Cursed Ball About to Get Whacked

All this to protect, at least until Thursday night, what superstitious Cub fans see as the ultimate symbol of bad luck. For this is the baseball that Steve Bartman, the hapless yet loyal Cub fan, inadvertently knocked away from outfielder Moises Alou in last year's National League championship series.

Alou didn't catch the foul ball, this ball, and the Florida Marlins rallied to win the game. The Cubs then lost the next game, as well as their chance to get to the World Series, where they haven't been since 1945.

"If we destroy that ball, it'll finally be all right," said Jeremy Dougherty, 38, a construction worker who dropped by the downtown bar and restaurant for a last peek before the ball is obliterated. "The curse on the Cubs will be lifted."

Dougherty is among the nearly 30,000 Cubs fans who have sent eager e-mails, made pleading phone calls and scrawled desperate notes on the bar's cocktail napkins to Grant DePorter.

Managing partner of the Harry Caray's Restaurant Group, which was founded by and named after the beloved longtime announcer for the Cubs, DePorter bought the ball in December for $113,824.16.

The Cubbies' faithful all want one thing: to destroy The Ball.

They have suggested DePorter roast it, incinerate it, crush it, drown it, drop it into a bucket of acid, split it into two with an ax, put it in front of a firing squad, launch it into outer space, shove it into a shredder, scatter its remains at sea, even freeze it in liquid nitrogen and shatter it into a million pieces.

Some way, any way, get rid of it.

On Thursday night, their pleas will be heeded. Only the method remains a mystery.

"This ball is baseball's anti-trophy," DePorter said. "I had a pit in my stomach, for sure, because it was so expensive. But what would happen if we didn't destroy it and some Marlins fan got ahold of it? What if someone used it to psych out the Cubs next year? No, it's got to go."

After nearly six decades without making the World Series, Cub fans have grown used to a string of bad luck that would depress even the condemned.

Many trace the start of the downhill slide to a local saloon owner who, in 1945, bought two tickets to a game. One seat was for him, and one was for his goat.