. And who knows what happens later back at the hotel.

Over one hundred thousand dollars have been spent to bring the ball to ultimate justice. The first thing Globalpsychics.com will tell you is “while curses may be real, paying money to remove a curse, if anything, will only make the situation worse...”

And does anyone dealing with the Bartman ball know anything of the blood roots and black candles of voodoo ritual. I called Reverend Zombie's House of Voodoo in the French Quarter and asked about removing curses from objects and they groaned, “Hey man, it’s the day after Mardi Gras. I don’t think I can help ya.” So if voodoo takes the day off, turn to the more American trick bags of Hoodoo and schedule the ball for a spiritual cleansing. Removing curses is serious business and what have Chicagoans endorsed? We’re gonna take that ball and we’re gonna blow it up. We’re gonna blow it up real good.

Take it from me, take it from any Cub fan who has felt the veiled dark spirits descend on Wrigley Field on a somber October night. Seize the ball, barter the ball, talk to the ball, erect a circus tent and call out the TV news directors for the greatest curse removal of the new millennium, but please remember this.

Those eight-run eighth innings will kill ya.

Lin Brehmer , the Reverend of Rock and Roll, is a morning disc jockey on Chicago’s progressive music station WXRT . Lin’s wit and wisdom can be heard on a regular feature of his show called, “Lin’s Bin.” The self-proclaimed "biggest baseball nerd in America" said in an interview with The Heckler he came to work in Chicago in1984 because he was promised tickets to see the Cubs in the World Series. He's still waiting for those tickets.