The Curse of Josh Beckett

or Why the Dodgers really need to win tonight

This story happened 21 years ago and I’m over it, to some degree. But since Halloween Eve can always use a good scary tale, here goes.

The Chicago Cubs lost the first game of the NLCS to the Florida Marlins in 2003, and then they won the next three in a row to take a commanding 3-1 lead in the series. This presented a situation I had not anticipated before: With the Cubs on the verge of winning the pennant, I wanted to be at home in Chicago when it happened.

I remembered all of the horn-honking and high-fiving that went on when the Bulls won their championships in the 1990s, and I wanted to be a part of that for the Cubs. Whether that meant going out to a bar, or heading down to the vicinity of Wrigley Field, I didn’t quite know yet. But celebrating in Albuquerque, New Mexico—where I was visiting my in-laws for the weekend—held no appeal to me.

So as Game five started at Pro Player stadium in Miami on a Sunday afternoon, I found myself indifferent as to whether or not the Cubs won the game. If you had pressed me on the subject, I would have said I’d rather be in Chicago when they did win the pennant. I didn’t root for the Cubs to lose the game, but I didn’t really want them to win it, either. Which was a strange feeling that I would come to regret.

When Josh Beckett–who the Cubs had knocked around in Game one of the Series–began shutting down the Cubs, in what would turn out to be a two-hit shutout, I wasn’t particularly concerned. In fact, I told myself it was a good thing, because now I’d be in Chicago when the pennant was clinched. It wasn’t a matter of if, but a matter of when this was going to happen, and I had gotten what I wanted.

It’s completely irrational for me, or any other fan, to think they can have any effect on what happens on the field of play. I’ve turned on games before where the first pitch I’ve seen has been hit out of the park, and I’ve said to myself “better watch something else instead.” Or some people have a lucky hat they wear when the watch a game, or a certain room they have to watch the game in. We all have our quirks when it comes to rooting for our team. And, in reality, our team has no concern for what we fans do or don’t do during the game.

What Beckett’s outing did, other than send the Series back to Chicago as I wanted, was restore his confidence as a pitcher. This paid off handsomely for the Marlins in Game seven of the series, when Beckett pitched four innings of middle relief that stifled the Cubs and extinguished their hopes for a comeback. But none of that was apparent to me on that Sunday in Albuquerque, when I just wanted to see the Cubs win the pennant in Chicago. And the sting of that loss stayed with me for a very long time afterward.

It felt like an eternity between the heartbreak of 2003 and the final exhilaration that I felt when the Cubs broke through to win the championship in 2016. I have to believe that the Dodgers—who are currently in the same situation as the 2003 Cubs were going into Game five—would rather close out this year’s Series in New York tonight, instead of chancing a return to L.A. for Games six and seven, with a resurgent Yankees team to accompany them on the trip.

The Yanks are currently ahead 4-0 early in Game two, so it’s not looking real good for them right now. But like Yogi Berra said, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over, right?