Every sports team’s main goal is to be the best and to try to win a championships. Some win it all, some fall short, and some are the New York Jets. But for some franchises, winning a championship isn’t always up to them. Some sports franchises are believed to be cursed. A strange occurrence happened to the team or the city, and they are doomed to never win a championship. When a city or a team recognizes these curses and tries to reverse them, it sometimes works out for them. However, it mostly just fails miserably.
1.) The Curse Of The Colonel
2.) The Curse Of Marty McSorley
3.) The Curse Of The Billy Goat
William Sianis, owner of the Billy Goat Bar, brought his pet goat to Wrigley Field to watch game four of the 1945 World Series. During the 7th inning, Chicago Cubs owner Philip Wrigley personally had Sianis and the goat ejected because of complaints from other fans about the smell. A furious Sianis reportedly declared, “Them Cubs, they aren’t gonna win no more.” The Cubs proceeded to drop the next three games to lose the Series to the Detroit Tigers, prompting Sianis to send Wrigley a telegram asking “Who smells now?” The Cubs have not made it to a World Series since. Several attempts have been made to break the curse, ranging from Sianis’ nephew Billy bringing a goat onto the field, to fans hanging a butchered goat from the statue of Harry Caray in Chicago. According to Sam Sianis, William’s nephew-in-law, the curse can only be lifted by the Cubs organization showing a genuine fondness for goats. They need to allow them into Wrigley Field because they truly want to and not simply for publicity.
4.) The Coogan’s Bluff Curse
5.) The Curse Of Bobby Lane
6.) The Curse Of Billy Penn
7.) The Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx
According to legend, the athletes appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated go on to experience bad luck. SI’s first cover subject, baseball player Eddie Mathews, was also the first victim of the jinx, suffering a hand injury one week later that forced him to miss seven games. Over the years, the jinx has produced losses, when the 1987 baseball preview featured the Indians with the declaration “Believe it! Cleveland is the best team in the American League, “only for the team to lose 101 games and finish dead last. The curse also brought injuries, when golfer Jim Venturi was named 1964’s Sportsman of the Year, only to spend the next season battling carpal tunnel syndrome. Even scarier is the death foreshadowed by the magazine, when Pat O’Connor, pictured on the 1958 Indianapolis 500 preview issue, was killed in a fifteen car pile-up on the last lap.
8.) The Curse Of The Bambino
9.) The Socceroos’ Witch Doctor Curse
According the autobiography of player Johnny Warren, during the 1970 World Cup qualifiers, Australia’s Socceroos hired a witch doctor to curse their opponents. Australia proceeded to beat Rhodesia, 3-1. However, when the players were unable to come up with the 1000 pound fee demanded by the witch doctor, he reversed the curse onto the Socceroos, who lost their next match to Israel, partly because three players fell ill during the match. In 2004, Australian comedian/filmmaker John Safran read Warren’s book and traveled to Africa to reverse the curse. He found that the original witch doctor was dead, but hired a second one who performed a rite in which he killed a chicken and splattered the blood over Saffran. The Socceroos not only qualified for the 2006 World Cup, they advanced to the second round, the best result they ever had.
10.) The Madden Curse
Since 1999, the cover of the Madden NFL video game has featured a top player, many of whom have suffered injuries or setbacks. For example, Michael Vick appeared on the cover of Madden NFL 2004 and suffered a leg injury that sidelined him for most of the 2003 season. When Donovan McNabb was chosen for the Madden 2006 cover, he declared “I don’t believe in the curse at all.” He suffered a hernia in the first game of the 2005 season, missing the last seven games of the season due to surgery. In 2006, Shaun Alexander, the previous season’s MVP, was featured on Madden NFL 2007 and sustained a foot injury that caused him to miss six starts. When EA Sports announced that LaDainian Tomlinson would be on the 2008 cover, superstitious fans created the website SaveLTfromMadden.com to urge him to reconsider. Tomlinson eventually declined the offer, but said it was over his payment, not concerns about the curse. His replacement, Vince Young, went on to have one of the worst years of his career and is no longer in football. Regardless of who graces the cover, the results are never good for that player the next year or even the next several years.
(via Listverse)
If your sports team or your favorite player is involved with any of these curses, I wish you luck. Reversing these curses is an arduous task. Many people and teams never come back from them.
The 10 Most Insane Sports Curses That"ll Make You Feel A Little Paranoid
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