Last Updated: June 17th, 2026 by Matthew Brown
Some sports curses are born. Others are carefully crafted by a Greek tavern owner with an impeccable sense of theatrical timing.
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According to Billy Goat Tavern’s own account, when William “Billy Goat” Sianis arrived at Wrigley Field on October 6, 1945, with his pet goat Murphy and two $7.20 box seats, he wasn’t trying to curse anyone. He was just doing what he always did – turning everyday moments into memorable publicity stunts.
The Quote That Echoed For Generations
But then Cubs owner P.K. Wrigley made a fatal mistake. As Sports Illustrated recounts, when Wrigley was asked about letting the goat in, he uttered the immortal words that would haunt Cubs fans for generations: “Let Billy in, but not the goat… because the goat stinks.”
In that moment, Sianis – a master of publicity who had already legally adopted a fallen-off-a-truck baby goat for the marketing value – recognized pure storytelling gold.
His response was perfect: “The Cubs ain’t gonna win no more. The Cubs will never win a World Series so long as the goat is not allowed in Wrigley Field.”
The beauty of Sianis’ curse wasn’t just in its delivery. It was in its timing. The Cubs were up 2-1 in the World Series. They just needed to win two more games at home.
Instead, they lost the series. And Sianis, showing an understanding of narrative that would make Shakespeare proud, sent Wrigley a telegram asking, “Who stinks now?”
You couldn’t script it better. A humble immigrant business owner, an adorable pet goat, an arrogant owner, and immediate karmic retribution. It had everything.
But what transformed this publicity stunt into baseball mythology wasn’t just Sianis’ showmanship – it was the Cubs’ subsequent decades of spectacular failure.
How A Curse Became Legendary
Between 1946 and 2015, the Cubs found increasingly creative ways to break their fans’ hearts. The 1969 collapse. The black cat at Shea Stadium. The Steve Bartman incident. Each new disaster added another layer to the curse’s mystique.
The curse worked because it gave Cubs fans something specific to blame. It’s easier to point to a goat than to discuss decades of mismanagement, underinvestment, and bad luck.
It also worked because it was just absurd enough to be memorable while carrying genuine emotional weight. The Red Sox had the Curse of the Bambino – a straightforward tale of karmic revenge for a bad business decision. The Cubs had a story about a man and his pet goat being kicked out of a ballpark because they smelled bad.
The genius of Sianis wasn’t just creating the curse – it was understanding how to make it stick. He kept showing up at Wrigley Field with goats, attempting to “break” the curse, which ensured the story stayed alive in the press.
His nephew Sam continued the tradition after William’s death, turning the Billy Goat Tavern into a shrine to baseball’s greatest hex.
When the Cubs finally won in 2016, it wasn’t just the end of a championship drought. It was the final chapter in baseball’s greatest marketing campaign – a 71-year story that began with a smelly goat and ended with millions celebrating in the streets of Chicago.
William Sianis didn’t just curse the Cubs. He gave their suffering meaning, their eventual triumph weight, and baseball one of its most remarkable stories.
And he did it all because somebody complained about his goat’s odor.